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Teaching the Poles About Dyngus Day

by Geoff Kelly - posted 4:02 pm, April 8, 2010

Filed under: Local Politics, State Politics
Tags: ,

I mentioned this flyer in this week’s “7 Days” column and thought I’d better post it here for reference. Staffers for State Senator Antoine Thompson passed this out at a Dyngus Day luncheon at Corpus Christi Church:

Boilerplate history of Dyngus Day. Handed out to a Polish crowd in a church social hall on Dyngus Day. Why, that’s about as deft a piece of political work as serving chicken wings at a St. Joseph’s Day Table.


  • No means yes?

    As Buffalonian of both Italian and Polish descent, whose family celebrates both St. Joseph’s and Dyngus Day, I am deeply offended by this Senator’s presumption of ethnic interpretation. If I were to dare run my own ethnocentric version of an African-American holiday I would expect to be humiliated, run out of town or worse.

  • http://failureworks.blogspot.com James

    Well, I wouldn’t want to “presume on anyone’s ethnic interpretation”; whatever that means (I think my sense of grammar is more insulted than you are.), but I actually thought this little flier has more information than I would expect. I’m not Polish or Italian or Irish, but I, like most Buffalonians and Americans love to celebrate other culture’s holidays and having a little more information, (a lot more than was presented on the official Dyngus Day website, or wikipedia). Based on the write up in AV I figured it would be something as simple as “boys and girls whip each other with pussy willows and pour water over each other”. I actually clicked on this to get a laugh at the Senator’s expense (or my own taxpaying self if you want to look at it that way) but this actually has some substance. (I’m not going to merit the use of this as a self-promotional piece… meh.)

    Also, since I’m annoyed, what’s worse: having chicken wings at a St Joseph’s table, or not having a St Joseph’s table? I DO know enough about that holiday to tell you what any good Catholic would say.

    Geoff, go try to have some fun somewhere would ya?

  • Tim S

    And this is newsworthy, how? A politician handing out promotional literature at a community event, stop the presses! I’m amazed that this trash makes its way into the print version of AV:

    “shallow, perfunctory information on the origins of Dyngus Day and a big photo of Thompson.”

    Are we looking at the same flier? If you want scandalous material to print, you could do a lot better than Thompson in this town.