Stereotypes about Polish people being stupid?

You completely missed my point. The phrase you quote was in quotation marks, in relation to what average Canadian thinks about Americans. Nothing to do with Poles in this case. And do not forget that I clearly stated that I had been always defending Americans. :-)

Stereotyping brings to mind and old poem, by A. Mickiewicz, inspired by even older fable by La Fontaine:


- Adam Mickiewicz, ZAJĄC I ŻABA, (From La Fontaine)


The more poetic English translation of the original La Fontaine's poem is here:

readbookonline.net/readOnLine/19844/

He moved in to Canada , after 1994 year.

I am affraid Polish diplomas are not automatically recognised. I have no idea about the process of recognising over the large span of years, but I have some relative who came to Canada after 1994 and he holds a diploma from Pplitechnika Warszawska and his papers were not recognised. Do you know if it is possible to get his papers evaluated without passing any exams or it is impossible now.

Most of these stereotypes come from the historical Polish problem with turning the ladder when replacing burned out light bulbs.

Stop being an idiot.

Its hard to believe you're really Polish.

You are quick to act like a nationalistic Pole who's quick to criticize Jews for things, but you say nothing about those left-wing Jews who flooded America with TV shows and insult "joke books" initiating these subhuman intelligence jokes about Polish people.

You don't care about Polish people. You just use them when you want to blab your criticisms of Jews in general.

It's not about being superior, just different. Variety is the spice of life! My advice stands, use stereotypes as an icebreaker for a laugh and nothing more. I haven't heard of any significant layoffs of Polish workers in the UK, for example. One strand of intelligence is adaptability. They seem to have done so remarkably well so that is another plus for them.

One slight thing against the Poles is their over reliance on what papers/certificates they have. Obviously, they are important but Poles should know as well as Scots that there are too many people chasing too few jobs these days. A stupid person will be blissfully unaware of this and come a cropper. However, many Poles showed their smartness by accepting jobs outwith their chosen study area. They had to swallow their pride but they accepted the humility element, another smart decision.

You can be as smart as you like but if there are no jobs, there are no jobs and your mind can decay :(

PolskiMoc, please ignore such numbers. How can you pin a number on an individual candidate who may be exceptional in his area? Imagine if people actually believed the stereotypes, Poles would be off to a bad start and that's wholly unfair as they tend to work more efficiently for less.

it would help, if posters were to read the op. then they wouldn't get posts removed for being off topic.

Then look at my post 23 and PennBoy's post 25. We post that and then posters ignore it and continue on with their nonsense. Mods, I recommend comments from yourselves to say 'good post' so that other PF posters can go from there. Otherwise, it will descend into a farce where nobody discusses.

So I suggest we take this from 23 and 25 on the first page. Agreed?

You need to lighten up here.

I'm aware of the Norman Lears, the Howard Sterns and the other showbiz Jews who love to portray Poles as dumb...At the same time, this is a forum for Polska, and sometimes the jokes can be funny...You can't be afraid to laugh at yourself...If you didn't think it was funny, well, everybody has different taste in humor, and I just poked fun at one of the most common 'Polish' jokes.

I care about Poles, but Poles are like everyone else, and some can be quite nasty and miserable.

Oh stop it with this "You can't be afraid to laugh at yourself" nonsense to codone ethnic slurs against Polish people. I believe we as individuals should be able to laugh at ourselves, yes. But this shouldn't be used to condoned ethnic slurs against a whole group of people.

Have you ever noticed that the non-Polish people who preach to Polish people that "Polish people should be able to laugh at Polish jokes", HATE it when jokes are made about their ethnic background? Why do they have such a hard time laughing at jokes at the expense of their ancestry? You sound like one of those people.

Can you laugh at yourself for being an idiot who pretends to be Polish and sounds like a racist anti-semitic idiot half the time?

Do you go up to Jewish people and Black people and tell them they should laugh at themselves with jokes that insult them?? Or any group of people for that matter?

What I find interesting, is how a guy like you who hates Jewish people so much, goes easy on the media Jews who have done the most to slander Polish people. Evidently you LIKE those Jews who slander Polish people. I find that interesting. Your not really Polish. Your just some guy who knows something about Polish people and uses this forum to attack Jews and then make back handed comments about Polish people.

Why don't you make some jokes about Russians? You seem like an anti-semitic Russian who uses Polish forums to bash the Jewish people. Delphiadomine says your Russian.


