Just Sayin': When ethnicity gets into political rhetoric

When ethnicity enters political rhetoric

Contrary to the assertion by Brian Devine, communications director for Republican 3rd Congressional District candidate Mazi Melesa Pilip, her opponent, Tom Suozzi, isn’t “the godfather of the border crisis.” And Suozzi’s umbrage over Devine’s unwarranted broadside is genuine — not a cynical political ploy [“There is a reason for Suozzi’s ethnic umbrage,” From The Point, Jan. 20].

“The Godfather” film demonized the scions of Italy as a band of misogynistic criminal Neanderthals. In truth, according to the FBI, less than one-fourth of one percent of Italian Americans are involved in organized crime.

Nevertheless, the schadenfreude engendered by this lurid tale has morphed into the only socially acceptable brand of intolerance. Indeed, both the intelligentsia and the hoi polloi have come to believe that “The Godfather’s” apocryphal version of being Italian represents reality.

In 1999, journalist Clyde Haberman noted, “Among major ethnic groups that have formed the country’s social bedrock for at least a century, Americans of Italian origin may be the last to see themselves reflected in mass culture, time and again, as nothing but a collection of losers and thugs.”

Rather than deriding Suozzi’s ethnicity, Devine and his team should consult English writer Samuel Johnson, who exalted the ancestral homeland of Italian Americans: “A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see.”

— Rosario A. Iaconis, Mineola

The writer is an adjunct professor for the Social Sciences Department at Suffolk County Community College.

Tom Suozzi’s objecting to the suggestion that he is the political godfather of any policy or piece of legislation on the basis that it is ethnically insulting is a joke. Is he saying that Italians or gangsters have exclusive rights to this word?

Over 30 years ago, as a school board member, I complained to a member of the state Assembly Education Committee about the complexity of the school-aid formulas and was told, “You have to remember that every little complication has a godfather in the legislature and until he retires, that complication will stay.”

Most of those godfathers weren’t Italian and, whether I agreed or not, were proud of what they had implemented.

— Dennis J. Duffy, Lynbrook

Getting tax help won’t mean you’re a ‘cheat’

Let me first state that a reader was correct in saying many tax ads on radio and television are misleading [“Cut my taxes? Radio station should cut ad,” Just Sayin’, Jan. 20].

Many are out-of-state companies operating with little oversight, utilize call centers with high-pressure sales tactics and take advantage of people in financial distress. The Internal Revenue Service does what it can to combat this.

The public should know that the IRS and New York State are competent and effective in fulfilling their obligation to maximize the amount of the tax debt collected.

Many with tax debt, though, are not “tax cheats” but regular people who fell behind on their taxes for any number of reasons.

The financial crisis of 2008 and more recently the COVID-19-related economic issues left many taxpayers with a choice between paying their taxes or feeding their family. As they get back on their feet financially, they seek only to be treated fairly.

— Joseph Beige, Smithtown

The writer is an attorney.