# Polish People As Stupid. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 23, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892 "2011-11-23T18:05:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Khampelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/41 "2011-11-24T19:20:13Z")
This doesn’t explain anything, I’m sure, but I did once hear a ‘joke’ that went: Why do the Polish have hunched shoulders and sloped foreheads? Because when you ask them a question they shrug and say ‘I don’t know’, and when you tell them the answer they slap their foreheads. Are hunched shoulders and sloped foreheads common among Poles/Polacks/Polaks? ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/42 "2011-11-24T19:35:14Z")
Don’t know about that, but I heard the same joke about Italians and others. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/43 "2011-11-24T19:56:24Z")
They’re still telling Polish jokes? I haven’t heard a Polish joke in decades. Polish heritage people are so spread out across the US these days, and often are reasonably well off, educated and/or accomplished, that the meme/joke has utterly no resonance. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/44 "2011-11-24T20:11:10Z")
I think the “dim ethnic” joke fo a lot of immigrant communities is based on the fact that the recent wave did not speak English well, plus the likely immigrant workers were from the less educated class. The typically reaction to “I have to explain it to them slowly and clearly in small words” is “they must be stupid” rather than “Gee, maybe they don’t speak English”. I assume the polish joke thingprobably originated from the very large polish community in Chicago, one of the larger cities in the USA. Likely the others (LA, NYC) did not have one single minority that were as obvious a target. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/45 "2011-11-24T20:26:49Z")
> [@The\_Niply\_Elder](#): > > Speaking of which, how come in a tv police procedural show, in any group of policemen larger than 3 there’s a 99%probability of there being at least one Kowalski? It’s always Kowalski, do writers not know any other polish last names? Other posters have pointed out that there are other Polish names used for police officers, but then there is [Against the Wall](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1836237/), a Lifetime series about a family of police officers: Don Kowalski; Donnie Kowalski; Steve Kowalski; Richie Kowalski; and Abby Kowalski, which kind of makes up for it. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/46 "2011-11-24T22:34:33Z")
My WAG: Polack jokes in the U.S. began, as noted, in locations with large Polish immigrant populations. I suspect that they expanded out into the rest of the U.S. when comics and comedians from Chicago and Detroit, (and, perhaps, Buffalo and Pittsburgh, but Chicago and Detroit both contributed a lot of writers to Hollywood), began telling the same jokes in national venues. I remember being quite surprised to hear a Polish joke on _Laugh-In_ in the very late 1960s, because even then I recognized them as rather local. Once they had a national venue, however, they were simply a bit self-perpetuating. At that time, jokes against blacks had become far less acceptable on national venues and the shift to Poles possibly seemed “safe.” A number of jokes got a boost with either visual links, (a poster of a geezer dressed in WWI togs with a banner declaring that the Polish Air Force would protect us), or [urban legends that were accepted as accurate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mann_jess/List_of_common_misconceptions), _E.g._: > [@](#): > > **During the German Invasion of Poland in 1939, the Polish Cavalry mounted a brave but futile charge against German tanks using lances and sabres.** > This seems to have its origins in German propaganda efforts following the Charge at Krojanty in which a Polish cavalry brigade surprised German infantry in the open and charged with sabres until driven off by armoured cars. While Polish cavalry still carried the sabre for such opportunities, they were trained to fight as highly mobile, dismounted infantry and issued with light anti-tank weapons. During WWII, the references to Poles were not that they were stupid, but that they were crazy/brave–particularly in references to pilots who had fled Poland and joined the RAF, but also in reference to Polish-Americans on ships or in the infantry. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/47 "2011-11-24T22:38:17Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > My ex-wife was a Polish catholic from the Iron Range of Minnesota. All the jokes I heard in that house were about Finlanders. There was a large Finnish immigrant community in the Upper Pennsula of Michigan and many of them moved into Minnesota following the iron ore mining companies, making them a typical target community for (immigrant) ethnic jokes in both locations. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/48 "2011-12-06T18:01:24Z")
> [@Kizarvexius](#): > > I was raised on Army bases all over the U.S. and in Germany, and I’ve been hearing Polish jokes as far back as I can remember (granted, I’m only 40 now). The standard opening to a joke during my elementary school years was “There’s a German, an American, and a Polack.” It certainly never occurred to me during most of that time that anyone would/should be truly offended. In fact, one of my friends whose family was about a quarter Polish claimed that Poles, in their turn, made jokes about the Finns. > > It does occur to me, while pondering the subject, that some kids would interrupt the joke by saying “Hey, the Pope’s Polish” (subtext: don’t make fun of the pontiff), but this was usually waved away with a reminder that it was, in fact, only a joke. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > In the Midwest where I grew up, many jokes started with “There’s a nigger, a kike, and a polack…” These kind of jokes were told at school and in church, and it never occurred to people that anyone would be offended (or at least, not anyone worthy of notice). Of course, there were no blacks, Jews, or Polish people around to bear offense. > > Stranger Ouch. Point taken. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/49 "2011-12-06T20:38:04Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The story I heard was that the “Polish jokes” originated with the Polish immigrant community itself-in Detroit and Flint Michigan. > Supposedly, the (Polish) autoworkers would adress witty little insults to eachother, while toiling on the auto assembly lines. > Poland itself has a great intellectual tradition-some of the oldest universities are in Poland..of course, most of the Polish intelligensia did not immigrate-they stayed in Poland. Like many other immigrant communities, Poles used self-denigrating humor, often as a way to avoid confrontation while integrating into a new society. Poles, perhaps lacking distinquishing physical features from other northern Europeans receieved the default stereotype, stupidity. In many cultures there is some group of people categorized with a lack of intelligence. For Poles in America, this may have been influenced by attitudes carried over from Europe. I’ve encounter Russians who make jokes about Poles. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/50 "2011-12-06T21:42:49Z")
