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Thursday, January 13, 2011
I cannot tell
you how many times university professors and staff have, uninvited and aggressively,
insisted to me that they know everything there is to know about Poles, Poland, and Polish-Americans, to
whit:
1.) POLAND IS A DISTANT, GRAY, COLD, WINDSWEPT
WASTELAND.
2.) ALL POLES ARE PRIMITIVES, COMPARABLE TO
NEANDERTHALS.
3.) ALL POLES ARE THUGGISH ANTI-SEMITES.
4.) IF YOU DENY ANY OF THIS IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE A THUGGISH
ANTI-SEMITE.
I talk to these folks. I ask them
questions. I discover that they know nothing about Poland. An example from the
media: NPR's "This American Life" broadcast an episode peddling these
images of Poland. They misspelled "Krakow." I mean, Krakow! Not
really all that hard to spell. (Cracow is also fine. "This American
Life" couldn't manage that, either.)
In other
words, people who know nothing about Poles or Poland insist with demented
virulence that they know everything about Poles and Poland, and that everything
is that Poland is a gray wasteland, and that all Poles are nothing but thuggish
anti-Semites.
What do you know about Poland?
Take the
quiz and let me know how you scored.
On the left are
icons from various cultures; most any educated American is familiar with
them. Your job is to match the cultural
icon on the left with his, her, or its rough parallel from Polish culture in
the list on the right.
1.) Rosa Parks 2.) Robin Hood 3.) Waterloo 4.) Moses 5.) The Alps 6.) Faust 7.) Zeus 8.) Archbishop Oscar Romero 9.) The Diaspora 10.) Roots 11.) Joan of Arc 12.) Judas Iscariot 13.) King Arthur 14.) Wavy Gravy 15.) The Brothers Grimm 16.) Raoul Wallenberg 17.) Sorry, there are no cross cultural parallels for this one – a 1264 Polish statute that guarantees full protection of life and property to Jews and shows “an awareness of the vulnerabilities and the needs felt by a small subject group which is sophisticated by contemporary standards. [Its author, Boleslaw the Pious] made far-reaching attempts to address the actual prejudices and inequities from which Jews suffered, and discourage or counter them by force of law” (Hoffman, Eva, Shtetl.) 18.) Auschwitz 19.) Pearl Harbor 20.) Cave paintings at Lascaux | a.) Katyn b) Tatry c.) Kalisz d.) Auschwitz e.) Piast f.) Fydrych g.) Walentynowicz h.) Karski i.) Kolberg j.) Janosik k.) Grunwald l.) Twardowski m.) Wieliczka n.) Pan Tadeusz o.) Polonia p.) Wanda q.) Wallenrod r.) Yalta s.) Swiatowid t.) Popieluszko |
If you can't identify this guy, you know nothing about Poland (or Slovakia.)
Did you know that Poles have fought their various oppressors not just with brute force, but also with wit and style?
Did you know that the famously and proudly German Brothers Grimm didn't do anything they said they did -- they didn't go out into the field, they didn't collect authentic tales, and they did adulterate their texts? Did you know that a Polish folklorist collected 12,000 folk songs, 670 fairy tales, 2700 proverbs, 350 riddles, and more? Amassing one of the largest ethnographic collections? And he is virtually unknown?
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