You didn't poke fun at it. You promoted it even more. If you were to poke fun at it, you would poke fun at those Anti-Polish Bigots who have pushed it.


Gee, no sh** Sherlock. You have bad people in any group. So I guess we should find the bad apples in a given group of people and make insult jokes about the whole group based on the bad apples? And if your going to make jokes against Polish people and you feel some are miserable and nasty, why don't you make jokes about them being miserable and nasty and not make Nazi subhuman intelligence jokes about Polish people?

Thank you very much for your comment .

Completely and wholeheartedly I agree with your opinion. Never heard of anyone to laugh at jokes that ridicule the whole nation and create an entire nation, without exception, as a country of mentally retarded people . In a situation when someone of Polish descent laughs at such jokes, to me means that he is mentally unstable person with strongly warped psyche.

rubbish!
lord a mighty you two must be the life and soul of every party...............not.
Christ,the best "Irish" jokes come from ireland.....

I think the standard of Education is higher in Eastern Europe generally, so that is why Poles (and other E.European) groups come out well. The British were once renowned for their ability, technical skills and ingenuity. The problem is that the British education system is not up to scratch and British people are not so serious about competition. The Poles were quite jealous that the first real computer Electro-magnetic computer system was invented by the British and programmed accordingly during the 1940's This type of technical skill was beyond the skills and resources of Poland at that time. Also concepts and structures of computer languages were invented by the British. The British are good at coming up with ideas, that of which are normally taken and expanded by other Countries.

Anyone for Tennis?

Inca ball games? Buskashi perhaps? Oh, yes - a cosy feeling you invented it all, including the Olympics games, possibly made in London. :-)

Yes, Brits codified some games, but not all. Not basketball, for God's sake. Just watch a government sponsored historical add on Canadian public TV and you will see a middle aged man, who was so tired of recovering balls from fruit baskets, that he decided to cut their bottoms off.

What else? Yachting perhaps? No, that's the Dutch past time...

Bridge card game? Oh, no that's "biritch", or a Russian Whist, from Constantinopole...

Chess perhaps? No, feck, it has been already claimed by Indians, Persians and Greeks...

Mountain climbing? With all due respect to Irving and Mallory, the man named Everest was not English, he was Australian.

So forgive me for playing this little joke with your national ego. But seriously I am quite impressed when sightseeing various hydro designs in Ontario, dating back to 1830s. Mostly designed by Scots, implemented with backbreaking diligence of Irish...

In meantime Poles were fighting their insurrections against Russians. With few exceptions - Ogiński's Canal (1765-1783) and Kanał Augustowski was built actually much earlier (1825-1830). So nothing to be ashamed of.


That was wrong, Everest was an English surveyor, I was thinking of Hillary, but that was the New Zealander. Two bugs in one sentence. Shame on me, too much wine tonight...

don't you think that the mountain had a name in local lingo, if ever locals bothered to call it some other name than a big peak or a big phallus!

I take it that Everest sounds better but he did not built or invited that mountain.
However we should be grateful that his name wasn't Bigsbe or Flatt !

I am a Canadian married to a Pole- I live in Warsaw. You have to understand something. America has invaded Canada culturally. Canada is constantly bombarded with Americanisms so much so that our cultures are now so intertwined.

This is the nature of the beast- I bet there is a lot of animosity between the dutch and the belgians. UK and Ireland- I don't even need to mention.

In my opinion, North America has become a land with citizens who feel they are entitled to something because of where they are born. And of course, Poles have an inferiority complex based on their geographical location between Germany and Russia and all the battles that have been fought here.

Growing up I never thought one culture was smarter than another. It wasn't til I studied Polish that I became aware of cultural stereotypes. My Polish teacher said that Brits were considered the stupids of Europe. Americans are loud and rude and Canada was considered good- lucky me. I guess she had never been to some of the places in Canada that I had been to.

My point is, every country has their stupids. As for "This hour has 22 minutes" this is satire. It is a spoof on the stupidity that Canadians think Americans have. It is not Rick Mercer trying to prove that Americans are dense.

You have missed the whole point of this discussion I am affraid . Have Americans been saying derogatory jokes about Canadians on TV series for decades ?

no I actually haven't.
And yes, American tv shows have always had a little joke at the expense of Canada. And Rick Mercer does not have derogatory jokes- like I posted previously, he is poking fun at how Canadians think Americans are stupid. Perhaps you have never seen the show.

thank you pip, your post was very informative :)

So , why do you compare this to so called Polish jokes?

with all do respect, I don't think you understand. I replied, with quotes, a post from "boletus" regarding the American/Canadian stupidity stereotypes.

