Fargo

My history report, by ethelrida pearl smutny.

Frederick douglass once intoned,

"I stand before you as a thief and a robber.

"I stole this head, these limbs,

this body from my master, and I ran off with them."

what'd you do this time?

I been maligned.

My point being,

the moment our feet touched american soil,

we were already criminals.

Next.

But this report isn't about my history.

It's about our history.

Hyah! Hyah!

Kansas city, missouri.

In the beginning there were the hebrews,

and they ran the underworld.

Then came the irish.

To keep the peace, the boss of each family

gave offer of his youngest son in trade.

Relax, boychick.

The thinking was,

by raising your enemy's offspring,

an understanding could be reached.

- There. - And peace maintained.

Put some hair on your bollocks.

See, the problem wasn't that I was disreputable.

What'd you do this time?

Punched dolores disfarmer with my eye,

of course.

I was, in fact, a student of exceptional virtue

and high achievement.

The problem was

the only thing worse than a disreputable negro

was an upstanding one.

I got it.

And so I endured the slings and arrows

of small-minded folk who, in their narrow thoughts,

imagined they could teach me a lesson.

Hey!

Oh, my god! Oh!

Well done, boyo.

Bring the lad.

And now... My son.

Are you familiar with the legend of goldilocks?

Someone...

Has been sittin' in your chair.

And someone has been eatin' from your bowl.

And someone has been sleepin' in your bed.

It's time...

For bears

to be bears.

Yeah.

Chew him up.

Logic dictates that in every fight,

there is a winner and a loser.

But this is a history report.

And what does history tell us?

Peace don't last for long.

The italians came next.

That's how it worked.

Whoever was last off the boat,

finding the doors of honest capital closed,

rolled up their sleeves and got to work,

getting rich the old-fashioned way.

Webster's defines "assimilation" as...

"the process of becoming similar to something."

you can check it if you want,

but it's factual.

But imbibing these words, dear reader,

we are forced to ask,

similar to what?

Have a seat, ethelrida.

If america is a nation of immigrants,

then how does one become american?

I take your meaning and applaud your intent,

but if it's all the same,

I believe I'm gonna go ahead and stand.

and, you know, he lied so much,

they called the son of a bitch "two face."

but you can't be too careful.

So, after I shot him between the eyes I rolled him over

and shot him on the other side, just to be certain.

Let it never be said...

it's the double cross.

Let me in, I got to talk to my dad.

You pig fuckers.

You sons of whores.

I'll murder the lot of you!

A curse on you...

Winston churchill said,

"history is written by the victors."

that's a fancy word for winner.

My folks have a system.

Dad does the white funerals.

Condolences.

Condolences.

Mom ministrates to the colored.

What's this?

It's the urbanski to-do, remember?

Should I go around back?

Dad?

Uh, no, no. Just...

It's winding down, go on through to the kitchen.

Oh, oh, apologies.

What?

Oh, I-I... I was simply excusing myself.

I'm not normally this out of sorts.

It's a funeral.

People cry at funerals.

Ah, amen.

Those are wise words

for a person of your complexion.

But, then I've noticed your people

are often more in touch with their spiritual

and emotional side.

My people?

The negro.

It's a baptist fervor, I'd wager, what causes them to hoot

and tumble to the floor,

aflush with the holy spirit.

Miss mayflower, I see you've met my daughter,

ethelrida.

Your daughter?

The one and only.

Ethelrida, this is miss mayflower.

She's a nurse at st. Bartholomew.

Oh, yeah.

Huh.

Yes, now I see it.

This child is certainly

the product of miscegenation.

Uh, if by that you mean she's the spitting image

of her father, then I take that as a compliment.

Your mother must be quite dark-skinned.

As I've-I've noticed in my study of the human animal

that in the combination of the races,

it is de rigueur for the more extreme coloration to prevail.

I'm going to the kitchen.

It was very nice to meet you.

Lovely.

Well, I best be going.

Here's the thing about america:

The minute you relax and fatten up...

Somebody hungrier's gonna come along,

looking for a piece of your pie.

You come alone?

Nah.

Relax.

I just thought, being men,

we should do this like men.

Well, all right, then.

Yeah, all right.

You're sure about this?

You're the one who said war was killing us.

But you remember what happened to the irish?

We had this back-and-forth already.

They got the upper hand now,

but not for long.

So we play along or keep cutting each other's throats.

He's your boy.

There's got to be something less we can risk.

Keep your head down.

If there's trouble,

swing for the balls,

then the eyes.

No!

No. No!

Learn everything.

Sleep with one eye open.

Be as daniel in the lion's den.

I don't want to go.

Come on, kid.

Hey. You want my advice?

Be who you need to be,

don't forget who you are.

This is zirominu guglielmo fadda,

youngest son of don fadda.

Protect his life as your own.

Where you from...

Dublin, Italy?

And here's what you need to know

about the people in that room.

None of them were white.

They were dagos, negroes, micks,

all fighting for the right to have been created equal.

But equal to what?

And who gets to decide?

And that leads me to this conclusory idea, dear reader,

which is that history is made up of the actions

of individuals.

And yet, none of us can know at the time we act

that we are making history.

Mama?

Go to your room.

- But I... - I said go to your room.

He behaving?

Boys are boys.

But he clean his plate. He says "sir."

We should talk about the stockyards.