What if you gave such a blunt comment from a perfect stranger? Well, it would be difficult to tell if you were joking or being insulting. But with a friend, he would know it was done in affection.
But you are right about the hypersensitivity about ethnic issues. I'm pretty WASPy and have heard the insults and overheard them, and I just put it off as saying more about the speaker than me. Personally, I think people need to grom thicker skins because there will always be louts no matter how much you try to legislate away loutishness.
You mentioned Pollocks, Jews, and Arabs, but what about the darkies and Irishmen.
You can't really talk blunt unless you mention the Micks.
I'd stop right there but every person with a hambone and a trombone is about to grease their griddle in outrage, so I'll do the typical two-step by way of explanation so the morally offended can catch their breath.
My wife is black, none of that African American crap, she's a black American and ain't never been to Africa. I hope she never goes cause the place is a hell-hole and one of my friends was macheted to death in Rwanda. Well, it ain't right to call her black either cause she's really more of a dark cocoa brown. Me, I'm a tan whitey. Though my wife says I favor a Red Injun when I been out in the sun. That or an enflamed rectum.
When we first got married it was even illegal according to the Constitution of my State to miscegenate like that. But nobody enforced that law or even thought much about it, and we got our license and did everything illegally by the book and pretty soon we were mixing genes, blessed by the church and everything. (The guy who married us, Bush, was a black pastor.) Not long after that my wife started spitting our children, one of whom looks Italian or possibly Greek, so we gave her the Italian form of a Greek name, and the other looks like a Spaniard. Don't blame me folks, I just work here. I could have done worse I guess.
My great grandpappy was an Irishmen not far removed from Limerick. He was lick and polish Mick, and tough as pig-iron and helped found and build by hand the church I now attend, about a century or so ago. My kindergarten class was the first public school class officially integrated in my state and one of my bets friends, one of the first I ever made was a darkie. He didn't care what he was, and I didn't neither. He was a good kid and we were school safety patrols on the same beat. Occasionally I'd beta the living crap outta him and his black buddies at basketball and baseball, but on the other hand he taught me to Kung-Fu dancin, and to watch Batman with Adam West at his house, for which I am eternally grateful. I didn't care that he was black as the Ace of Spades, his family was nice to me, he was fun, and he thought is was kinda neat and amusing to have a whitey white-boy to hang around in the middle of Spotsville.
But today people are prissy and who and what they are, and who and what everybody else is. You can't call a Jew a Jew, a Spic a Spic, a WOP a WOP, a Pole a Pole, an Injun and Injun, a Jap a Jap, a Spade a Spade, a Frog a Frog, or even a German a Kraut or a dirty Hun. Me, you can call me practically anything just don't call me Greek. (Actually I got nothing against the Greeks and I gotta a good friend who is Greek, I just got no interest in being one. I've seen how they live.)
To me this all stems from the fact that manhood and a good sense of humor are in many ways dead and replaced with stale and sterile mannerisms which aren't really real manners, they are more like polite pretensions of artificial fashions we play at with language to avoid being what we are and saying what we notice about what we see. If I save a black man's life, and I have, I do it because he's a man and deserved my best try at saving his life. So he's a darkie, that's part of his appearance, his background, hell, maybe even his soul in some way. I really don't know. That's okay by me. Point is I'd have done it for anyone. And I'd expect the favor of a reply. I can plainly see he's black and so that's what I call him. I have eyes.
If a Jew is my boss, and I've had Jew bosses, I work for him. I owe him my loyalty and respect, long as he's on the up and up. (You know how Jews are.) Point is I know he's a Jew, why should either one of us throw bones and dice about his nature? He's who he is and if that's good enough for him then it's good enough for me. I'm not gonna invent a pseudonym for Jew. Jew works for me, it sticks. So let it hang as far as I'm concerned.
If my great grandpappy was a Mick then I loved him despite the fact that he was Irish, never bathed, and stuck me with some of his damned Irish genes. (I'm not sure he was really Irish anyway cause I never saw him drunk.)
People just can't be what they really are anymore cause they're too afraid of what the other guy thinks about what they think about what they are and how to say that. And that's just pretty sad in America, cause the US was built by frontiersmen and people who for the most part weren't afraid of anything. And now America is afraid of words.
Of all the things on God's green earth for an American to be a'feared of - words.
Are we Europeans now? For God's sake, it makes me laugh.
Well, maybe if everybody can just get past all that crap and say they're American it isn't all for naught. Unfortunately I think many would like an euphemism for that too.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't care what color your skin color is, unless I'm metering the light. Then it matters. But otherwise I care more if you're a geek or not.
I was coloring a pic for somebody at one point and he said that one character had "African American skin, like she's from Nigeria." I pointed out the absurdity of his description and told his to stick to coffee metaphors if it bothered him.
One thing that California has going for it is that you never know what kind of fun combinations you're going to run across. I've known Filipino-blacks, Japanese-Italians, Greek-Indians... it's great. Though it does make you unprepared for life in other states sometimes. "How will I find you?" "Just ask for the Asian girl." "... But how will they know which one?" "Oh, I forgot, you're from California..." (paraphrased from an actual conversation.)
