[Note: This opinion was a response to a political dust-up on Long Island between the Democratic and Republicans candidates who are running in a special election to replace expelled Congressman George Santos. It appeared as a letter to Newsday on January 27th.]
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.” -RAI
I think it is going to be nearly impossible to rescue the term “godfather” from current usage. Crazy making too, since in the Roman Catholic World, among others, I am sure, the term and concept developed from the need for co-parenting when tragedy strikes. In the olden days, you picked your godparents well since there were no governmental support systems to depend on. The role of godparent took on a big significance as part of a family support system and it is still the case in many 3rd world countries. You do the best u can, Thankfully the term “compadre or comadre.” in the Southern Italian dialects or “padrino” in standardized Italian has not been too tainted by the godfather thing. “My compa- Baggio would be rolling in his grave. Back in the day, they were more than honorific titles..they were part of your extended family, and you were taught that from the day you were baptized.
Each of us should repeat what the FBI has said, less than one percent of Italian Americans are involved in organized crime. Then ask why Italian Americans are seen in movies and the media as losers and thugs?