by Michael LelloWeekender Editor
I am fortunate to never have knowingly, directly faced discrimination. In fact, I never thought that someone would think less of me because of my gender or ethnic background — it doesn’t come up much when you are a white male.
But a few years ago, for just a minute, I felt what it was like to be the subject of an ethnic slur. And it stuck with me.
I was working at a daily newspaper in the Philadelphia area. I was the business editor. Each afternoon, the editor of the paper, the managing editor, the copy editors and I would meet to plan what would go into the next day’s edition. It often started with some office gossip and semi-inappropriate remarks. One day, the editor remarked that a new reporter started, and she was surprised that the receptionist allowed him to come upstairs to the office due to his lengthy Italian name and leather jacket.
I don’t think my boss meant to insult Italian-Americans, and maybe she didn’t realize, remember or care that I am half Italian when she let that off-handed comment slip. She probably didn’t know any Italian-Americans and based her opinions on “The Godfather,” “The Sopranos” and news stories about mobsters.
This is a tricky subject. I enjoy mafia movies and “The Sopranos.” I don’t find them offensive. But I do see how they can give some people the wrong idea: that all Italian-Americans are crooks.
Some high-profile Italian-Americans have a low tolerance for entertainment that depicts their tribe as racketeers. Joe Paterno walked out of “The Godfather.” Sal Paolantonio, a reporter for ESPN and my thesis advisor when I attended Saint Joseph’s University, wrote a scathing ESPN.com column about the negative impact of shows like “The Sopranos.”
Chazz Palminteri, who was featured on the cover of the Weekender last week, brought “A Bronx Tale,” his one-man show based on his Bronx youth, to the Scranton Cultural Center last weekend.
I sat down with the actor and writer for an interview Friday afternoon at the Cultural Center. I asked him why negative depictions of Italian-Americans in the media are so prevalent, and why it seems accepted.
“I think it’s been happening so long, that after a while it begins to become normal,” he said. “I think Italians are the most abused you can get, personally. But if you say it about any other race, God forbid. But with Italians, it’s OK to say wop, ginzo, and nobody says a word.”
Palminteri — whose witnessing of a mafia shooting and working-class background inspired “A Bronx Tale” — said he enjoys “The Sopranos.” He was in the film “Analyze This,” a humorous take on the mob.
“I think it’s wrong,” he said of discrimination, “but it’s a double-edged sword. I don’t want it to be where we can’t say anything about anyone.”
If you follow local news, it’s hard not to form stereotypes: All politicians are crooks. No teachers are hired on merit. Violent crimes are only committed by outsiders, minorities from New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia. Italian businessmen are shady, mafia-connected goons.
It’s hard to battle the facts. There are elements of truth in all of these assumptions, and in most stereotypes. One can argue that Martin Scorcese and Robert DeNiro helped propagate stereotypes about Italians, but their movies were made in a spirit of depicting neighborhoods and characters as they were in real life, ugly or not. Characters like those played by Joe Pesci or Tony Sirico’s Paulie Walnuts on “The Sopranos” are caricatures, but people like that exist. They exist here. You know them, you’re related to them, maybe you are one of them.
I asked Palminteri if he had a message in mind when he wrote “A Bronx Tale” 20 years ago.
“Yeah,” answered Calogero Lorenzo Palminteri, who turned 57 Friday. “That the working man was the real tough guy, not the mafia man.”
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