1.29.2007 9:40pm
Commenting on Dean's World is a privilege, not a right. Dean is your host, you are his guest, and you should behave in that fashion. Dean is not your babysitter, nor is he your punching bag. Please remember this. In general, you are free to disagree with anyone on any subject you wish, but abusive behavior will not be tolerated.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.
Indeed!
But you are right about the hypersensitivity about ethnic issues. I'm pretty WASPy and have heard the insults and overheard them, and I just put it off as saying more about the speaker than me. Personally, I think people need to grom thicker skins because there will always be louts no matter how much you try to legislate away loutishness.
Seen the GEICO caveman commercials?
Heh.
You mentioned Pollocks, Jews, and Arabs, but what about the darkies and Irishmen.
You can't really talk blunt unless you mention the Micks.
I'd stop right there but every person with a hambone and a trombone is about to grease their griddle in outrage, so I'll do the typical two-step by way of explanation so the morally offended can catch their breath.
My wife is black, none of that African American crap, she's a black American and ain't never been to Africa. I hope she never goes cause the place is a hell-hole and one of my friends was macheted to death in Rwanda. Well, it ain't right to call her black either cause she's really more of a dark cocoa brown. Me, I'm a tan whitey. Though my wife says I favor a Red Injun when I been out in the sun. That or an enflamed rectum.
When we first got married it was even illegal according to the Constitution of my State to miscegenate like that. But nobody enforced that law or even thought much about it, and we got our license and did everything illegally by the book and pretty soon we were mixing genes, blessed by the church and everything. (The guy who married us, Bush, was a black pastor.) Not long after that my wife started spitting our children, one of whom looks Italian or possibly Greek, so we gave her the Italian form of a Greek name, and the other looks like a Spaniard. Don't blame me folks, I just work here. I could have done worse I guess.
My great grandpappy was an Irishmen not far removed from Limerick. He was lick and polish Mick, and tough as pig-iron and helped found and build by hand the church I now attend, about a century or so ago. My kindergarten class was the first public school class officially integrated in my state and one of my bets friends, one of the first I ever made was a darkie. He didn't care what he was, and I didn't neither. He was a good kid and we were school safety patrols on the same beat. Occasionally I'd beta the living crap outta him and his black buddies at basketball and baseball, but on the other hand he taught me to Kung-Fu dancin, and to watch Batman with Adam West at his house, for which I am eternally grateful. I didn't care that he was black as the Ace of Spades, his family was nice to me, he was fun, and he thought is was kinda neat and amusing to have a whitey white-boy to hang around in the middle of Spotsville.
But today people are prissy and who and what they are, and who and what everybody else is. You can't call a Jew a Jew, a Spic a Spic, a WOP a WOP, a Pole a Pole, an Injun and Injun, a Jap a Jap, a Spade a Spade, a Frog a Frog, or even a German a Kraut or a dirty Hun. Me, you can call me practically anything just don't call me Greek. (Actually I got nothing against the Greeks and I gotta a good friend who is Greek, I just got no interest in being one. I've seen how they live.)
To me this all stems from the fact that manhood and a good sense of humor are in many ways dead and replaced with stale and sterile mannerisms which aren't really real manners, they are more like polite pretensions of artificial fashions we play at with language to avoid being what we are and saying what we notice about what we see. If I save a black man's life, and I have, I do it because he's a man and deserved my best try at saving his life. So he's a darkie, that's part of his appearance, his background, hell, maybe even his soul in some way. I really don't know. That's okay by me. Point is I'd have done it for anyone. And I'd expect the favor of a reply. I can plainly see he's black and so that's what I call him. I have eyes.
If a Jew is my boss, and I've had Jew bosses, I work for him. I owe him my loyalty and respect, long as he's on the up and up. (You know how Jews are.) Point is I know he's a Jew, why should either one of us throw bones and dice about his nature? He's who he is and if that's good enough for him then it's good enough for me. I'm not gonna invent a pseudonym for Jew. Jew works for me, it sticks. So let it hang as far as I'm concerned.
If my great grandpappy was a Mick then I loved him despite the fact that he was Irish, never bathed, and stuck me with some of his damned Irish genes. (I'm not sure he was really Irish anyway cause I never saw him drunk.)
People just can't be what they really are anymore cause they're too afraid of what the other guy thinks about what they think about what they are and how to say that. And that's just pretty sad in America, cause the US was built by frontiersmen and people who for the most part weren't afraid of anything. And now America is afraid of words.
Of all the things on God's green earth for an American to be a'feared of - words.
Are we Europeans now? For God's sake, it makes me laugh.
From now on I do my own grammar and spell checking. You can't trust that infernal Outlook speller.
"Sometimes"? This must be a definition of that word with which I'm unfamiliar.
Just think how my son, third generation purebred hitch-hiker, felt when he got to Golden Gate Park.
Made me laugh.
Just keep it out West Golden Boy.
I was coloring a pic for somebody at one point and he said that one character had "African American skin, like she's from Nigeria." I pointed out the absurdity of his description and told his to stick to coffee metaphors if it bothered him.
One thing that California has going for it is that you never know what kind of fun combinations you're going to run across. I've known Filipino-blacks, Japanese-Italians, Greek-Indians... it's great. Though it does make you unprepared for life in other states sometimes. "How will I find you?" "Just ask for the Asian girl." "... But how will they know which one?" "Oh, I forgot, you're from California..." (paraphrased from an actual conversation.)
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.