I’ve long felt that the jokes about Polish immigrants being stupid resulted in large part from their being unable to speak English, or any of the Germanic or Romance languages. Americans pretty much felt that anyone who couldn’t umnderstand you – even if you used all your foreign language training on them – must not be very bright. At least with French or German or Italian people you’d have some familiarity with the language, or some similar-sounding words or phrases you knew. But Polish didn’t share those, and had lunatic spelling, to boot. It didn’t help that a lot of the Polish immigrants were basically peasants, and so didn’t have crafts and skills and exposure to things beyomnd their home villages. There’s a great scene in James Michener’s novel _Poland_ where he describes a visiting Polish nobleman being brought to a polish festival in Chicago, and wondering why his American hosts brought him to these uncultured, unlettered peasants. All four of my grandparents came to the US from what had been, at omne time, Poland. My grandmothers hadn’t traveled much beforehand, didn’t speak a word of English at first (and barely knew any when they died), abnd tended to only associate with other Polish emigres. One of my grandmothers got a job cleaning floors at the Waldorf-Astoria (the one where the Empire State Building now stands), and lost it when she plunged her hands into a bucket of ammonia. She had no idea what it was, having never encountered it. Her employer undoubtedely thought “stupid Polish Girl”. She scalded the skin from her hands and coukln’t wash floors until they healed – and that was the sum total of her employable skills. A tregedy for her. She learned how to sew and moved out into a suburb where a cliothing factory was. And where she met my grandfather. And so, ultimately, I came to be. ---
**Author:** ![MacCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maccat/32/216_2.png) [@MacCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacCat)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/51 "2011-12-07T16:19:30Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > She learned how to sew and moved out into a suburb where a cliothing factory was. And where she met my grandfather. And so, ultimately, I came to be. That sobered my chuckling about an upthread funny typo and a misspelling. Excellent post… ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/52 "2011-12-07T16:48:18Z")
I espouse the theory that the polish stereotype derives ultimately from complex analysis humour, with its plethora of “simple pole” jokes. ---
**Author:** ![davekhps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@davekhps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davekhps)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/53 "2011-12-07T17:21:03Z")
Speaking as a third-generation Chicagoan of Polish descent, the best “dumb Pollack” jokes were _always_ the ones told by my extended family and Polish neighbors. 🙂 While I’m certain there were, and are, some Polish-Americans who have been offended by Polish jokes, I never met any. Which lends credence to the “self-deprecation” angle to the humor, at least in later generations. Things were probably different when they were newly immigrated, but second-, third- and beyond generation Polish-Americans never struck me as getting all worked up over dumb Pollack jokes. I tend to agree with CalMeachem’s post RE: the average English-speaking ability of just-off-the-boat Polish immigrants. My childhood was spent in a neighborhood full of recent Polish emigres from the 1970s and 1980s, and lemme tell ya, you’ve never heard someone _sound_ dumber than a Polish immigrant trying to speak English for the first time. Of course, that doesn’t mean they _are_ dumb-- it’s just something about the language and the accent that sounds surprisingly incompatible with intelligence. Unfair and bigoted to be sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if those first generations of Poles to America suffered far worse in their time because of it. Anyway, I love Polish jokes, never once been offended by any. They remind me of all my Uncles swearing in Polish and ridiculing their dumb neighbors. It’s a shame that the march of time (and our P.C. culture) has relegated such a rich vein of cultural humor to the trash-heap. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/54 "2011-12-07T17:28:14Z")
If you make jokes about an oppressed minority, you are a bigot an mean spirited. If you have a minority that is not really suffering oppression, yet has identifiable characteristics, it makes for good natured humor. There are probably Lutherans offended by Garrison Keillor, but not the ones I know…if anything they ham it up with his stereotypes. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/55 "2011-12-07T19:37:43Z")
A few years ago I worked with a guy who’d emigrated from Poland to the US about three years prior. He’d never heard of phenomenon before he moved here, and seemed pretty amused by it. I admitted that I’d grown up (in suburban Chicago) hearing Polack jokes all the time, but had no idea why they were singled out. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/56 "2011-12-07T20:26:04Z")
I think the “dim Polack” vein of ethnic humour is on its way into history. What is interesting to me, as an aside, is to come across examples of ethnic humor and stereotyping which have become so obsolete they are all but forgotten. A good example of this is the “dumb Swede”. Around the turn of the last century, it was widely held that Swedish people were inherently ignorant and gullable. This has pretty well vanished to the point that jokes and stories based on the “dumb Swede” make no sense. An example of this is the poem by Robert Service of that name, in which a “dumb Swede” turns the tables on his tormentors. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892/57 "2011-12-07T21:40:29Z")
> [@Laggard](#): > > Grew up in Western Wisconsin which is mostly Norwegian, Polish and German descent. Heard a whole lot of Polish jokes growing up. When I moved from suburban Chicago to Green Bay as a kid, I stopped hearing Polish jokes, and started hearing Belgian jokes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-people-as-stupid/603892.md?page=2)