Seriously. Here is an excerpt of an article, THE BLACK SONS OF POLAND {archived link} regarding Black Polish-Americans who fought for Poland.
… In my personal opinion, they were sons of mixed Polish-African marriages, which were not so uncommon when the first wave of Polish immigrants reached the American soil. There was a dramatic shortage of Polish brides and Poles were very often called “white niggers” by the WASPs, settlers of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant origin. Hence, the Poles often chose Black women, sharing almost the same social status.
Those Poles, the earliest emigrants, were mostly simple farmers for whom black women, born and raised on the cotton fields, were the perfect match. The word “racism” did not exist in the Polish mentality. Poland was bordered by Christianity, Russian Orthodoxy and Islam. Poles, Russians, Cossacks, Tartars, Turks fought together and they lived together for centuries. They had learned to respect each other’s ethnic origin and understand various religious beliefs. The 18th-century Polish Constitution of the 3rd of May was more democratic than the U.S. Constitution of that time. Everybody, no matter what God they prayed to, no matter what the color of their skin was, all had the same rights. There was no Holy Inquisition in Poland; no one was burned at the stake for his own belief in God…
I remember seeing an article from a West Coast newspaper with a picture of a “black man” with the surname Wysocki, my mother’s maiden name. It seemed odd, and no one in my family did more than smile at the idea as strange. Nothing more.
I plan to adopt someday, after my current daughter is all grown up, and my wife and I like the idea of a “mixed” family with children from various places around the world, such as Africa and China. Maybe it’s not such a novel idea after all.
😉