No I do not. You don’t know anything about me. You are searching for something that’s not there to be “shocked” about. You’re wrong, move along.
I almost regret launching this thread. I expected it would roil Poland or rile it.
Now I’m astounded because the vast majority considers that racist or racial jokes are interchangeable.
I think that these jokes start out as razor sharp and pointed critiques about a given race or ethnicity.
They are aimed at Poles in the case of P jokes.
Interchangeability is a way to slither away from the real target group and P jokes are less funny when they get hurled at a different group of people. The jokes are recognizable. Or why would POLONIA replete with a Polish American Congress have to fight the trend? It’s a joke in itself when a Polish person recognizes himself in a P joke. The fact the entire ethnic group will get angry makes everything more funny still.
The jokes made me feel sick when I was a boy and growing up in Montreal.
I could recognize some traits of the witticisms as being all too real.
The Polish community was a little backward and downtrodden in that epoch.
Of course, it would have been difficult for me to look down on the Polish and feel superior.
There wasn’t an inferiority complex at play.
There only was a stinging expression of hate.
And that’s too bad.
No, you’re demonstrably wrong. Jokes are interchangeable and infinitely malleable. The actual ethnic target of the joke is meaningless, it’s always the “other”.
Worst.
Haiku.
EVER.
It’s madness.
mmm
I was born in Chicago in 1975 to two Polish-born parents. I would always ask my friends “who is the Polack who fucked it up for the rest of us?”
Sorry you had a bad experience growing up. When I was growing up, the “dumb Polack” stereotype never made any sense to me. We’re the people who brought the world Copernicus, Marie Curie Sklodowska, Frederich Chopin, etc. The Polish kids in my neighborhood were always the overachievers academically. I mean, I understand that the basis of the stereotype is probably the language barrier and the blue-collar work Polish people would do, especially in the stockyards, but my experience growing up is that Polish folk were very clever and resourceful. Obviously, I’m biased, but the kids of “off-the-boat” Poles in my neighborhood growing up were usually the most hardworking and competitive.
I also knew Polack jokes without knowing they had anything to do with Poland. The only term I ever heard for Polish people was “Pole.” I didn’t even actually think it meant “dumb person.” I thought it meant “dumb person in a joke.”
It wasn’t until I heard the word used by Archie Bunker in All in the Family reruns on Nick at Nite that I learned what it meant. (I can’t remember if I heard him say it and finally looked it up, or if they actually made it clear on the show.)
To me, even if you don’t think “dumb jokes” are out of fashion, you don’t really tell Polack jokes anymore. People don’t know what the word means. Blonde jokes still show up sometimes. And you can always throw in a particularly dumb celebrity, or have it be making fun of a rival. Sure, some are new jokes based on the actual person or group, but most are just the same rehashed jokes that even predate Polack jokes.
I think it’s that Polack jokes just don’t make sense today. Most younger people have never heard the word,. Older people largely don’t know what it means. And most that do find it perplexing to think that Poles are dumb.
I don’t hear Polack jokes anymore–not because of PC but because (like you said) they are rather archaic. (I used to have a book of elephant jokes–you don’t hear those anymore, either.)
Hm. How many Polacks does it take to screw in an elephant…
Two?
Anyone else remember being slightly ashamed to be Polish? I grew up in the mid 60s, when the Polack jokes were all the rage. I was old enough to know that the jokes indicated Polish folks were stupid, but young enough to not realize that it really was not true. Thus the embarrassment.
mmm
I grew up later than you (as mentioned above, born in '75), and Polish jokes were still alive and well, but I don’t remember being ashamed at all, personally, especially as I grew up in a reasonably Polish community and a lot of us would be the ones who would tell the jokes to each other. Plus we had jokes for the Mexicans, the Irish, the Italians, so I didn’t necessarily feel like the Poles were being specifically targeted.
Of course, I’m sure I would feel different if I were growing up a minority Pole and all I heard was Polish jokes from non-Poles left and right and being teased for being Polish and (by extension) stupid. It’s just that in my neighborhood (probably around half ethnically Polish at the time, or maybe a third to a half), I don’t think anybody honestly thought of the Poles as idiots. This was the era of Pope John Paul II, the Solidarity movement, the local public high school was named after Madam Curie Sklodowska, so I was more in-group, I guess.
Did you hear about the (insert member of group of your choice here) who went ice- fishing? He caught a 35 pounder, but by the time he got it home, it melted.
Pilot?
My most recent telling was:
There were two ethnic types. In Wisconsin, it’s two Polacks. In South Milwaukee, it’s two Minnesotans. In Minnesota, it’s two Canadians. In Canada, it’s two French Canadians. Anyway, these two go ice fishing…
…there are no fish under the ice.
Must have been a Setesh Guard.
I have always wondered how Belgians feel about the Foreign Legion, with its infamous marching song. (Of course, according to Caesar, the Belgians are the baddest of all European asses, so they have that to rub into everyone’s face when necessary.)
And the rink manager tells them “Get off the ice, there’s a hockey game about to start!”
Polish jokes. Meh. Polished puns. Yeah. IMHO racial jokes don’t serve a good purpose whichever way you look at them. Dumb jokes don’t at all.
If the Polish community called POLONIA was into power in less of a folkloric way, maybe we could hear Polonia hip hop music studded with bitch and gangsta words not precluding the Polack word.
Listen to Pissed Saweetie for comparison.'s sake.
But the Polish community isn’t notorious for its sexy crime cosmos. It’s not lyrical nor macho, oops gangsta, with women and LGBTQ people tagging along although there’s Stan Borys.who absolutely abhors the umpah pah of rap plus hip hop.
Polonia is not a ripe ground for a Polish Nicki Minaj to grow in.
Taki taki rumba.
Maybe someone should try to change a Mazowsze or a Góral tune???
Anyway.
The epoch when Polack jokes were conveying the dumbness of both the teller and the subject is definitely over.
Racists are just that. Which is dumb. And overreaching.
They should be spurned and not allowed to think that they will be crucified for telling bad jokes.
A crucifixion is a luxury in consideration of common belief.
I don’t like the cross.
Dumb racists shouldn’t be allowed to complain and mobilize your attention.
I’m listening to Cardi B’s Money. Polonia isn’t either integrated into USA society enough or worldly enough.
Polonia wants to replace the American Congress with its own Polish American Congress.
Not climb the ladder of success.
Get high. On the English language.
At best it is crazy by association.
Sad. Not funny.