"You can see that in the history of many people, including the Irish, including Italians. You can see it in people other than Black people today."
I actually choked up a little reading this. It's very, very much a problem in Italian-American culture. We were cut off from our roots by the Immigration Act of 1924 (aimed at reducing the number of Jews and Italians, especially from the South), and in place of our real culture and language, we got handed mobster stereotypes, goombahs, and Godfather movies.
And we actually honest-to-Gawd ate it up, and it sickens me.
I think this is part of why the trust-fund wokeists are so anxious to make sure that working-class ethnic Americans and Black Americans never sit down and connect, really talk about what we've been through. Because once we do, once we see that our problems can be better understood by the parallax that comes from having experienced them in slightly (or severely) different ways, we can make real headway on them.
But we can't talk like this, not really. Some trust-fund college brat will always sail in and yell, "SO WHAT YOU'RE SAYING IS THAT YOU HAD IT JUST AS BAD AS SLAVES DID?!" and I'm like, "Well no, that's not what I'm saying, but okay, let's follow that completely new idea that you only just introduced right now ... "
The point is, we didn't have it Just As Bad. We had it bad, but differently. And if we could get the trust-fund brats to STFU and get out of the room, we could really connect and understand ourselves and one another so much better.
Anyhow, yes. I agree with you both. I can see easily how it is a cultural thing, because it is with my people as well. And it takes each person recognizing that these idiot stereotypes are sold to us because we were cut off from our real roots, and that they were not created with our best interests in mind.
Dickens wrote about the dance halls and taverns in New York that were full of Black and Irish dock workers, whores, drunks, gamblers. All in the same place, boozing, dancing and fighting with each other.
Good comment. 'Trust fund wokeists' - yes / but also it's the attitude that permeates; it's not just those with access to money...it's the illusion of that whole strata; most of that strata doesn't have that money, but has been trained by 'education' to speak in those terms. Instead of money, they have relatively serviceable debt AKA lifelong debt servitude. But it's enough that the first 15 years or so, it seems manageable. Debt = addiction = ability to be manipulated; and it's on both 'sides' of the question; right wing, left wing; vomiting up whatever rhetoric gets programmed, but the underlying foundation = in financial thrall to debt collecting institutions. No time to learn to think as adults; easier to grab onto identity howling then.
"You can see that in the history of many people, including the Irish, including Italians. You can see it in people other than Black people today."
I actually choked up a little reading this. It's very, very much a problem in Italian-American culture. We were cut off from our roots by the Immigration Act of 1924 (aimed at reducing the number of Jews and Italians, especially from the South), and in place of our real culture and language, we got handed mobster stereotypes, goombahs, and Godfather movies.
And we actually honest-to-Gawd ate it up, and it sickens me.
I think this is part of why the trust-fund wokeists are so anxious to make sure that working-class ethnic Americans and Black Americans never sit down and connect, really talk about what we've been through. Because once we do, once we see that our problems can be better understood by the parallax that comes from having experienced them in slightly (or severely) different ways, we can make real headway on them.
But we can't talk like this, not really. Some trust-fund college brat will always sail in and yell, "SO WHAT YOU'RE SAYING IS THAT YOU HAD IT JUST AS BAD AS SLAVES DID?!" and I'm like, "Well no, that's not what I'm saying, but okay, let's follow that completely new idea that you only just introduced right now ... "
The point is, we didn't have it Just As Bad. We had it bad, but differently. And if we could get the trust-fund brats to STFU and get out of the room, we could really connect and understand ourselves and one another so much better.
Anyhow, yes. I agree with you both. I can see easily how it is a cultural thing, because it is with my people as well. And it takes each person recognizing that these idiot stereotypes are sold to us because we were cut off from our real roots, and that they were not created with our best interests in mind.
Dickens wrote about the dance halls and taverns in New York that were full of Black and Irish dock workers, whores, drunks, gamblers. All in the same place, boozing, dancing and fighting with each other.
Good comment. 'Trust fund wokeists' - yes / but also it's the attitude that permeates; it's not just those with access to money...it's the illusion of that whole strata; most of that strata doesn't have that money, but has been trained by 'education' to speak in those terms. Instead of money, they have relatively serviceable debt AKA lifelong debt servitude. But it's enough that the first 15 years or so, it seems manageable. Debt = addiction = ability to be manipulated; and it's on both 'sides' of the question; right wing, left wing; vomiting up whatever rhetoric gets programmed, but the underlying foundation = in financial thrall to debt collecting institutions. No time to learn to think as adults; easier to grab onto identity howling then.