Word: ethnics
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...decades, even though it stirred comment for including no Negro or Jew. But people sense about Nixon's appointments, and his style, a tone of reassuring Wasp respectability and good manners. The forces that elected Nixon-those who most avidlv supported him-are Wasp to the core; the "ethnic blocs" voted for Humphrey. With Nixon's accession, noted Norman Mailer, it is "possible, even likely, even necessary that the Wasp enter the center of our history again...
Exactly who it is that will take over the center is a problem of definition. Wasps are not so easily characterized as other ethnic groups. The term itself can be merely descriptive or mildly offensive, depending on the user and the hearer; at any rate, it has become part of the American idiom. In one sense, it is redundant: since all Anglo-Saxons are white, the word could be Asp. Purists like to confine Wasps to descendants of the British Isles; less exacting analysts are willing to throw in Scandinavians, Netherlanders and Germans. At the narrowest, Wasps form a select...
...State, are still run by Wasps. Congress is a Wasp stronghold: the newly elected one consists of 109 Catholics, 19 Jews, 10 Negroes, 3 Greek Orthodox, 4 Orientals and almost 400 Wasps. Committee chairmanships are largely in the hands of Wasps. Enlisted men in the armed services are an ethnic mix, but the officers are heavily Wasp. Even in the cities they no longer control politically-Chicago or Cleveland-Wasps have much behind-the-scenes power. In several cities, Wasp business leaders have mobilized to aid the blacks, including the militants in the ghettos. Other ethnic politicians fear the erosion...
Ultimately, Waspism may be more a state of mind, a pattern of behavior, than a rigid ethnic type. Some non-Wasps display all the characteristics normally associated with the most purebred Wasps. Consciously or not, they are Waspirants. Many people were surprised to learn that Edmund Muskie, who talked and looked like a Down East Yankee, was actually of Polish descent. Edward Brooke, who was successfully promoted for the U.S. Senate by civic-spirited Wasps, has all the attributes of a well-bred Wasp, as does Whitney Young Jr. One doesn't have to be white, Anglo-Saxon...
Subjects and Predicates. Over the course of 13 months, Valachi outlined his life and crimes in 300,000 words. The Justice Department gave Maas permission to edit the Valachi papers, then reneged, the author claims, under pressure from Italian-American groups that were anxious to avoid perpetuating the ethnic stereotype of the Italian hood. As an alternative, Maas smoothed down Valachi's story into a somewhat conventional piece of journalism...