this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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chapotraphouse
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we have
, what makes poles different?
Poland never had a colonial empire.
They did have a fascist government that ran concentration camps though. Plus more than a couple euro nations never had a formal colonial empire, but benefitted/still benefit from western imperialism. Idk where that leaves us re: the original question, but "it's only ok to make fun of European ethnicities that had colonies" doesn't seem super solid.
(I have a hard time communicating tone and I'm trying real hard to not come off all debate pervert, apologies if I failed)
Nah, you're fine. These are nuances worth considering.
So there was this thing called Polonization whereby Poland seized land from the newly formed Western Ukrainian People's Republic, Belarus, and Lithuania, among slivers of others. This was just flatly a land grab and imperialistic. More than that, they attempted to assimilate the minority populations, limiting the number of schools in their languages. Even when this was somewhat lessened, any Belarusian with a streak of pride was viewed with suspicion and seen as a communist spy.
Ukrainians faced a load of shit, destruction of Greek Orthodox churches explicitly in revenge for the dissolution of Catholic power by the Romanovs after Partition. Essentially taking it out on Ukrainians and Belarusians.
They then worked with the Nazis solely for the purpose of taking Czechoslovak territory. Poland is not colonial inasmuch as it was not a thing for most of the colonial era, but the 2nd Polish Republic was imperialist and locally colonialist with their goals of creating clear ethnic borders within their territory and with their neighbors, with the goal of Polonizing those caught in the middle
I am learning way more than I expected to going into this thread.
Is this a lesson in an alternate history class? I think I got lost.
Alternate history?
Actually, nevermind, after reading other comments in the thread you guys are making some valid points. However surprising the sentence "Poland collaborated with Nazis" sound like. But then was everyone else at that time :)
But we did want one, especially Madagascar
I'll be real, I did not even know about Poland's serious colonial ambitions till this week. Love how there is a whole cottage industry of Polish historians to codify why its NOT bad when they try to do it.
Oh this is just the "collonial ambitions" branch wait till you see the rest what Instytut Pamięci Narodowej has to offer :^)
Are they the freaks who have an official Polish government approved history of why the Pogroms of Lviv/Lemberg are NOT pogroms because many of those murdered for being Jews were killed for being mistaken Greek Orthodox? Cause that shit is bloodcurdling to read
The same one. „Pogrom lwowski” – true history. International press made out Poland to be an anti-Semitic hell by Mirosław Szumiło who works at the bureau of historical research at IPN and who was it's director from 2016 to 2017.
And well they do have many more government approved histories, I call them the "Ministry of truth" for a reason.
Lovely people
Who have the entire state behind them and who want me, and will do everything to have me, dead :^)
lack of a colonial empire doesn't really excuse participation in settler-colonialism. i'm not trying to be ignorant of any particular historical bigotries towards poles, but in the context of being in the heart of empire in 2025, i fail to see what existing bigotries have persisted against the children of white polish immigrants. again, i don't have any onus against regarding making fun of poles to be racist in the sense of the german venture towards extermination. i'm also not sure to what extent one could consider modern poland as under the thumb of us imperialism any more so than say germany or finland.
What does "participation in settler-colonialism" mean when applied to nationalities instead of individuals, if not state projects?
By the time that Polish migration to America got underway, most of the land had already been staked by common law. There isn't much of a "Polish Belt"; Polish-Americans lived largely in cities and either became assimilated as white Americans or lived in enclaves and kept their othered status. And if I recall correctly, Poles in Haiti were friendlier with the Haitian population and largely were okay with the revolution.
To answer the question of what makes Poles different from Italians, Italy is unambiguously more "imperial core" than Poland is, and this has been the case for 150 years (would be 250, but Italy hasn't existed as a unified entity that long). The last time Poland was able to subjugate anyone was the 1730s. In the European context (which is what is relevant to the OP), both nationalities had lots of migration to Northern and Western Europe for a while, but for Italy this ended shortly after unification, while for Poland it continues to this day. In England, Germany, and Benelux, Italians are closer to being seen as part of the cultural continuity, while Poles are seen as waves of immigrant menial laborers.
Whitey has a hierarchy, and Tadeusz is pretty low on it.
Poland did subjugate Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Czechoslovakia, the latter in living memory.
I think you make a good point, but let's not white wash that.