What Have I Absorbed?

Every now and then, a public incident catches my attention—not because of the spectacle, but because of what it reveals about the human mind.

Not long ago, a passenger on a commercial flight reportedly became intoxicated and launched into a racist and homophobic tirade. The plane was diverted, the crew had to restrain him, and by the next morning his behavior was national news in America. He faced ridicule, legal consequences and, according to reports, the loss of his job.

In some ways, I actually feel bad for him. The fallout was severe.

But that isn’t really why I’m telling you this.

I’m telling you because our inner beliefs—those quiet, unexamined assumptions—matter. And if we don’t deal with them, they have a way of spilling out at 30,000 feet, in a moment of stress, or in the presence of someone who simply triggers something we didn’t know was there.

But I don’t want to make this just about that man on the airplane.

Many years ago, I was on a flight when the pilot made an announcement. Her voice came through the speakers—calm, professional, unmistakably female. And I, in a moment of sheer stupidity, had a fleeting thought about a woman flying the plane. Oh my gosh,.. I thought.

It lasted only a second. But I remember it vividly because it startled me.

I thought of myself as progressive, thoughtful, aware. And yet there it was—some old, unexamined assumption rising to the surface.

I was embarrassed by what I had discovered in myself.

That was the lesson.

It is easy to watch someone behaving terribly and think, I would never be like that.

Perhaps.

But I’ve learned to be more cautious with that certainty.

I know what once went through my own mind when I heard a woman’s voice coming from the cockpit. I know the jokes I once told without thinking about who might be on the receiving end.

None of us are completely exempt from the conditioning we absorb growing up. Sometimes something brings it to the surface—alcohol, anger, fear, exhaustion, or, in my case, a simple announcement from an airline pilot.

Think about the racist jokes, homophobic comments, sexist assumptions, stereotypes and casual remarks we encounter over a lifetime.

We absorb more than we realize.

I learned another lesson about this many years ago.

A friend from Poland was visiting America for the first time and wanted to see Las Vegas. So we drove there and went to a show. The emcee was a comedian.

And what do you think his very first joke was?

A Polish joke.

I froze.

I looked at my friend, hoping she hadn’t understood.

Her eyes told me everything. I was mortified.

From that day on, I stopped telling ethnic jokes and jokes built on the humiliation of other people. It seemed like a small shift, but it opened my eyes to how easily prejudice becomes woven into ordinary life.

We learn things without ever consciously deciding to learn them.

A Brief History of a Harmful Joke

For readers in America—and for the many readers from Poland and elsewhere in Europe who visit this site—the history surrounding what Americans came to call the “Polish joke” may be worth exploring.

The stereotype did not begin with American comedians.

Its roots reach back into European history, including the long periods when Poland was partitioned among neighboring powers. Under Prussian and later German rule, Poles were subjected to discrimination and negative stereotypes that portrayed Polish culture and society as backward or inferior. Polish people living under Russian rule also faced repression, and large numbers eventually left their homeland for opportunities elsewhere.

Those prejudices did not disappear with the coming of the twentieth century.

Nazi Germany drew upon and greatly intensified existing anti-Polish attitudes. In the period leading to the 1939 invasion of Poland, Nazi propaganda portrayed Poland as aggressive and threatening, while Nazi racial ideology depicted Poles themselves as inferior. Such propaganda helped create an atmosphere in which invasion, occupation and extraordinary brutality could be justified.

Meanwhile, generations of Polish immigrants had been arriving in the United States, many finding work in mines, mills, factories and other demanding industries. Like so many immigrant groups before and after them, they encountered stereotypes and hostility in their new country.

By the middle decades of the twentieth century, the supposedly ignorant or unsophisticated Pole had become a familiar character in American ethnic humor. Polish jokes eventually circulated widely through television, comedy performances and ordinary conversation.

They became part of the cultural wallpaper—repeated, laughed at and absorbed by people who probably knew nothing about the long history behind the stereotype.

I certainly didn’t.

And, of course, Polish jokes were hardly unique.

American popular culture has had Jewish jokes, Irish jokes, Italian jokes, Polish jokes, stereotypes about Chinese and Japanese people, Black jokes, jokes about Mexican people, jokes about women, gay people and countless others. Different groups were assigned different characteristics, but the underlying pattern was much the same: reduce people to a stereotype, repeat it often enough, and eventually it begins to feel ordinary. And none of us are necessarily exempt from this process. Even people who have experienced prejudice themselves can absorb and repeat assumptions about others.

Of course, not all humor involving race, ethnicity, gender or other differences serves the same purpose. Some comedians have deliberately used stereotypes to expose their absurdity, challenge prejudice, or simply help us laugh at the foolishness we sometimes carry around. There can be something wonderfully cathartic about that.

But there is a difference between using a stereotype to examine it and simply passing it along.

That is really why this bit of history matters.

The comedian in Las Vegas didn’t invent the stereotype. I didn’t invent it when I repeated jokes like it. Most of us probably couldn’t tell you where many of the stereotypes we encountered growing up came from.

We simply inherited them.

That doesn’t excuse prejudice. But it does help explain how prejudice can become so deeply embedded in a culture that we stop noticing it.

And perhaps that is the more difficult question.

Not simply, What do I believe?

But, What have I learned without ever consciously deciding to learn it?

None of these moments define who I am. But they have helped me see something about myself—and perhaps something about all of us.

We inherit more than we realize. Families teach us. Communities teach us. Religion teaches us. Television teaches us. Friends teach us. The culture around us teaches us. And much of that learning takes place long before we ever think to question it.

The difficult work begins when something hidden finally rises to the surface.

We can defend it.

We can deny it.

We can condemn ourselves for discovering it.

Or… we can simply pay attention.

What have I absorbed that I haven’t yet noticed?

Sources and Further Reading

Goska, Danusha V. Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture. Academic Studies Press, 2010.

Greene, Victor. “The Polish American Worker to 1930: The ‘Hunky’ Image in Transition.” The Polish Review 21, no. 3 (1976): 63–78.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Deceiving the Public” and “Polish Victims.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.

Library of Congress. “The Nation of Polonia.” Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History.