Oh hell, yeah! Not so much these days, but church parishes were so ethnically divided that a “mixed marriage” was marrying someone from another parish because yours was Norwegian and hers was Swedish (the only ethnic discrimination I was raised with, though I could never tell the difference without seeing the last name). Here, we have since consolidated.
ETA: Mom didn’t like Italians, though her only experience with them came from the movies.
Yeah, and it was as evident if not even more so in the city (I’d say moreso.) I grew up in the 80s, and people then still identified very much by where their family was from. It’s a more than common question when hearing an unfamiliar last name to ask “Oh, what kind of name is that?” or “Where you from?” (referring to where is your family from, not what neighborhood do you live in.) You knew who the Italians were, the Irish, the Croats, the Poles, the Lithuanians, Germans, your general Anglo-Saxon mutts, etc., and parishes were, like dropzone mentions, were ethnically concentrated along those lines.
Now, I don’t feel it’s quite as nationality-of-origin focused anymore but it’s an interesting discussion that came up on a Facebook feed of mine a few weeks ago when an Asian friend of mine was complaining how offensive it was to be asked “where you from?” implying you’re a foreigner and how white people never get asked that question. I understand his point of view and I’ve certainly not had his experiences as a non-white person, but I did get asked that question all the time when I was growing up here in Chicago. My last nme, ending in “-ski” pretty much gives it away, though.
I am. Puddlegum did not understand what he was watching.
This was a skit written and performed by black people (with help from a white person), for a mixed-race audience. You can bet your house they’re not making fun of their own culture in this skit. (I mean, teasing affectionately, but not making fun.)
Yes, just to emphasize and amplify this point, BigT, you absolutely read Monstro wrong.
You know, I thought about typing that thought a lot. I have to assume that Kenan Thompson, Leslie Jones and Shaseer Zamata would not look at this humor as punching down in the Black community.
We see characters like Cecely Strong’s undecided voter bit on Weekend Update is a spoof on White Trash, clueless but she gets her own shots in - mocking Hillary’s attempts at faux fun, and Trump’s lack of connection with diverse folks.
As with all humor, it only gets funnier the more you analyze it.
I was waiting for Puddlegum to come back and respond. I wasn’t sure how much of that post was about the NPR review and how much was about the skit.
Of course they are making fun of their own culture. The only game show that only uses cash, hoarding hot sauce packets, playing the lottery instead of using the 401K, and the prizes being a good chair and car tape? That is all black culture being made fun of.
Black people love to make fun of their own culture. Watch the Kings of Comedy, In Living Color, Chappelle Show, etc. Black culture is only sacrosanct to PC white comedians.
One of the things that makes black comedy so great is the willingness to take on anything and anybody. The idea that comedians should not “punch down” is seen as the nonsense it is.
One of the reasons I thought the skit was so great was its meanness and lack of PC. It was a dose of black comedy in a show that has historically lacked it.
Gee. Thanks!
Sent from my adequate mobile device using Tapatalk.
Now that’s funny!
Haha, sorry, I was only poking fun. As a poster I appreciate you greatly. I just remember you panning one of my favorite comedy shows.
But no, I did not find this skit hysterically funny. It made me chuckle at times, but SNL in general usually misses the mark for me. (Ever since the late 80s, at least.)
They are a poking a bit at the lack of refinement and attitude of the lower class. It’s pretty funny because it’s good natured and accurate. To the people asking if the answers are clear to those raised in that culture, not really. But it’s not the precise answer that matters it’s how the question is answered that matters. That’s why the Black History professor, the black Canadian, and the girl who dated a black guy didn’t do very well. The right answer comes from living not from observation from outside. And really that’s what makes the sketch with Doug brilliant.
It’s funny you mention Lithuanians. My dad’s dad is from Lithuania and, when I was trying to research the family history, I went to a Lithuanian museum in Chicago to see if they could help me. They couldn’t because the last name has apparently been changed but he apparently didn’t alter his first name as she said that was a Lithuanian name.
Yes, that’s it.
Here’s another Canadian who didn’t find it funny. Lived in the US for years, have an American wife, I understand American culture. Just didn’t find it funny.
It was an extended version of the old stand-up trope “white people be like this, but black people be like this.”
This is what a white person watches and says to themselves “they really love us, they really do! What a relief!”
Also, what the hell accent was Tom Hanks doing? Sounded like he hailed from the great state of Mouthful of Graveltucky.
He was doing the just-a-pinch-between-your-cheek-and-gum accent, which seemed pretty appropriate.
Once upon a time there was this Litvak girl… Sorry, but I’ve always had a place in my heart for Baltic, especially Jewish-Baltic women, though this isn’t the forum for that.
Except it was the opposite. The white person and the black people in this skit found they had a lot in common. That was the joke. The setup was “Black people are like this, white people are … surprisingly similar?”.
And you can’t have spent too much time in America if you didn’t hear that accent. It’s called the “rural, poor and a lifetime of chewing tobacco” accent. It’s everywhere, and most of us are related to several people with that accent. I have a mush-mouthed, older uncle down south and I have literally never understood a single word he ever said. My cousins understand him though, and you can tell the difference between angry and inquisitive, but if he asks me something directly I just nod my head and play along.
I know which Lithuanian Museum you’re talking about, unless there happens to be another one here in Chicago. It’s Balzeka’s Museum of Lithuanian Culture on 65th and Pulaski, about two and a half miles down the road from where I live. Definitely not unusual to change the last name, regardless of background. I dated a girl whose family name was something like Shanauskas, but got changed to the Anglo sounding “Shain” when they came over. Or how the Polish “Przybytkowski” got changed to “Price.” Or Mike Krzyzewski became “Coach K.” 
OK, maybe not so much the last one. You can often make an educated guess of what the original name may have been. The big Lithuanian neighborhood when I was growing up was Marquette Park, but “Lithuanian Downtown” was a bit north of that historically, I guess, in Bridgeport, and there were a good smattering in the surrounding neighborhoods of McKinley Park, Brighton Park, Back of the Yards. You still have a couple of Lithuanian restaurants in the general Southwest Side area. There’s Grande Dukes on 63rd and Harlem (fantastic Lithuanian food. This is the place to go if you love potatoes, bacon, and sour cream–this is also the place my wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversaries) and Mabenka, which is a Polish-Lithuanian place on 79th and Cicero. Information here for anybody reading the thread in Chicago who may be interested (I’m looking at you, dropzone).
OK, enough topic drift. The SNL skit was hilarious and poignant, not taking the lazy/obvious humor way out, and the whole show was the best I’ve seen since the early 90s.
Mush Mouth is unintelligible, just like Down Home. I have tried, as a co-worker, to translate between Chicago Black and Down Home (Did their parents not send them Down Home every summer? Times have changed since I worked the Jackson Local), but sometimes I just give up.
Jodie Foster did a great, though intelligible, Mush Mouth in Silence of the Lambs, when pressed, though I assume my customers would prefer to be called by Whitey McWhiteface than the cracker down at the filling station.
FTR, I moved a lot as a kid and gave up decades ago on figuring out my ethnicity.