Saturday, April 07, 2007

Must not Pick on Polacks

We read:

"Religious, gay and ethnic leaders joined together yesterday to condemn New Jersey 101.5 FM radio shock jocks Craig Carton and Ray Rossi -- "The Jersey Guys" -- for what they believe are ethnic slurs, anti-gay comments and religious hate speech.

The "Coalition Against Bigotry and Hate" plans to send the station's advertisers and investors transcripts containing comments made by Carton and Rossi in February in which they referred to Polish people as "Polacks" who supported Nazi efforts to kill Jews....

Responding for himself and his partner, Carton said, "We are surprised and disappointed that at a time when we should be uniting communities, Senator Lesniak and his Coalition Against Free Speech have decided to pick the eve of the holiest of holidays to further divide us as a people."

Lesniak was moved to form the Coalition Against Bigotry and Hate after Carton and Rossi questioned his sexual orientation based on viewing a photo of him standing next to a rock star from Poland, who was wearing a flamboyant outfit.

And during an on-air conversation with a caller to their weekday afternoon show Feb. 9, Carton said: "Half the Polacks joined the Nazi party to kill what? Jews."

Source

It sounds like there was really just one Polish politician objecting here. Poles are normally like the Irish: They take jokes and aspersions about themselves in their stride.

I personally tend to like and get on well with Poles but there is no doubt that many Poles did give enthusiastic support to the Nazis in rounding up Jews. Even though there are hardly any Jews left in Poland today, most Poles still seem to be furiously antisemitic. It seems like a national mental ailment that they suffer from. Perhaps it just shows that old traditions die hard at times.