I Have to Get This Off My Chest, Any Italian Who is a Bigot is More of an Asshole Than Anyone Else

[nightwing1240]

76. I couldn't agree more

I'm half Italian on my fathers side, my grandfather came to America in 1922 from Calabria and my grandmothers family from Abruzzi though she was born in Ohio. Both have shared plenty of instances where they were discriminated and shunned by WASPS and primarily the KKK that was in the area where I live.

Grandpa and his best friend, an African-American of the same age would tell of many times when the KKK would meet and burn crosses on a large hill overlooking the city I live in and how the Italians and African-Americans would gather outside of my grandparents home arming themselves with tomato sticks in case the Klan would come down from the hill to make trouble.

He also would say, due to La Cosa Nostra (mafia), that Sicilians were not Italians and tossed those that attempted to recruit him out of his home. He simply wanted nothing to do with that group due to the stigma that the mafia gave all Italians. I do though know that Sicilians are indeed Italian but could understand his reasoning.

Thankfully, I learned at an early age through them that there is good and bad in all groups and have always lived by what the Reverend Martin Luther King said in his "I have a dream" speech; That he dreamt of a time when all people would be "...judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin."