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 Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:03 am Is this fair? |
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| Quote: | | It's simply a matter of these Polish people not wanting to hire non-Poles. This does come down to fairness. And clannishness. They have their Polish store, their Polish bank, their Polish discotheque, their Polish church, their Polish everything. They don't even have to learn English, if they don't want to. The other nationalities in my city aren't as extreme in this way. |
I think it would be unfair for a group of people from another nationality to do such a rather racial thing in another country. I call it a 'racial' act. It's an act of those people who don't need to be in Rome when they are in Rome by not learning to adopt new things. |
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Nicholas
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 08 Aug 2007
Posts: 181
Location: somewhere on the earth
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| Sat Sep 22, 2007 10:21 am Is this fair? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | | regular white-bread Americans. |
Is this awful term still commonly used in the US, Jamie? |
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Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2702
Location: Madrid, Spain
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| Sat Sep 22, 2007 13:24 pm Is this fair? |
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| Conchita wrote: | | Jamie (K) wrote: | | regular white-bread Americans. |
Is this awful term still commonly used in the US, Jamie? |
Yes, it's common, but it's not considered particularly awful. It's just a way of saying that someone has completely ordinary American habits and behavior. I don't see what's offensive about it. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4213
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Sat Sep 22, 2007 13:33 pm Is this fair? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | | completely ordinary American habits and behavior. |
I'd be very curious to know what 'ordinary American habits and behavior' are. |
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Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2702
Location: Madrid, Spain
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| Sat Sep 22, 2007 13:39 pm Is this fair? |
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| Conchita wrote: | | Jamie (K) wrote: | | completely ordinary American habits and behavior. |
I'd be very curious to know what 'ordinary American habits and behavior' are. |
Plays golf, drives a mid-sized Chevy or maybe a Buick, eats ham sandwiches or peanut butter sandwiches on Wonder Bread, drinks ordinary American beer, doesn't speak any foreign language, never misses Monday night football, refuses to try sushi...
It involves a whole complex of bland, predictable behaviors that we can recognize when we see. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4213
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:15 am Is this fair? |
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Hi Conchita
Look here and here and especially here.
The expression "white bread" can be used to refer to anything that is very ordinary and boring.
In cases where it is used to refer to people, I have mainly heard it used by African Americans (referring to white people).
That's my experience with the expression.
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English |
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Yankee
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 16 Apr 2006
Posts: 7443
Location: Northeast US
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| Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:02 am Is this fair? |
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| Yankee wrote: | The expression "white bread" can be used to refer to anything that is very ordinary and boring.
In cases where it is used to refer to people, I have mainly heard it used by African Americans (referring to white people).
That's my experience with the expression. |
I don't agree with that one entry that says the expression originated in the 1980s, because I'm sure it goes back farther than that. I normally hear it used by white people to describe a specific type of white person ("African-Americans", in my experience use other terms for that). Blacks who have that type of personality are usually called "Huxtables", after the family on The Cosby Show. Not all whites are "white-bread Americans". The category would not include anybody who has anything interesting or adventurous about him.
I have close relatives who are white-bread Americans. They don't eat any sort of adventurous food. It's a chore to sit at the dinner table with them, because their entire conversation revolves around golf and money. Sometimes the younger ones veer off onto the subject of TV shows, but they only talk about the most popular ones, and they all have the same opinion on them. Nobody has any conspicuous skill or hobby. Nobody can do any kind of trick, like wiggle their ears, look cross-eyed or anything that small children would find entertaining. They read no challenging books. The son had a passion for geology, but he suppressed that in order to become an accountant. The daughter was very good at painting when she was small, and she was extremely good at hard sciences when she was a teenager, but this was all suppressed, and she's becoming an accountant soon. The parents have never switched professions all their adult lives.
