The ongoing saga of Petulant Peter Pejorative.

Last weekend’s little go-round with the ‘elite intelligentsias’ proved to me, once again, why the intrinsic problems confronting our society face little hope of being solved. Some people are far more interested in proving their superiority than actually listening. Additionally, nobody likes it when others find cracks in your arguments. Hey, I’m the same way too so it’s not like I can complain about it too much.

I’ve never been worried about odds though in any fight so, I don’t mind taking my lumps. At least not if I feel I have validity in my argument. I don’t go through the world thinking I know it all or I can’t learn something by listening to other people. In the end my experience overall wasn’t a bad one, limited by the nature of board posting, but certainly not entirely bad as there were some people who wanted to try and understand my views.

It’s not a win/lose issue either. It’s more a matter of trying to get someone to acknowledge or at least see how he or she is living by a double standard.

What Petulant Peter does in the company of his friends is none of my concern. When he writes,

“...And I know plenty of Italians who like Italian jokes, Polish who like Polish jokes, Catholics who like Catholic jokes, etc. That’s because I tend to associate with people who don’t wear their indignation on their sleeves.”

It’s great! I’m glad for him (and I’m not being facetious about this either). He’s surrounded by people who understand his sense of humor and he’s among friends. To me there is a barrier, what he does in his private life is no one’s affair.

The difference here is you have a very smart man, who has an audience, a man who uses words to earn his living. Petulant Peter is not a fool and I imagine he wouldn’t be a popular writer (or at least as successful as he has been) if he did not have the ability to pick his words carefully.

This is what gives me great pause.

He used these words in a public forum. However, I may be giving the Petulant one more credit (and traffic) than he is due. It might actually be the traffic to his site is very low and consequently there are few who have seen his feeble attempt at humor.

Like I indicated though, I’ve been known to be wrong (BELIEVE ME) ;) and with that in mind. I sent out an email as follows:

Subject: The Italian question

I read something recently and I wondered if my reaction was unique or not. Consequently I’m doing a bit of a survey and you can help me out.

I recently read the following joke:

And somewhere at this very moment... a Mafia wiseguy called “Joe the Plumber” is saying, “I’m gonna have t’get a new f*ckin’” nickname...”

My question is this: when you read this comment what is the image of the “Mafia wiseguy” that comes to mind?

Is it an Italian?

If not, what kind of person do you picture?

If so, are you okay with the joke?

Do you think it is perpetuating a stereotype of Italians even though the word Italian is not used?

Thanks in advance for your help.

PJ

I may have screwed up with the subject line. I was trying to figure a way to ask the question without biasing the response I received. If it would produce skewed results and it would defeat the purpose of the email. I wanted to gauge the response to Petulant Peter’s cheap shot among people who would feel the barb most acutely and here is a sampling of the responses:

...in my opinion the word “Mafia” in itself, comes from the Sicilian language, meaning “a wise guy” or someone with power, or another word you never hear, at least not in the USA is “Malandrino” which is also indicative of a Mafioso type of individual. I think that over the last hundred years or so, the media and good ol’ American racism, stereotyped the Mafia as being an Italian favorite pass time, and everyone of Italian descent is connected or knows someone. Well, that’s not exactly true, this country was built on criminals and murderers and cattle rustlers of all creeds and background...

Anytime you use the phrase ‘mafia wise guy’ an Italian comes to mind. And like African Americans, I’m not too thrilled with outsiders using the stereotype. In fact there are some days when I’ll let it pass and others when I wont. I resent the fact that people are still comfortable denigrating Italians, Jews, Mexicans and Asians, in this so-called enlightened p.c. era.

Well... since the word Italian was in your subject line, I already had an idea of where this was going before I read the “joke.” But generally, when one hears a “joke” about the Mafia they think of the stereotypical Italian, even though all Italians are not in the Mafia and the Mafia is not comprised of only Italians. The joke in and of itself doesn't bother me - but what does bother me is the double standard.

I do not consider myself Italian American. I am American. my ancestors came to this country to be American, for a better life. I am enjoying the fruits of their decision in the greatest country on this planet. I will die defending the rights of other U.S. citizens to say whatever they want to say no matter how ignorant or stupid it is; and there is a lot of that going around.

So far, PPP’s batting 1.000 among the Italians here. People seemed to have picked out the word Mafia or wiseguy separately in the discussion over on PPP’s board but, putting them together creates a whole other animal. It’s one of the reasons I suggested the hitman route.

I’m not holding myself out to be the paragon of virtue or esteem when it comes to these things. I believe a many of us succumb on occasion to easily definable labels as they apply to groups of people other than our own. I’m embarrassed by it in myself when it happens, I should know better. While it’s easier just to classify people by groups rather than to put the work in to get to know individuals, there’s no zero sum game to it and we are doing both ourselves a disservice as well as the people we encounter in our daily lives by doing it. It’s what I find to be the best argument against that sort of thing.

I wonder about it sometimes. I wonder if we’re hardwired for this or if it is learned behavior. I’d like to think it will be erased some day, I don’t think it will be in my lifetime but I can hope. It’s not just a racial thing either, you can look at a whole plethora of spots around the world where people are fighting and killing each other over all sorts of things - religion, ethnicity, race. Give a person a reason to mark another guy as different and you give them a reason to fight.

Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand...

After I had sent out the email and gotten back a bunch of responses, I felt some follow up was in order. It didn’t make sense to continue a discussion with people who had no interest in hearing my side, whether it was by their own purposeful obstinance or a deep-seated insensitivity. I’ve been back once or twice (I think) to mainly copy the thread and saw something I didn’t understand said at the bottom although when I did it made me laugh.

So, here’s what I did: I copied all the emails and the thread in its entirety and mailed it off to two organizations in Washington (they have nothing to do with our government, they’re just based in Washington like all the other lobbying organizations). I’m not looking to embark on a crusade, frankly I don’t have the time for it.

Another letter I sent out was to a man who I believe is a much smarter man than I am. The man in this instance is a man also of Italian descent with a long career in business and also in service to his country who also happens to sit on the board of a company the Petulant one derives significant income from.

A majority of the defense of these comments in bad taste was directed back at me in the form of chiding me for being oversensitive, ridiculous or stupid. Consequently, I leave it to others who are verifiably much smarter than I.

The thing I found truly infuriating was this gem, “...the “stereotype” was this close to dying off. And then I make a joke and suddenly it gains new life.”

It summer up the problem in a few words. If a smart man acknowledges a stereotype and still feels it‘s okay to use and perpetuate then it will never die. Let others make the decision about its use. Like one of the people above noted it’s just a crappy double standard and it won’t go away if we to excuse its use.