Poland Archives - The Race Card Project

Every Race Has Been A Slave

March 19, 2024March 19, 2024 and Ukraine, Atlantic, Catholic, CO, Colorado Springs, Czechoslovakia, england, France, Germany, Ireland, irish, Italy, Jimmy Naughton, perpetrators, Poland, Race, Romania, Serbia, slave, slave trade

Jimmy Naughton
Colorado Springs, CO

Why does any race deserve restitution for their hardships? Every race has been enslaved, yet today’s discussions only ever focus on the Atlantic Slave Trade, i.e., the black slave. Hell, the Irish slaves were more plentiful in the English Empire, they were cheaper and treated far worse since they were Catholic, no thanks to Oliver Cromwell. If you go back far enough in history, you can find the dark pasts of every civilization and of every group of people. People of all races and all backgrounds will never be able to achieve peace if all they ever do is focus on the past and demand restitution for ancestors that are long dead from “perpetrators” who are also long dead. My family, both adopted and biological, come from all over Europe. I have blood from Germany, England, France, Czechoslovakia, Ireland, Poland, Italy, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine. My ancestors came to America on a boat in 1915, when German and Hungarian forces invaded their village in Serbia during WWI, Serbia having been part of the Allied Forces. But you don’t see me at the German Embassy demanding restitution for the hardships that my family went through. Some of my ancestors were kidnapped, enslaved, and murdered by Barbary Pirates, yet you don’t see me demanding restitution from Muslims and North Africans? You see me focusing on the present and the future, using the opportunities given to me by my ancestors to succeed today, as well as continuing to see people’s character and not their color.

I hate being called “white girl”

December 1, 2022December 1, 2022 called a racist, chipotle, dance, food, frozen yogurt, grandfather, irish, Mick, Mount Olive, NJ, Polack, Poland, privilege, proud, qdoba, starbucks, Stephanie Wichowski, stereotype, White girl

Stephanie Wichowski,
Mount Olive, NJ,.

I’m proud to be Polish and part Irish but because I’m white and a girl I automatically get grouped into other categories. I get told I can’t dance “because I’m white” and I’m told to prove that I can dance. (Mind you I’ve been training at a dance studio since I was 6 years old.) People think I have some sort of privilege because I’m white (even though people confuse me for being Spanish and I’ve been called a spick before.). I’m called a racist at the drop of the hat, and blacks always say that they can’t be racist cause they are not white. Being racist is not only a white thing.

Look at the Black Panther group or the Black Muslim group. Also why is it ok for a black person to call a white person a cracker, a snow princess, white trash ect? Why after all these years just because I’m white my ancestors are blamed for the whole slavery thing? My family moved here about 65 years ago because of the things that were going on in Poland, and by grandfather’s family came over from Ireland during the potato famine. Oh and people think it’s ok to call me a Mick/Polack.

People think I can’t handle spicy food. People think I love Starbucks and frozen yogurt and go out for it often (when people take me out for it and I don’t know what to get or when it comes to frozen yogurt places what to do/how it works, I get stared at weird because I’m a “White Girl”.). People try bribing me with qdoba and chipotle and when I tell them I hate the food and never go their of my own free will I get looked at weird and have literally had people be like “but your a white girl”… it’s like what’s your point… I don’t associate who I am with the color of my skin so why is it ok for others to do so?

Great-grandparents were white illegal immigrants.

June 19, 2021June 19, 2021 death, facism, Germany, grandfather, grandparents, illegal immigrant, PA, Poland, Robin Shudak, Wilkes Barre

Robin Shudak,
Wilkes-Barre, PA

Both sides of my family are Polish, who escaped from Poland the rise of fascism.

Their destination: the US.

My maternal grandfather’s family, who were Jewish, were denied entry.
My paternal grandfather’s family, who were fleeing because they were caught as part of the resistance and his brother was already “sent to Germany,” were also denied entry.
No refugee status or asylum.
But they got in, because to return was death.
Both families, now without homes or countries, thought they could hide out here until the war was over. but the Soviet takeover of Poland made that impossible.
So, as a little girl in the 1980s, I was called a Communist by teachers, and severely disciplined for speaking Polish (which everyone thought was Russian).
Now, we have the opportunity to move back, and are considering it.
Because in our experience, we believe American whiteness also has a pecking order. In our experience, unless you’re a Daughter of the American Revolution or some other vintage of “heroes,” that formed this country or towns in it, you are looked down on.
I can’t even imagine how much worse it is when your ethnicity is on full display, and not just in your last name.

