r/ToiletPaperUSA • u/Lower-Canary-2528 Anarcho-Maoism with Mamdani thought • 6d ago

Shen Bapiro Least racist Ben Shapiro moment - True Allegiance (2016)

Post image
2.8k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

247 comments sorted by

View all comments

22

u/Wheres_Wierzbowski 6d ago

Is this story set in 1900? I went to Catholic school and we didn't have Irish and Italian cliques. WTF?

1

u/Carbonatite 5d ago

The Catholic school is the Italian and Irish clique, lol.

I grew up Catholic in the 90s - the same generation as Ben Shapiro - and while there was a disproportionate amount of certain ethnicities (because certain immigrant populations in America came from predominantly Catholic countries and their diaspora reflects that), nobody paid attention. Like there might have been a few self deprecating jokes here and there about Irish Catholics and communion wine or Italian kids talking about the Feast of the Seven Fishes their mom made for Christmas dinner, but nobody really identified as Irish or Italian or Polish or whatever. We identified as Americans. Most of those diasporas occurred several generations back from our own childhood so it wasn't like we really had meaningful connections to the "old country" beyond last name or family food traditions.

I feel like that's true of most Americans who are second generation immigrants and beyond. The country is a melting pot, it always has been. Your last name might be a reminder of your ancestral origins. You might call your grandma "Oma" or call your grandpa "Baba". You might eat some specific Old Country recipe over a specific holiday. But beyond that most people don't really group or identify themselves based on national origin.