The Irish, for example, certainly faced a history of persecution in this country, but as books like How the Irish Became White explain, the oppressed Irish and other European immigrants in the U.S. gained power in part by becoming oppressors to people of color. Why, by contrast, is there such attention today to Native American mascots? Consider that, according to the U.S. census, 28.3 percent of single-race Native Americans and Alaska Natives lived below the poverty line in 2014, the highest of any racial group, double the rate for Americans overall, which was 15 percent. From today's perspective, the "Fighting Irish," though once persecuted, are more on the side of "Lord Jeff" than that of the "Redskins."