# Afrocentrism and Making Shit Up **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 12, 2016, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783 "2016-03-12T19:41:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/21 "2016-03-13T12:41:09Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > I predict this will not go well. Well, perhaps we can deflect it with a light discussion of the word “niggardly”. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/22 "2016-03-13T13:11:16Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > she brags about having nothing white in her house except the toilet. I’d take that claim with a grain of salt. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/23 "2016-03-13T13:28:47Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Disliking something current because of what it might have meant two centuries ago is fundamentally stupid… History is pretty much the reason words become racist. This woman is wrong, and there’s nothing wrong with explaining this to her. But that doesn’t mean we need non-minorities dictating what classes of things minorities should be offended by. I still remember my great uncle trying to convince me that “nigger” just meant “horrible person.” ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/24 "2016-03-13T16:03:34Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > I believe that the topic referenced was not Jim Crow laws. No, it was “separate but really, truly not equal laws.” I lived through the butt end of real Jim Crow and I know the difference. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/25 "2016-03-13T18:05:11Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > You people are ignoring how she, while recounting her bogus history, came right out and expressed her racist hate of me, personally, for the actions of my distant relatives! eek: Poor you. I’m English, the Irish do it to me all the time. Now you know how it feels. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/26 "2016-03-13T18:06:28Z")
Your friend should hate the Irish Catholics because of the Civil War Draft Riots, among other anti-black pogroms fomented by Irish immigrants. No need to make anything up. > **[The New York City Draft Riots of 1863](https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/317749.html)** > > An excerpt from In the Shadow of Slavery by Leslie M. Harris. Also available on web site: online catalogs, secure online ordering, excerpts from new books. Sign up for email notification of new releases in your field. [![](https://thomasnastcartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/hanging-a-negro-in-clarkson-street.jpg) ](https://thomasnastcartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/hanging-a-negro-in-clarkson-street.jpg) On the other hand, the sons and daughters of Erin didn’t invent American style white supremacy, they just took advantage of it to lift themselves off the bottom. Considering how widely despised and abused they were, they needed the boost. [![](https://thomasnastcartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/scientific_racism_irish-1899.jpg) ](https://thomasnastcartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/scientific_racism_irish-1899.jpg) [![](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e3/2c/3e/e32c3e757402cc5869fa01319c92ce49.jpg) ](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e3/2c/3e/e32c3e757402cc5869fa01319c92ce49.jpg) [https://books.google.com/books?id=lI5TDscIjLcC&pg=PA70&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&ots=4JYoaEYZXm&sig=ACfU3U0kY8z4lCaOWnPylfQJrW91BRjzAw&w=1025](https://books.google.com/books?id=lI5TDscIjLcC&pg=PA70&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&ots=4JYoaEYZXm&sig=ACfU3U0kY8z4lCaOWnPylfQJrW91BRjzAw&w=1025) > [@](#): > > America would be a grand land if only every Irishman would kill a Negro, and then be hanged for it. I find this sentiment generally approved. > > – William Freeman (1881) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/27 "2016-03-13T18:37:15Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > We were talking about St Patrick’s Day at work and a couple of us mentioned that we don’t celebrate it. I gave my usual snobbish, lofty, Lace-Curtain Irish explanation that it is because it celebrates the worst Pig-Shit Irish stereotypes, but I was surprised by the reason given by a black woman, who said that she used to celebrate it until she heard the origin of the term, “paddy wagon.” > > … > > But what struck me is how casually she explained to a person of Irish ancestry why she hates all the Irish, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to paint us all with this pseudo-historical calumny. Did she actually say she hates Irish _people_? If you have a problem with what historical Irish people did, it makes sense to disdain a celebration of Irish identity, Irish ancestry, and Irish history. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/28 "2016-03-13T20:54:02Z")
> [@astro](#): > > It would be simple enough if one of the dopers with date phrase searching access of old news media could see how early the phrase is used. If nothing exists before the early 1900’s then slave gathering use seems unlikely. Earliest cite in my OED is 1930. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/29 "2016-03-14T08:32:24Z")
According to the [Online Etymylogical Dictionary](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Paddy&allowed_in_frame=0) the term “paddy wagon” dates from 1930, not from the days of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/30 "2016-03-14T08:58:17Z")
> [@](#): > > The most common understanding of the term “Paddy Wagon” in the United Kingdom I’ve always thought the term was American in origin, and isn’t used much if at all in the UK. Once upon a time there was the term “Black Maria” (because they were painted black, before we go down any other irrelevant byways), but now I think people mostly just say “police van”. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/31 "2016-03-29T01:25:00Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > I lived through the butt end of real Jim Crow and I know the difference. Same here, and believe me, it WAS fucking ancient! ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/32 "2016-03-29T13:56:20Z")
Hmmm, I always thought that St. Patrick’s Day was perpetuated by the bar industry to sell more alcohol, in much the same way as Cinco d’ Mayo. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783/33 "2016-03-29T14:01:22Z")
Cinco de Mayo… I realize you’re referring to the American version, but it’s still a Spanish expression. No apostrophes in Spanish. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afrocentrism-and-making-shit-up/748783.md?page=1)