On the corner of the block where I live, in the ultra-blue neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn, there is an upscale little diner, right beside a busy subway entrance. Outside there stands a little blackboard. On one side of the blackboard the staff lists the daily specials, and on the other there is usually a quotation or pithy aphorism.
In a startling example of how skewed the toleration of racism has become, this morning’s apopthegm asserted the following:
The Irish ignore anything they can’t drink or punch.
Ah, yes, those stupid Micks. Don’t you just hate white Europeans? Sure you do.
Imagine, however, if it had said:
The Mexicans ignore anything they can’t pick or kidnap.
Or perhaps:
Black people ignore anything they can’t shoot or steal.
There was a time when I would have been amazed by this. No longer.
6 Comments
The big difference between these views is the fellow that wrote that pithy Irish bromide was probably Irish.
Or English, perhaps. There was no attribution. The point of course is what you can and can’t put on a sign outside your business in a PC neighborhood.
Or a kid whose parents are black and Mexican. Too lazy to steal.
Now, now, Peter. You’ll get me shut down.
Bigotry regarding race, ethnicity, nationality, etc, etc, is small time. After all, it’s a minority that’s being slammed. So step up to the majors — if you want to act superior at least show some spine and be a sexist bigot. Whichever way you go in that game, you’re dissing more than 3 billion people!
I have appended (in an UPDATE) a link to this post in my own post on the same subject, here:
The post-racial iPOTUS? Not so much …