Polonia needs to support her own scholars, storytellers, filmmakers, and artists. I've said this many times before, for example here, and will say so many times again.
Six days before Christmas, I lost my job of fifteen years. I write about that here. At so many points in my journey in academia (see samples here), I wished there were support, of any kind, in the form of funding, publicity, book sales, publication opportunities, networking, and employment, from fellow Polonian individuals, institutions, chairs.
I did not encounter that support.
Like it or not, academia is the factory that churns out what many accept as truth. Like it or not, academia rewards and punishes people based on religion, ethnicity, politics, skin color, and social class. Like it or not, Polish, Catholic, working class, and to the right of most academics politically is the kiss of death in academia.
There are cliques and rewards for members of numerous groups: African Americans in academia, Hispanics in academia, transgenders in academia, Marxists, etc. One earns points in any number of academic environments for being a member of those groups.
The Poland First to Fight conference was a step in the right direction. I hope we keep moving that way, towards supporting and highlighting each other.
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Bieganski the Blog exists to further explore the themes of the book Bieganski the Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture.
These themes include the false and damaging stereotype of Poles as brutes who are uniquely hateful and responsible for atrocity, and this stereotype's use in distorting WW II history and all accounts of atrocity.
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