This whole thread is a giant proof of the Polish sensitivity complex. You are your own worst enemies with this stuff.
Perhaps. But maybe there is a reason for this?
I've heard that there are "Polack jokes" in the US but never cared much about it. It's a country of immigrants and I knew there are probably also jokes about other nationalities.
But reading this thread was unpleasant for me, with all these jokes and some people defending them so strongly.
True, I've always had a "thin skin" in general.
Now even more after two or three years of disscusions with Russians on the internet :)
You write "get over this", but it's easy to say.
You're an American (and probably white, yes? ;)) and I doubt your nation (or, at least the white part of it, except for Jews ;)) ever experienced anything similar to what Poles, and Slavs in general, experienced during the nazi occupation. In the nazi propaganda Slavs were something between a Jew and a human :) They were meant to be slaves and were treated as such. As something worse. So MediaWatch's ranting is of course crazy but there is some truth to it, at least as far as Polish "sensitivity complex" is concerned ;)
But it's not only the nazi.
The Soviet and communist propaganda also made everything Polish before the communist rule in Poland look stupid, wrong. Even in the time of partitions those who partitioned Poland claimed that Poles aren't able to rule their own country and thus somebody has to do this for them :)))
After the collapse of communism it became obvious how much Poland is behind the Western countries (though Poles realised this even before that) - a poor backwater. It didn't add to our self-estime either :)
Generally, in Europe, I think, there is a kind of "West-East thing" (besides a "North-South thing", but maybe "North-South is not as vivid, I don't know). Countries in the West look down upon those East of them. So, let's say, Germany would look down a little bit upon eastern countries, Poland would look a little bit upon probably any country east of Poland, and Russia would look down a little bit upon the Asian republics, the Caucasus and China. And so everybody would be sensitive of what is said west of them ;) Well, except for the Western countries, of course :)
Anyway, maybe someone who tells "Polack jokes" could take this into consideration?
I think Poles after those 20 years lost most of this kind of inferiority complex, but probably not all of it ;) Maybe that's why there are so sensitive.
And why, beelzebub, telling these jokes is so important to you? Is your need of telling them more important for you than the fact that you can hurt somebody by telling them?
It's almost as if you WANT to keep things riled up so you can be the "victim"
Well, that's strange thinking... It looks a little bit as if you were looking for an excuse to tell them :/
Not everybody has such thick skin as you have. And don't have to. People are different and I try to respect that. For example, I don't tell or write certain jokes about Russians because I know that some Russians can find them offensive. I've noticed many Russians are even more sensitive of what is said about them than the Poles. They think people in the West consider them inferior, not even humans o_O It may sound strange but it goes back apparently even to the times of Chekhov (or at least I had such impression while reading one of his short stories - I don't know the title in English, probably "The Daughter of Albion" or something of this kind).
So maybe have more mercy for the Eastern people ;)))))
Ufff, I guess I wrote too much :P Sorry for the mistakes but English is not my native tongue and right now I'm too lasy to look all of this up in the dictionary ;P
Oh, one more thing - someone wrote earlier that Poles can't laugh at themselves. I think anybody who lived in Poland for a while and seen sketches of Polish "kabarety" (I don't know the right English word for it) about Poles and Poland and how Poles laugh at them, knows it's not true :)))