Red hair? You must be Irish.

May 10, 2021 Ashkenazi Jewish, blue eyes, ct, define, Eastern Europe, green, irish, Poland, Red Hair, Romania, Russia, Saint Patrick's Day, Ukraine, Vered W

Vered W,
CT

I have bright red hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. Everybody thinks that I am Irish. I am Ashkenazi Jewish from Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Romania, and other parts of Eastern Europe. I am not one drop Irish, despite how much I have been asked. Whenever people see me they say something about my red hair: “Where do you get it from?”, “Are you Irish?”, on Saint Patrick’s Day I have even been asked why I am not wearing green. Sometimes I just want to get into a conversation about genetics and how red hair works – “I get it from both sides, it is a recessive gene” – and other times I just say that my dad has red hair. For these people that are convinced I am Irish, I hope encountering someone with red hair who is not Irish will teach them that they have it wrong and one characteristic about someone does not define who they are.

I’m an Eastern European Ashkenazic Jew

September 21, 2020September 21, 2020 and Romania, anonymous, anthropology, Ashkenazic, classify, concept, DNA, eastern european, false, genes, Hungary, Jew, justify, National Geographic, PA, Philadelphia, Poland, Race, reality, Russia

Anonymous,
Philadelphia, PA .

For a long time, I have known that the concept of “race” is a false way to identify or classify human beings. Race is not a biological reality. In the 19th century, in Europe, the concept of ranking people by color was used to justify conquest and slavery. The attachment of slavery to color was born. Prior to that, empires did enslave their conquered peoples but did not attach ideas of superiority based on color to them. Those ideas developed with European colonization and imperialism. European “race” theorists even applied these ideas to different (white) nations and groups within Europe (read “The History of White People” by Nell Irwin Painter.)

Several years ago, I decided I would never again say I was Caucasian again. My ancestors are not from the Caucasian mountains. (Good article in Wikipedia on how Europeans got to be called Caucasian, probably by Professor Painter.) My grandparents were immigrants – Jews who came to the U.S. from Eastern Europe – Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania – in the late 19th/early 20th century. They were fleeing persecution and poverty. I decided when I had to state my “race” (such as when donating blood) I would state that I was an Eastern European Ashkenazic Jew, which is what my grandparents were. But I really wasn’t sure what Ashkenazic meant, so I googled it. To my surprise, I found a lot of interesting genetic information. I learned about the National Geographic Human Genome project which uses DNA to trace the migration of people from Africa (about 80,000 years ago?) and to see how they radiated out to different parts of the world. More than 99% of human DNA is the same. The tiny fraction that is different is what causes differences in different populations. The differences arose as humans walked out of Mother Africa and settled in different regions. If they were in isolated areas, they eventually became a gene pool and shared certain characteristics that other groups did not share. Some groups formed a gene pool because social customs forbade marrying out of the group. However, in spite of isolation, there is still more genetic variation within any one group than between different groups. But some individuals or groups never settled – because of wanderlust, exploration, migration, trade, war – and shared their genes with other populations all over the world.

I did get my DNA tested. I got my Mitochondrial DNA tested in 2010, and my autosomal DNA tested in 2016. I’m not a geneticist, or a biologist, and I had to learn lots of new vocabulary and concepts to understand what it meant. It’s nice to know, and it’s anthropology which is fascinating, but that’s it.

I am proud of my race.

May 16, 2014June 20, 2014 Jakub Adamski, Poland, proud, Race

Jakub Adamski
Poland

I’m not responsible for the past.

January 21, 2014January 21, 2014 1960, J.S., nazi, past, Poland, responsible, Richmond, VA

J.S.
Richmond, VA

My grandparents came to the US in the 1960s from Poland after living through the Nazis and the Communists. I won’t be saddled with crimes in which neither I nor my ancestors had any part. Grow up people.