The two voting blocs that switched from the Democrats to the Republicans and caused the Reagan landslide were Southern whites and Northern Irish.
After the meetings of the “politicals” on Thursday evening, me and an Irishman from Philadelphia would usually have a talk. Neither of us could understand why the Yankee Republicans were so hoplessly bad at politics.
One evening I told him a Catholic joke where the Catholic came out on top.
He said, “Why isit that every Catholic joke I hear, the Catholics come out on top?”
He had me dead to rights. I was being patronizing.
You NEVER tell a joke where a Jew ends up looking silly. You NEVER tell a joke where you make fun of a black. They cancelled Amos ‘n Andy for that.
Jews, blacks and Hispanics are Official Minority Groups and they expect you to know it. Gays are likewise. They used to be univesally ridiculed. Now they must be universally praised.
So what my buddy was saying was, “What do you think we Catholic Irish are, a friggin’ minority group? You think we can’t take it?”
So when I worked in the Chicago steelworker district, I would never have DARED refer to them as “Polish People” the way the sitcoms do. They were Pollacks and proud of it.
That was then. This is now. Everybody now knows the word “patronizing.” But today you better call them “Polish People” and the Catholic better come out on top.
As with so many other things, everybody knows the buzzword, but nobody knows what it means.
Today if you don’t want to be patronizing, you have to patronize.
#1 by Anonymous on 12/01/2005 - 10:13 pm
Did you ever see the old BBC political comedy “Yes, Minister”? It was about The Right Hon. James Hacker MP, a minister in Her Majesty’s Government, and his never-ending battles with Sir Humphry Appleby, a Civil Service mandarin whose main purpose in life was to ensure that nothing Hacker ordered in his department was ever actually carried out.
In one of the episodes there was this exchange:
“Some days later Hacker raised what he called ‘this whole business of minority groups — women, blacks, trades unionists and so forth.'”
“Sir Humphrey explained to Hacker that women and trades unionists were not minority groups, even though they share the same paranoia which is the hallmark of any minority group.”
#2 by Bob on 12/02/2005 - 3:05 pm
In another episode of “Yes, Minister” they were discussing an appointment. One name was suggested, and Appleby said that he was unacceptable. He said that the man had indeed
criticized evil white governments in Africa like South Africa and Rhodesia, but he had
also attacked BLACK dictators in Africa.”
Hacker replied, “Oh, so he’s a RACIST.”
The series was later called, “Yes, Prime Minister.”