Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences - This topic has 7 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 23 years, 7 months ago by
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I grew up next door to a family of Polish-Irish descent, and I learned all of my jokes from them, of which a whopping number were Polish. I eventually came to realize that in their case, these jokes were merely a safe way of laughing at some of humanity’s stupider habits. I have never in my life (and there are a lot of Polish folks in Chicago) met anyone who told a Polish joke with the intention of insulting Polish people, which is interesting, as I could not say the same of jokes aimed at blacks or other minorities (gays, etc.).
I have seen plenty of times people substitute either their own identity into these types of jokes (many of which are just old, silly, stale jokes), or a different one. So I’m not too sure how the poor Polish people got stuck being the ‘default’ group, but I’ve never seen them as any sort of serious stereotype of Polish people.
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Name : Carter32396, Gender : M, Age : 29, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Social class : Lower middle class,I guess it’s before my time, but recently I read some jokes and found that there are a lot of jokes about Polish people being stupid. How did this start? Why did these people get labeled this way? Was it a specific event, the people in general, or something else?
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Name : Chris, Gender : F, City : Selma, State : AL, Country : United States, Occupation : student,A good place to start would be to look at where Poland is on the map. It lies on a huge plain between what have traditionally been two of the biggest aggressor states in Europe, Russia and Germany. What does that mean? It means that because of Poland’s geopolitical disadvantage, it has been subject to countless invasions by the two, as well as from Austria-Hungary. So much so that Poland dissapeared from the map as a result of the final partition in the 1800s, and didn’t appear again until after 1918. Combine with this a long line of incompetent kings and a feudal system that lasted well into the 19th century. For example, Polish forces attacked German panzer divisions on ‘horseback’ in World War I. They are not stupid, just unfortunate. After all, Poland occupied Moscow in the 1500s, Polish forces ousted the Ottoman Turks from Europe, Sikorsky invented the helicopter, Polish engineers inveted the enigma machine that cracked German codes (need more?). Poland was also significant in bringing down the USSR with the Solidarnosk movement. So I think that the jokes are just something that was attached to them in America, as happened to many immigrants. If you want to read more about the history of Poland, a good book is Central Europe by Lonnie Johnson.
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Name : Christian-D, Gender : M, City : Coventry, State : NA, Country : United Kingdom,I suppose Poles got the reputation of being ignorant because of language problems. A person who can’t speak the same language as other people often behaves involuntarily stupidly. Poles were one the immigrant groups which started to arrive in USA relatively late and other people had already learned the language. Besides It is probably harder for Poles than many other nationalities to learn English as the language is pretty different from English when it comes to vocabulary and grammar. My theory is supported by the fact that Polish jokes are pretty much an American phenomena and at least I haven’t noticed that Poles would be dumber than any other nationalities.
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Name : Janne Kainu, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Lutheran, Age : 31, City : Helsinki, State : NA, Country : Finland, Occupation : economist, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I was told in a history class I took in college that the stereotype regarding ‘stupid’ Poles started in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s when many people from Europe were coming to the U.S. Many of these people, if they weren’t from English-speaking countries, did not speak English when they arrived here. Because of that, they were considered stupid because they did not do well in school. I don’t remember why this stereotype didn’t stick to other non English-speaking nationalities – I think it had something to do with the specific time period when lots of Poles were getting here, or something like that. Interesting side note: I read years ago in Psychology Today about an intelligence study that was performed to determine how Poles rated compared to non-Polish Caucasians; it turns out that Poles, as a group, are actually slightly more intelligent than the average Caucasian.
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Name : Laura W., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Lesbian, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Jewish, Age : 40, City : Los Angeles, State : CA, Country : United States, Occupation : Systems Analyst, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,Here in northeastern Pennsylvania, there are a lot of Poles, and I too am Polish, so naturally I’ve grown up hearing Polish jokes. The reason I’ve heard them has to do with Polish being a very different language from English. That makes it hard for us who speak English to learn Polish, but it also works the other way – Poles have an extremely difficult time learning English (as do other Slavic-speakers, which is why German is more popular in East Europe). So, these immigrants from Eastern Europe (who were all lumped together as ‘Poles’ because Poland contributed the highest amount immigrants to the United States) could not speak English and were here in America. Here in Pennsylvania, typically, the two main jobs a ‘Pole’ would have were a ditch-digger or doing dirty work in the coal mines (there were mules in the mines) – all jobs others wouldn’t take. They would go to get work and be given one of those jobs because their employer needed them filled, and there was no arguing about doing this sort of work because neither could speak the other’s language. The other miners, townsfolk, etc. started saying Poles were stupid for accepting those jobs. So I suppose this difficult language of ours was the root of all the problems, as it is for just about any other immigrant.
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Name : Jefferson, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, City : Wilkes-Barre, State : PA, Country : United States, Occupation : student,I remember when there were a lot of Polish jokes going around in the ’60’s. The reason people told those jokes is the same reason folks are telling ethnic jokes today; they don’t have the whole story. Polish people were considered ‘stupid’ because many of them worked in factories due to their lack of English skills, the men wore socks with sandals and the women wore clothes that didn’t match (polka dots with stripes). They also didn’t use as much deodorant as Americans. At the time (40 years ago) the Poles were toward the bottom of the European immigration totem ‘pole’, the Germans and Irish having assimilated years earlier. It may interest you to note that in Poland Americans are often considered boorish loudmouths who are uninformed about world events. The Poles, however, do not resort to telling ‘American’ jokes. By the way, despite my ethnic sounding name I’m an American of Polish (and other Euro) descent. I’ve been to Poland 5 times, and I lived there for a year. It’s a nice country and some day Americans may be gunning to emigrate over there.
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Name : Mazurka Wojciechowska, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Catholic, Age : 44, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : Musician, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I’m surprised this kind of argumentation as mentioned by Christian D. is necessary. Racist jokes tell more about their narrator and his social environment than they do tell about their subject. On the other hand in Poland the national identity is still work in progress. I think, this is due to the awfull history the country has experienced. Thus Polish people are even more sensitive to rasism. That’s why racists feel attracted to them, I suppose. I’m from Poland and I live in Germany since many years.
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Name : Slawek, Gender : M, Age : 28, City : Kaiserslautern, State : NA, Country : Germany,
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