Stinking Pete was queueing up in a shop yesterday and there was a bloke ahead of him. However, the shop keeper spoke to Pete as if he was the new customer.
Ever the gentleman Pete says, “I’m sorry, shopkeep, but this African American gentleman here is next.”
“What the fuck are you on about, ya bollix”, said the African American, “I’m not African American at all. I’m Irish. Born and bred in Coolock, so I was.”
“Jaysus, sorry about that”, says Pete. “Shopkeep, this African Irishman is next.”
“Listen you, you clown, I just told you I was Irish born and bred. I’m not an African Irishman. I’m just an Irishman.”
“Well, why do the African Americans in America insist on being called African Americans and not just Americans.”
“How the fuck would I know? Do you think because our skin is sort of the same colour that we have some kind of telepathic link?”
“Don’t be daft”, says Pete, “I was only asking, you cranky shite. It’s just that these African Americans and all those that call themselves Irish Americans and Italian Americans seem more eager to highlight the African and Irish and Italian part of themselves than the American part. I mean, surely a large number of English people have moved to the US and had children and such but you don’t hear of anyone calling themselves English Americans, do you?”
“Good point”, says yer man, “why can’t they just be plain old American like all the other Americans? In the same way I’m an Irishman they’re Americans.”
“Look here”, says the shopkeep, “I have a shop to run.”
“Ahh sorry”, says yer man, “I’ll have-”
“You had your chance you fucking Mick cunt”, says Pete, “Twenty Superkings and a box of matches, please.”
Its important to have a prefix in front of your actual nationality, even if it is made up and a bit silly. I myself am “Northern”Irish. See..
Or two prefixes. I’m Northern-Irish-American.
Mind you, I did actually ask a fairly average “african american” what he considered himself.
His answer? Black.
I’m Native-American. Although I’m whiter than Pat Boone, I was, by God, born there. So, Native American it is.
I have a soft spot for the half dozen or so people I see in the park in the American city I live in, holding plcards against some war and in favour of car-horns. I’ve heard their ancestors are from the land of Un.
Twenty it probably has something to do with the fact English Americans always seen themselves as the true owners of America. While The micks, waps and blacks were seen as low life. But Now there should be no Diference.
Although among my comunity you are either Christian Lebanese,Muslim Lebanese,An Irish Ex Pat, An French Ex Pat, Australian Ex Pat or An English Twat.
It seems we all like lables.
MacD
Funny you have that if you come from Kerry too if living somewhere else – especially Dublin – the Kerry part will be stressed and not only in accent! God forbid someone wouldn’t know you were from the Kingdom.
I’m Native-American. Although I’m whiter than Pat Boone, I was, by God, born there. So, Native American it is.
Yeah, it’s like, why do you need to be called “red” Indians. We’ll know you’re not a brown Indian because you don’t have a red dot in the middle of your forehead.
Just call them as you like as long as you don’t offend eachother. I just like to call them human beings. Just like you and me.
But please don’t make it all Political Correct. In my country I’m not allowed to call somebody Maroccan, Turkish or something. It has a negative stigma. So we have to call them coloured dutchpeople or something. Now that’s a load of bollix. It would be fun to hear a black man talk in a Corkish accent, btw.
What I really love about the American sense of identity is the way it’s all expressed in two to the power of -n. (2 -n)
For example:
‘Hi there! My name’s Trudy and I’m a psychology major from Moose Droppings, Arkansas. I’m one quarter German, three eighths Irish, three sixteenths Kurdish, one thirty second (twoth?) native American and one sixty fourth French (although we don’t like to mention that one). Now, can I take your order…?’
That funny. I just thought you were a plain old cunt
That coon might know what colour a Nigerian’s arsehole is?????
The rapier wit of anonymous. And to think Tim O’Reilly wants to deny the world…
That anonymous (No.11) could be a “troubled loner”. You’d wanna watch ‘im. I’m sure he’s some sort of genius, no doubt finding it hard to be understood by the mere mortals he is forced to share this earth with. Bless him.
Everyone gets classified, no matter where the fuck they’re from. In Galway, God forbid if you get someone from Headford mixed up with someone from Claregalway. But then if you get a blow-in from Roscommon, Headford and Claregalway will unite against the bastard. If you get a foreigner visiting, everyone will label the fecker. It’s a way of identifying people, whether we like it or not.
However classifications do become distorted in some counties ……. I worked for a period on the Sligo and Leitrim border ……
Irish- American is quite a common phrase. I guess if you’re proud of it you label it, and to have power over it (anything) we tend to label it also. Paddy
Why are Connemara people called, lefthand drives?
