
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991                   TAG: 9103130442
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NATION OF NAME-CALLERS/ ENOUGH PREJUDICE FOR EVERYONE TO GET INSULTED

THIS IS National Irish History Month. You can see the decorations in shops and big green pins all over the nation. Every year about this time, I cannot help but remember when we lived in New Jersey, watching two boys, about 10 years old, playing in my neighbor's yard. One was a son of the house, Danny O'Reilly. The other was a boy named Tom of Asian-American parents.

Down the street ambled two boys of the same age. One also named Tom, of Polish-American parents, and the other, Ira, was Jewish. They stopped on the other side of the street, and with jeering tones to the tune of "Wearin' o' the Green" they sang:

"Oh, the dirty, dirty Irish

"They never wear clean clothes,

"There ain't no Chinee launlee

"Wherein the shamrock grows."

Dan and Tom of the Orient gave immediate chase because they weren't going to put up with any lip from a dumb Polack and a Hebe.

Mrs. O'Reilly was very upset, but her husband thought it funny. He said as long as everyone was insulted, and it seemed to him they all were, it was even. Later, the four boys plus many more went off to play ball together on the public school grounds, which none of them attended 'cause that's where "Prods" (Protestants) went.

I have seen Western men wearing T-shirts reading "Shoot an Indian, save a deer," and caps with the legend, "Spear an Indian, save a salmon." I have heard the opinions of Anglo-Texans on Mexicans and Anglo-Floridians on Cubans.

I have seen Afro-Americans in Washington, D.C., shake their heads in puzzlement when native Americans explode with anger at the racist name of the Washington football team. "Name it the Blackskins or the Jew Boys," shouted one American Indian woman to the gasps of astonishment from those listening.

I have heard the opinions of real-estate men of several persuasions on the "stupid chinks" who hold what is now very valuable property in the Chinatowns in the hearts of a number of our cities.

Ours is a nation of chinks and wops, kikes and dagoes, Polacks, hunkies, honkies, micks and spics, camel jockeys, krauts, squareheads, bohunks, hillbillies, woolhats, rednecks, hayseeds, redskins, Japs, J.A.P.'s and bachelor Norwegian farmers. I think we have enough prejudices to thoroughly insult everybody. Furthermore, we are not unique in this prejudiced world.

Is there prejudice in the greater Roanoke Valley? Are there bears in the woods? LEE FITZGERALD FINCASTLE

by CNB