Last week: Outraged by Kathy Griffin. Today: Wants London mayor impaled on a pike

but that blackface dress-up / banana necklaces thing was not purposely aimed to denigrate.

Intent isn’t magic. If the targets of racism feel denigrated, the racism is denigrating.

Not another double post! Wtf is going on these past couple days? I guess it’s my computer’s fault cause I’m not seeing double posts from others.

@Fran

See, here’s the thing: if you were wondering why this is a sore spot with me, I have spoken to some Russian people who are just straight up like, “No, racism doesn’t real here, you fucking American Cyka Blyat. I bet you also think all Russians drink Vodka and wear little furry hats, you stupid American baby. Fuck off.”

Racism is abso-fucking-lutely a thing in Russia. I guess some Russians probably figure that, since race-based slavery wasn’t a thing in Russia, there is no ‘real’ racism, like, you know, in America.

@Hambeast

“Немец” derives from dumb as in mute, i.e. unable to speak the human language, which would be Russian. It was a generic word for foreigner before it was ever a word meaning German person.

@Valentine

OK, I concede. Though who are these people from USSR times that think black people are not traditional? They need to go back to school to learn history. Due to all the free higher education USSR offered to “our foreign brothers” there were black people all over Russia at the time. It was very traditional. 🙂

By institutional I meant more like businesses and police, but I suppose these political group movements is how it starts, and like I said before, I heard from my friends from the fringes of the motherland that there are these nationalist reactionaries in Russia, and I believe it. I suppose I had a “sheltered” upbringing of sorts because of my family, since I mostly dealt with very cosmopolitan groups of people when I traveled. It might be a stratified by class and profession as well as geographical location. And when I didn’t travel, well, Belarus is a very relaxed place. Any racism that exists there isn’t very loud. Nobody cares. There’s an extremely low sense of nationalism, so it’s harder to rouse bigots.

@WWTH

Okay, true, but here’s how it plays out in reality:

White person dresses up in blackface.
Black person says “that’s racist.”
White person says “I am not a racist. But I needed to denote somehow that I am cosplaying as a black person.”
Black person says “intent is not magical, that’s racist.”
White person says “(expletive deleted)”
Conversation deteriorates into insults. Racism persists.

ALTERNATELY

Black person says “okay, I give you benefit of doubt on racism, maybe you did not mean it, but you got it all wrong and it’s denigrating.”
White person says “oh, I’m sorry, what should I do instead?”
There is a conversation. Racism potentially averted.

There is in fact a difference between intentional and unintentional racism and how to respond to it. I am not trying to defend those people’s racist action, I am trying to say that they are accidentally racist, i.e. those specific people are not racist by ideology, they just committed an arguably racist faux-pas.

@Fran

Those Russians you encountered were full of shit. There’s a lot of casual racism toward black people that seems mostly inspired by American stereotypes.

I’ve seen a lot of jokes comparing black people to monkeys, for example. Notably, Obama, when our relationship with the US went pear-shaped.

Also, the same ideas about innate intellectual inferiority, penchant for crime, and other things that are probably all too familiar to you.

@dasha

I seen those old posters too from ’70s. And yes propoganda say one thing but people say another. You ask many people same age like my parents and say you will marry a back person and they will say you wrong and abnormal…

@Fran

This is a wretched argument to have. My experience and your experience are different. I am sorry those Russians took what you said so personally that they had to defend themselves by defending all of Russia.

There is racism in Russia. I don’t think it is as widespread or looks quite the same as it does in the US and it’s mixed with a very different attitude towards foreigners than the one that persists in US, and it causes these arguments about what is or isn’t racism.

I agree with your original post that started this whole tangent. Somebody should clue those Russians in about racism and stop them practicing it.

@Valentine

Depends. You ask my mom’s generation, and they’d be freaked out a bit if someone married an asian person or a black person. Yet at the same time, down the hill from me here in NYC lives a Russian lady mom’s age married to a black dude who speaks perfect Russian he learned back in those propaganda days. It’s not all propaganda. It wasn’t even surprising back in Minsk. A friend of my mom’s is married to a Korean dude. It kind of seems to depend on your location and social circle. People where I’m from mostly think it’s a bit weird, but they don’t think the women married “beneath them” somehow. Then again it’s not like I can’t see that attitude in some other part of the country. And then there are Russians who are racist in that weird way where it’s like “all black people are ______” and then in the same breath they will tell you about the nice black couple they met the other day who are just the nicest people.

My perspective on white fragility regarding the ‘r’ word:
Some people, particularly some white Americans, have an idea that racism is bad.
At the same time, they have an idea that only bad people do bad things.
They know that they, themselves, are good people.

When they are told, ‘hey, that thing you did/said was racist,’ what they hear is ‘you are a bad person’. Identity, not action. Instead of responding, they react.

Decades ago, I made a conscious decision to attempt to unlearn my learned racism, for the completely selfish reason that I didn’t want to be like that. Part of the process was learning to listen to POC and believe them.

@WWTH

That sounds very reasonable from one perspective. But to a person who didn’t intend harm being suddenly called an ugly word can feel like a personal attack, so now both parties have insulted each other, and it’s never going to go anywhere good. People are defensive by default. I am not trying to bait you or to defend racism. I agree that it is draining to have to constantly explain things. But what other way is there? Concern trolling aside (I agree that there is no reason to be polite to a concern troll, but it’s usually pretty easy to tell that’s what they are), what way is there to fix things without antagonizing people into not listening to you.

Black person says “intent is not magical, that’s racist.”
White person says “(expletive deleted)”
Conversation deteriorates into insults. Racism persists.

Black person points out racism, white person responds with abuse, and the person at fault here is…

Black person says “okay, I give you benefit of doubt on racism, maybe you did not mean it, but you got it all wrong and it’s denigrating.”
White person says “oh, I’m sorry, what should I do instead?”
There is a conversation. Racism potentially averted.

The black person, because they had too much attitude. They should have been kinder and gentler. In fact, black people and their bad attitudes are why racism still exists. Oh , sure. That checks out. /s

What Robert Walker-Smith said.

I usually try to mediate that somewhat whenever I see the r-word applied to ignorance rather than ill intent. Which is why earlier I referred to Fran’s post about the rude Russians who accused her of stereotyping them. To me when Russians are portrayed as vodka-drinking, fur-hat yokels, that’s as much a product of easy go-to ignorant stereotype as blackface at the parade. And it’s usually less anger-inducing to tell people to not use that caricature/stereotyping than to call it racist, because yeah, people take it personally and stop listening in favor of yelling. Zero progress.

Like yes, in a perfect world we would all listen to each other’s experience and fix our behavior and be rational actors, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for this halcyon future to dawn. I try to talk to people and to listen to them and to see if they are listening to me and generally arrive at better communication. And sometimes we disagree because maybe our experiences are too different, maybe we learn better over time. But I am going to try to avoid a confrontational attitude in any case.