On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 10:49 AM, Joe Hass <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>> Hack and polack don't even *rhyme* for chrissake. >>> >> >> Who even uses that term anymore? That clip sounds like something out of >> a first season Man Men episode. >> > > Old polacks. My (*very* Polish) wife's grandma would use it all the time, > her family still uses it around each other. > > The best similar example I could come up with is calling someone with > German heritage a "kraut": it's long been out of commission in terms of > actual usage, it was a slur and could still easily be considered one, and > if you just happen to remember hearing it without the backstory, you might > drop it thinking you were being cute and funny. > Yes, it makes sense that in-group members might use that term, with a variety of connotations. But when was the last time you heard the term used in public discourse by non in-group members? I would have to go back to my childhood in the 1960s. I think "kraut" is a bit different, since the term is so closely associated with war-time animus against Germans from WWI and WWII, and is less based in derogatory ethnic assumptions and stereotypes. Polack jokes on the other hand are rooted in a deep history of ethnic, religious (anti-Catholic) and anti-immigrant hatred, and in the belief that Polish people were stupid. Maybe a better comparison would be a term like "yid" (offensive and pejorative, but with a bit less bite than something like "kike"). My extremely Jewish grandfather used to use that term to describe himself and his fellow tribesmen with gusto and humor, not too unlike the way Michael Chabon uses it is his fabulous novel "The Yiddish Policemen's Union", but it would still sound horrible on the lips of a gentile in most contexts. And, I suppose a modern person could use the term casually, having heard soccer fans use the term it what might seem a positive way, and reasonably claim they did not know it was derogatory. Though one suspects the outcry might have been a bit stiffer had Catalon referred to a strategy of "Hack-A-Yid" about a Jewish basketball player. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