I have close friends (I am called their kids' "uncle") who are NOT white-bread Americans. Their mentality is a weird combination of artistic bohemianism and political conservatism. The dad is a former fashion and commercial photographer who retrained himself and is now a hydraulics expert. He is an art connoisseur and has a 1970s-vintage German Merkur in the garage that he has customized into a racing car. The wife used to be a graphic designer, but she got more education and became an elementary school teacher. She paints a lot when she's not at work. The son has a huge collection of rap and hip-hop CDs, and he knows them all thoroughly, even though the lyrics are completely opposite to his moral and political values. He's looking for an idea so that he can start an independent business. The daughter is a figure skater and saves up money to buy DVDs of Japanese animé and listens to the Japanese dialogue, rather than the English, in an attempt to learn Japanese. She reads enormous numbers of very challenging books. There is no holiday meal for this family that doesn't include some sort of culinary experiment that may or may not be successful. When the wife's family is present for holiday celebrations, they shout a lot, but they're not angry. This family is Catholic, so they don't eat meat on Fridays during Lent. During that season, they go to ethnic parishes every Friday and eat whatever their Lenten meal is. Sometimes they break this up by going to an Indian or Ethiopian restaurant for a vegetarian meal. After the meals in the church basements, they take the paper place mats and draw certain cartoon characters in the personae of various political and historical figures. They're very funny, and everyone doubles over laughing. The family's basement is a museum of all types of obsolete computers from three decades. This family is white, but not white-bread. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4213
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Sun Sep 23, 2007 10:36 am Is this fair? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | What is your opinion on this situation?
Yesterday I was in a supermarket that belongs to a small chain of stores in my area. It specializes in East European, mostly Polish, food, but its customers are not only Polish, but are of many different ethnicities, including Romanians, Russians, Slovaks and very many ordinary Americans. Nonetheless, even though it is not a family business, EVERY employee in the store is from Poland. The employees are not related; it's just that the store doesn't hire people who are not from Poland. When I was there yesterday, I saw many advertisements posted around the store that said they wanted to hire someone for warehouse and stock room help. However, the advertisements were only in Polish. It was clear that they were trying to make sure that only people from Poland applied for the job. I asked one of the employees whether an applicant who wasn't from Poland would be considered for the job, and in a shocked, angry voice, she answered, "I DON'T KNOW!"
Do you think this is fair?
Compare this to the ordinary American supermarket in my area. They hire people from any country, including people who don't speak English yet. I see Albanians there who are now managers but didn't know English when they were first hired. Now these Albanians are hiring Bengalis and people from still other countries, many of whom speak only a little English right now. One of my friends was hired by a department store before she could speak much English, and in half a year she was put in charge of the stock room.
What's your opinion on all this? |
I have my business and If I had 2 candidates , both professionals
1 of them Georgian and the other foreighner , I'd probably hired Georgian...
Well may be these guys want to hire polish,cause for example US citizen wouldn't agreed to work for the salary they can offer..
Or may be it's more comfortable for them to communicate in polish..
There can be many reasons...and this guy has the right to hire whoever he wants...
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Che Gevara
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Posts: 409
Location: Tbilisi, Georgia
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| Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:15 am Is this fair? |
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| Che Gevara wrote: | Most people leave their Countries and move to the US to earn money.. They don't really like this Country ,they just want to earn money..
I would never agreed to live in the US and I don't think they're right ,when moving to there to clean Toilets ,work as a dustmen..
I think US Government has to do something with Illegals in This Country..
Nowadays lots of Chinese people come to my Country to earn money,they're glad to work for almost nothing ,but I'm not glad at all,I want them back to their Countries.. |
So what do you think could be the solution? In Ireland there are many Polish guest workers, probaly some 300,000 in a country of close to 4 million people. The Irish don't like the fact, but at the same time a public outcry for all the Polish, Romanians, Georgians and Lithuanian people to leave remains unthinkable.
Surely you can't just kick foreigners out. I think you can either help them integrate or leave them to their ways.
