Sunday, April 08,

Equal Opportunity BIGOTRY Taught by Mike Myers at Batavia IL Rotolo Middle School

The ANNOTICO Report

 

There is glaring Double Standard in Academia, the Media, and Popular Culture in general regarding just where the line is drawn about Negative Ethnic Stereotypes

 

 And all that stuff these sectors endlessly babble, about the importance of children's self-esteem,

the importance of teaching tolerance and the unfairness of ethnic/racial stereotypes?

 

Well it obviously depends on which ethnicity we're talking about.

 

Italian Anericans are the  last acceptable Target of Bigotry.

 

If that sounds unacceptable to you, then you need to join an Italian Organization whose goal is to 

Defend Italian Americans against Defamation. 

 

Be it, NIAF, Sons of Italy, UNICO, Italic Institute of America ( http://www.italic.org), or

 

By the Way, Where was Abe Foxman and the Anti Defamation League, or the local Museum of Tolerance  ??????? 

 

 

Batavias Fuggedaboudit teaches important lesson

We wish to congratulate Rotolo Middle School drama teacher Matt Meyers for courageously tweaking the noses of those clueless Italian American organizations and agitators who were upset about the characters in his play "Fuggedaboudit - A Little Mobster Comedy", which he and his students bravely staged in Batavia this weekend. It was a bold victory for freedom of speech, and Meyers certainly deserves every bit of the vigorous applause and stalwart support that the school administrators and parents of Batavia have heaped upon him. So what if an Italian American family with a child enrolled in the school found the script to be offensive? After all, Italians make up tiny percentage of Batavia's population, and in a democracy, the majority rules!

That family and the Italian activist groups that backed them just didn't get it. Sure, the play's Italic characters are mobsters, crude dimwits, and trashy, gum-chewing women. But in the end, the supposedly evil mobsters donate food to charity, as Meyers triumphantly shows that you "can't judge a book by its cover". It's a great and valuable lesson for the children.

Now that he's shown us that ethnic stereotyping can indeed be an effective (and legal) vehicle for public school lessons, the idea should be expanded for the sake of diversity and multiculturalism. May we suggest some ideas for his next work?

How about "Have I Got A Deal For You - A Little Kosher Comedy" featuring a bunch of shady Jewish financiers and slumlords who, now late in life, feel guilty about their ill-gotten fortunes and decide to open a shelter for the homeless? No?

Then what about a bunch of African American welfare queens who pool their fraudulently obtained funds to open a neighborhood health clinic? Or Mexican drug dealers? How about Native American alcoholics?

Actually, we don't congratulate Meyers and would never seriously suggest the use of such abhorrent stereotypes as those offered above. But we will assert, as any coherent person knows, that if Meyers dared to prepare such scripts, he'd be out the door in a heartbeat, the school administrators would be tripping over themselves to institute emergency sensitivity classes for both faculty and students, and nobody, including the media, would need to ask the targeted ethnic/racial group why it was so offended.

The only real lesson taught by the staging of this Italic minstrel show is that there's a glaring double standard in academia, the media, and popular culture in general regarding just where the line is drawn. And all that stuff these sectors endlessly babble, about the importance of children's self-esteem, the importance of teaching tolerance and the unfairness of ethnic/racial stereotypes? Well it obviously depends on which ethnicity we're talking about. Just as that lonely Italian American family in Batavia that objected to Meyer's play in the first place.

Don Fiore --  Italic Institute of America       Floral Park, N.Y.

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