It's because they're basically dumb blonde jokes, but about Poles, and usually nastier than your average blond joke. And yeah, if the jokes were usually written by Poles, that's news to me. I always understood it to be the kind of joke the KKK chuckled at -- or more to the point, members of the Know Nothing Party back in the 19th century.Copper Zen said:I remember my parents had a box collection of joke books from the 70's and one of them was a Polish joke book. From the intro the book made it clear that most Polish jokes were like most Texas A&M Aggie jokes--made up by the Poles themselves, not others.Zykon TheLich said:Thanks for saving me that awkward moment, you racist!Owyn_Merrilin said:That awkward moment when a racist joke becomes reality. The "stupid polack" joke was once a cornerstone of racist jokes, now we see it brought to life. That doubly awkward moment when you're really not sure how to point that out without looking like a racist yourself.![]()
Was that an exception to the rule, to the best of anyone's knowledge? I barely remember that book, it's been so long since I read it.
A question about semantics: How is a Polish joke a 'racist' joke? That sounds like calling jokes about Americans or Russians 'racist'. Or are most Poles from a particular ethnic stock like the Japanese??
I'm honestly curious. And I haven't had my coffee this morning.
Edit: As for the ethnicity thing, "white" as an ethnicity is very much a 20th century thing. It used to be that every little corner of Europe was considered it's own ethnicity, with it only becoming integrated as Americans got used to having people from there around. Especially in, say, the late 19th century, people from Eastern and Northern Europe (including the Polish) were heavily discriminated against. If you go back further, the Irish were just as hated.