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Ralf
Language Coach
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 1320
Location: EU (Ireland and Germany)
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| Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:32 am Is this fair? |
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I'm not sure there are many Georgians in Ireland,but I know most them work as an unqualified workers..they do it for money,they don't care of Ireland at all..I know many of them are learned and professionals and they can earn more in Ireland working as a cleaner than working as a Doctor in Georgia..
I think, this is a greatest problem of my Country...
I know Public wants to kick them out and can't .. I think the best way is to strength Economy of these Countries,so they could go home and find good jobs there...
Everyday more and more Georgians come back home,this is because life becomes better here and I'm very happy ,cause We're a very small Country
only 5 Million population ..
We need Our guys back
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Bombing for peace is like f.. for virginity |
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Che Gevara
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Posts: 409
Location: Tbilisi, Georgia
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| Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:33 am Is this fair? |
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| Thank you, Amy and Jamie, for your interesting explanations of the term 'white-bread'. Clearly I had misinterpreted it. The word 'white' in it seemed to hide some nationalistic/racist twist. It still sounds derogatory to me, though, in that it has a classist ring to it. |
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Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2702
Location: Madrid, Spain
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| Sun Sep 23, 2007 13:22 pm Is this fair? |
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| Che Gevara wrote: | | Well may be these guys want to hire polish,cause for example US citizen wouldn't agreed to work for the salary they can offer.. |
That's possible, but if a US citizen won't, there will be a Chinese or an Iraqi who will, as can be seen by looking at all the different kinds of people the Italians hire for similar stores.
| Che Gevara wrote: | | Or may be it's more comfortable for them to communicate in polish.. |
On the other hand, some of the Polish people they hire are unable to communicate on a basic level with the store's MANY non-Polish customers. It's weird to hire customer service personnel who can't serve the customers -- a clear red flag that there's discrimination going on.
| Che Gevara wrote: | | ...and this guy has the right to hire whoever he wants... |
Actually, he doesn't have the complete legal right to hire anyone he wants, if it's shown that he's been engaging in ethnic discrimination. If the labor department expects that he's been taking measures to prevent non-Poles from applying for jobs in his store, or hires less-qualified Poles instead of more qualified people of other nationalities, or that the job application form is printed in Polish and not also in English, he could spend a lot of time in court and be required to pay a lot of money in fines. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4213
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Sun Sep 23, 2007 13:42 pm Is this fair? |
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| Conchita wrote: | | Thank you, Amy and Jamie, for your interesting explanations of the term 'white-bread'. Clearly I had misinterpreted it. The word 'white' in it seemed to hide some nationalistic/racist twist. It still sounds derogatory to me, though, in that it has a classist ring to it. |
Hi Conchita
Up until about the late 70s/early 80s just about the only kind of bread you could find in most US supermarkets was plain old white bread. Though there were/are competing brands, one didn't/doesn't really look or taste much different from the other.
It also seems to me that "white bread" was in use considerably before the 80s to describe anything that was ordinary -- i.e. not unusual in any way, often to the point of being boring. To me, the expression has a very strong connection to its literal beginnings: bread -- and in particular, to the brand "Wonder Bread".
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_________________
Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English |
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Yankee
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 16 Apr 2006
Posts: 7443
Location: Northeast US
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| Sun Sep 23, 2007 14:00 pm Is this fair? |
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| Yankee wrote: | | Up until about the late 70s/early 80s just about the only kind of bread you could find in most US supermarkets was plain old white bread. Though there were/are competing brands, one didn't/doesn't really look or taste much different from the other. |
My mother refused to give us that bread, because one of us kids choked on it when we were small. After that, we almost always got tougher, chewier bread from the German or Belgian bakery, and the "Wonder Bread" style of bread was brought into the house only on rare occasions to stuff turkeys. We kids found this bread terrible for sandwiches (it's very hard to eat a peanut butter sandwich made on that bread), and so when it did appear, we ate it all by itself, as if it were a type of candy. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4213
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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