Labelling gives those with limited capacity the ‘ability to identify different types’. It becomes a classification system whereby we can box people along with their supposed stereotype images. It is a sure sign that security comes with ‘proven’ stereotypes as otherwise we can’t rationalise or appreciate those wonderful differences.
It’s also a way of laying claim to cultures long forgotten, and giving people relevance and belonging in a world that has become largely mtv’d and homogenized by the mass media. Diversity is lovely.
diveristy is great but won’t a world when we’re all the same colour through ‘interbreeding or whatever’, be better as then all the stereotypes and racism and crap like that will be gone
Sid! so the only thing we’ll be able to call a cunt will be V sheped with hair on it!!!
surely you are taking in the pubic hair as well – is that included as part of cunt? – I wouldn’t know I’ve been married too long to rermeber what it looks like. In theory though you would be right. One word for everything and only one
I like diversity.I don’t want us to look the same. I’m from clare and I gert right riled when someone mistakes me for a Tipperary man, or whatever.
mind, It is funny that Americans do add their background. I guess they are comfortabl;e with their background and are trying to dilute their American.
Also – i like Americans. good people with a shit system, Medis,government etc.
in wexford we call enniscorthy people “scalders” and wexford town people “bagels” – the latter not to be confused with what they call travellers in tuam. ennisc … where ?
So Sid, creating more harmony is good – but wouldn’t it just be simpler not to be a bigot?
It’s a bit like saying that everyone’s surname should be Ahern.
I like Merkins so much I married one. A lot of Scots-Irish Americans I know often hark (harp) back to the mother country in conversation. I’m well aware I am a curiosity here which has it’s ups and downs. One gal I know, a lovely lady, talks all the freaking time about how she just feels Irish, and has a very strong connection to Ireland, you know? But not so much Poland where all the rest of her family were from. It’s easy to mock that and this particular woman would just not get on well in Canada, far less Ireland, (too nasal) but hell, I’m continuously embarrassed by how much more Scottish history these same Americans know than me. In some funny way they are more Scottish than me although they would never really fit in or be accepted as long lost sons and daughters of the island, in the way they imagine they would. (Especially Lewis, which I hate/love dearly, but is easily the most parochial inward-looking island ever to have the number of churches equal the number of pubs in the town.)
‘Course there’s some Yanks that think Scotland is near New Zealand.
I think if you’re in a great big pot of soup, like America, lending and taking up other flavours and becoming all homogenous, you want to know if you’re a disintegrating onion or a potato or a leek and hang on to a wee bit of that onionness or leekiness, or of course sometimes, unfortunately, cabbageness.
It’s just boring after a while is all. Americans in Scotland just get sniggered at unpleasantly by locals if they carry on about feeling Scottish all the live-long. (Scots and Irish despise emotion in anybody else but themselves.) Eventually they might notice this and be sad and nobody would gain anything. Wee note to Merkins, I love you, I do, but you’d get a lot further with we chauvanistic Auld Country folks if you stop enthusing, be your American selves, be interested if you like but just relax and have a laugh. We can be mean all right, and close ranks like toddlers round a stolen KitKat, but we want to like you really.
“We’ll know you’re not a brown Indian because you don’t have a red dot in the middle of your forehead.”
it’s america twenty. you can also buy laser sights to go with your automatic weapon of choice.
I’m a monkey
I always tried to stay away from the Irish-American label because for most in the U.S. that means 10 generations back someone along the line came over on the boat. It’s hard to stay away from the term when a natural occurance in your life is your mom calling you a wee shite for wiping the mustard from your hotdog on “me good trousers” during the baseball game your dad to y’all to.
I know that guy that Stinking Pete met in the shop, a fine Irish man, and there has been some great Irish men with great mames, like Finn MacCool, Brian Boro, and indeed many more, this guys name is on a par with all of those giants from the past..round here he’s known as the Coolock Coon….
The only reason I use the -american tag is to denote I wasn’t born in Ireland, nor do I actually live there. I was lucky enough that my parents were one generation removed from the family that’s left in Antrim.
The only reason I think I’d be better off over there is, well, American-americans scare the pants off of me. I hardly ever leave the house =/
I’m back in Dublin for a few days and I’m just catching up with some friends and all of them know that guy from Coolock that Stiking Pete met in the shop, even the pigeons in the street know him, I was sat on a seat outside Subway eating a sandwich and there was half a dozen pigeons pecking about and every time they picked up something they sang out his name to each other..Coo-Lock-Cooonn,Coo-Lock-Cooonn….