Ba mhaith liom pionta Guinness, le do thoil

I grew up in the suburbs of Buffalo, which is to say everybody I knew and everybody I dealt with on a regular basis, with one exception, was white. One result of this was that all the fights with friends and trash-talking in sports involved ethnic slurs, but really tame and harmless ones. Polak. Wop. Limey. Kraut. Mick.

The Polaks were all "dumb Polaks." The Wops were all "dirty Wops." The Limeys were all "fucking Limeys" because no one really knew how else to insult English people. The Krauts were "fucking Kraut Nazis," the only group that deserved two adjectives in this really incredibly mature display of playground name-calling. And the Micks were, of course, "drunk Micks."

Let's for a moment forget the fact that this literally was playground name-calling, and so with maybe one or two exceptions none of us 5th-graders had ever tasted alcohol, so much as ever gotten drunk. And let's also ignore the fact that the kid most often referred to as "dumb Polak" was easily the smartest one of the group, and is today going to medical school after just recently quitting his pursuit of a dual Ph.D-M.D. degree (that's right: he's so smart medical school is his back-up plan). Also, I sincerely doubt the "fucking Kraut Nazis" were fascist anti-Semites. And let's go even a step further and just ignore the fact that, aside from being really childish (again, literally), these stereotypes and insults weren't even relevent anymore as all the xenophobia and economic and class issues of the big European immigration waves of the early 1900s that brought about aforementioned stereotypes was in the distant past and totally a contemporary non-issue.

In other words, let's just ignore the fact that these insults were stupid.

We took them as serious assaults on our heritage and family's honor. At least the Polaks, Wops, Limeys, and Krauts did. I'm a Mick. There are Lappins, O'Connells, O'Farrells, Mullins, and Morans in my family. All Micky McIrishsons. And when the "drunk Mick" comment was thrown at me and Reidy and O'Neal and Shanahan, we just smiled and said, "yup." We weren't dumb or Nazis. We could (theoretically, at least) drink.

And so today, March 17 -- St. Patrick's Day -- all the Polaks, Wops, Krauts, and even some Limeys, along with everybody else (except Baptists), will join us Micks and embrace that one specific stereotype and get their drink on.

Slainte!


*Also, I have no idea how to pronounce the title of this post.