I have no mention of Polish jokes in either one of my posts.

Nope,the modern olympics were invented in Much Wenlock in 1850,not london,plum.


WTF was all that about ? Talk about chippy inferiority complexes coming to the fore.....................
Tennis,a game played in the court of Henry VIII...........
Who but your tortured mind would ever claim inca sports or afgan sheep head Polo as British inventions,odd man....
Basket ball,a game played by girls in british schools.....not a British sport or one anyone really gives 2 hoots for over here...
Yachting???Who mentioned yachting as a british invention apart from you? Do you like arguing with yourself? Thats close to an illness....
Chess.........Mountain climbing........WTF,where in your feeverish imagination did you come up with those two random activities?


What "joke"?


Erm,so british then...............

BTW, a "joke" should by definition be funny...................
Note to boletus,must try harder next time.

Let me explain. The train of thoughts started with:


To which you responded:


which I interpreted that you were agreeing with the previous poster. But if you actually meant the opposite than I apologize for quoting you, rather than UKGUY.

The random list of games and sports I posted was to demonstrate how many good ideas came from many other nations, not just Brits, and how way back in history.

Court games originated with bloody games, of the Inca or Afghan type, then slowly evolved to something more civil in early medieval tournaments - like knocking rivals unconscious using some blunt instruments in order to collect the spoils - only later becoming chivalric tournaments and finally - pure sport games, such as tennis.

Mentioning ancient Olympic games, sailing, climbing, chess, etc. was again to show examples of activities that has nothing to do with British inventions.

And no, it was not my "chippy inferiority complex" showing out. I actually do not care who invented what and like give a credit where it is appropriate, as in the last paragraph of my post you quoted, where I praised British engineers of 19 century building canals and related structures in Ontario.

The nature of the beast it would be if you were comparing neighboring countries with a lot of common history between them. But we are talking here about two countries that are far apart and don't share much.

They have a lot of Polish people- this is what they share. Poles are an amazing breed. They never seem to truly immigrate- they always keep their ties to the motherland. And of course, everybody has an uncle in Greenpoint or Chicago who tells them how great American life is.

South Park? ;)


Canadians and Americans are more or less the same people. It's shows like for instance 'Jersey Shore' that give a bad image of Americans. The next season will probably be even worse it was bad enough they made fools of themselves in Jersey now they're gonna do it in Italy where it's being filmed. Now Europeans are really gonna have a laugh...

You are absolutely correct...I am actually Russian...And yes, I hate Jews, but yet I don't hate them enough for your taste...Yes, they made 'All in the Family', which caused irreparable harm to the Polish nation...Yes, 'DelphiaDomine' one of the resident forum geniuses is absolutely correct in her/his assessments.

Yes, I need to find some good Russian jokes, this way I will further my psyops and further disguise my Russian heritage.

Blacks?...I am friends with many, and encourage them to laugh at themselves, as it is healthy...I don't call them niggers, as they would take offense, and in any case, they call themselves niggers all the time...I don't call Jews 'kikes' either, as this would hurt their feelings...You can make a joke without hurting someone.

Did you hear the one about the Iraqi rocket attack on the Polish army barracks in Baghdad?

It seems an insurgent missile hit the Polish barracks and knocked out the lone light bulb.

Not to worry, as the commander, Colonel Kosinski was thinking on his feet...He gathered all the flashlights on the base, and set up a pathway to the kitchen sink...This way, if any of the soldiers had to relieve themselves, they would have a lighted pathway until the generator was fixed.

People are not shared history. The point is - in neighboring countries there is often bad blood, so some prejudices are understandable. Source of prejudices against Poles in the US are not stemming from this.


That's the perfect insult for any Canadian :)

to clear things up,as we both got crossed wires I think...:)
When I said,anyone for tennis it was,in keeping with the thread my example of taking the p!ss out of my own nation, "we" invented the game,yet,who just won Wimbledon? Yup, A Serb and a Czech ;) "We" havnt won it since the 1930s !! :)

I could have said cricket,British game..........well,English game yet in the world even the Dutch seem better than us at it at times....:)


there should be a specific font for "dont take this bit seriously/Im yanking your chain" ,I seriously believe half the nasty arguments on here would end instantly if there was an "Irony/playfull sarcasm" font :)

I agree with you on this one.