Word "slave" in English should be uprooted.

[Perfection]

Let me assure that when English speakers hear "slave" they are not making subconscious associations with Polish people.

What about Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovakian, Czech, Slovene, Slovak, Bosnian, etc., etc. people ???

Absolutely not.

 

[JollyRoger]

I think buying two vowels is a bit expensive for the word. Chop off the e and save $250.

 

[Domen]

There are not enough options in the poll, IMO.

 

[Domen]

The existance of anti-Slavic tendencies in Western culture is often neglected, because Slavs are part of the same civilisation. They are "ours", but worse kind of "ours". But it makes it easier to attack them, because it is not seen as racism, while similar remarks directed towards Jews, Pakistanis etc would be impossible.

Western political correctness is very shallow and characterized by hypocrisy.

It is only a facade of PC speech, behind which the real feelings are hidden. The reason why norms of PC speech do not apply to Slavic nations (as you accurately pointed out) is, however, not because they are seen as part of the same civilization, but because they are seen as part of the same race.

And while racism is unacceptable in modern Western PC rhetoric, ethnicism is not that much condemned.

Jews are a special case - anti-Jewish remarks aren't considered racist or ethnicist, but anti-Semitic - which is considered a type of prejudice on its own.

Official PC rhetoric is that Jews are not even an ethnic group (let alon a race!), but merely a religious group.

It's also being "forgotten" (read: deliberately erased from public memory), that German anti-Semitism was driven by racism, not by Christian prejudices.

 

[Perfection]

To be fair most of the Slavic nations did band together and threaten to put an end to that which we hold most dear.

 

[Domen]

Elaborate please. What do you hold most dear? Who is "you"? What banding together and what threats do you mean?

 

[Perfection]

Making an evil empire to threaten our Jesus and Capitalism.

 

[Domen]

You mean the Soviet Union ???

 

[Perfection]

No, Yugoslavia. That was the real enemy.

 

[Domen]

I voted "No, because it's not really possible" in the poll. I wanted to vote some other option but there was no such option to choose from.

Instead of replacing words, I suggest that you should educate some decent Slavic studies scholars and historians specialized in Slavic history.

So far Western scholars are still relying on studies published from the 1700s to the 1930s, which were prejudiced against Slavs (especially works from Germanic circles). As Squonk mentioned in this thread, they even had a ban on reading anything written by native Slavic historians.

Since the 1940s Western historiography has acknowledged e.g. that Great Zimbabwe was built by native Africans (and not by - say - Western Europeans). And they have acknowledged that Ancient White people did not establish Aztec and Mayan civilizations - as was previously believed. So they succeeded in erasing their anti-African or anti-Amerindian racism. For some reasons they have problems with erasing anti-Slavic prejudices, though.

 

[Perfection]

What are some prejudices you perceive from the West?

 

[Domen]

What are some prejudices you perceive from the West?

Westerners think that Eastern Europe has always been a backwater inhabited by mud-hut dwelling slaves terrorized by all peoples around.

And if you dare to write something else, you are labelled a terrible Eastern European nationalist.

This is what happened to all of my threads on Polish history, for example. All were trolled with shouts "stop posting you nationalist".

This perfectly resembles the Western approach to native African or native American history until roughly the 1930s. When it was claimed - for example - that Great Zimbabwe must have been established by some North-Western European sailors, because Africans are too pathetic to be able to use stone.

 

[warpus]

I was wondering, but it's really impossible to tell.
And the Slav (and especially the Pole) with a persecution complex is a not entirely unjustified stereotype.

To be fair Poles have been persecuted quite a bit until recent times.

Not anymore really, not to the same extent, but you know how it is with decades of injustice. It creates baggage and so on.

 

[Domen]

Not anymore really, not to the same extent

Not in Poland. Perhaps you are talking about Anti-Polonism existing elsewhere.

Is there Anti-Polonism in Canada?

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Anti-eastern European attitudes don't really exist in Canada or the US anymore, the definitely still do in the UK.

 

[warpus]

Yeah, that's what I was referring to. I have some relatives in the UK, and I don't directly talk to them, but I have heard some (anecdotal) murmurings suggesting such things from my relatives who live here and who are in contact with those in England. There's also some references to it in the media, but.. well, you know how the British media can be, so never having set foot in the UK, I couldn't really say much about it aside from hinting at it slightly.

There a lot of Poles in Canada and nobody really discriminates against us en masse, even if the go-to Polish racial slur is generally not frowned upon by Anglo-Saxon society. 90% of the time it is said in jest, so most of the time nobody really cares. At least I don't - I guess I'm used to it. It shouldn't be like that, I guess, but it's not a huge deal, and I have more important things to worry about, etc.

I should add that when my family moved to Canada, there was no internet around yet, and so most people just didn't know anything about Poland. I did hear occasional ignorance coming from random Canadians, a lot of "Polish people are stupid, right? Submarines with doors? Cavalry charging tanks?", etc. It wasn't systematic, but it did rear its ugly head on occasion. In grade 10 history class we learned about Polish cavalry charging tanks for example, even though that was just Nazi propaganda.. That made me feel like an idiot, when I sat there in class, because I didn't know the truth, and it made me feel like I came from a place that was kind of.. backwards. The class ate it up and I just sat there feeling small. The laughs from the class made me feel inferior.

With the coming onto the scene of the internet, Poland (re)joining the west, etc. I can say that most of this doesn't exist here anymore. I don't come across any anti-Polish hate, ignorance, or bigotry. It is not a problem here anymore, at least from my anecdotal experience and that of my family.

And my only problem with Polish jokes is that most of them aren't funny.

 

[Domen]

To be fair most of the Slavic nations did band together and threaten to put an end to that which we hold most dear.

Elaborate please. What do you hold most dear? Who is "you"? What banding together and what threats do you mean?

Making an evil empire to threaten our Jesus and Capitalism.

Poland actually defended your Jesus and Capitalism against said evil empire.

 

[Domen]

In grade 10 history class we learned about Polish cavalry charging tanks for example, even though that was just Nazi propaganda.

Indeed. One thing that it was Nazi (and Communist too) propaganda. Another thing, that all armies of WW2 used cavalry. The Red Army force which invaded Poland on 17.09.1939 included fourteen Cavalry Divisions. The Soviets had more cavalry in that invasion force alone, than Poland in entire army.

Polish cavalry was at that time just mounted infantry. They moved to battle on horseback, then dismounted and fought as infantry.

Only in exceptional situations they charged, and a dozen or so such charges took place in 1939 - none of which against tanks.

 

[warpus]

It wasn't until I looked it up on the internet, years after the fact, that I really learned the truth.

Blows my mind that whatever history book we were using is still teaching Nazi propaganda as fact. Hope that isn't the case anymore.

 

[Squonk]

btw, you are all wrong to think it was EITHER honest or a satire. It's both.