Racism In Russia: Obama Only Too Happy To Channel Bo Jangles
July 13, 2009
Barack Hussein Obama is making that face again, the one we have all grown rather used to since November 2008. The deal is clinched. The smile is broad and the tiny grey hairs behind his ears are becoming suggestive of the Nelson Mandela coiffure which you can be certain he is aiming for in the long-term. Today Obama is shaking hands with Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow, but the Russian’s face is pulled into an awkward grin, with one cheek pulled a lot higher than the other. It looks almost like a sneer. I find this rather amusing, because if Obama was just a nobody interested in a bit of tourism I would have discouraged him from ever going to Russia.
I had heard rumours about Russian racism: Anti-Semitic slurs graphed onto Synagogue walls, Caucasian immigrants being taunted or attacked as the violence in Chechnya spilled over onto the backstreets of Moscow, foreign students from the third-world subjected to beatings and harassment, and other cruel symbols, revealed by the collapse of “the homeland of Socialism”, of popular attitudes towards race comparable to 1930s France or even 1980s White South Africa. Then there are the statistics: The SOVA Centre, one of Russia’s last functioning human rights centres, estimates that in 2008 over 70 people were killed and more than 260 injured as a result of racially-motivated attacks. But it was only when I started to meet black Russians that I began to understand what it was like to live a life of globalisation gone wrong.
The “Chocolate man,” as he is known by those who pass him daily on Nevsky Prospekt, stands outside the Chocolate Museum in St. Petersburg. I had only been in Russia for a few days when I spotted this Senegalese man decked out in a white wig and a pale 18th century court costume. Under the wig was Jacques. “I hate being a chocolate man. Believe me. It’s degrading. Humiliating. But I ran out of money when studying dentistry here, and my country cannot repatriate me. You’d be a chocolate man if you were in my situation.” His eyes were thick with red micro-veins. After work he puts on his own clothes, rags of the worst imaginable quality. Then he distributes flyers for an R’ and B’ club outside a metro-station. “Most people take the leaflet, but every hour I’ll hear a racist jibe. ‘Nigger,’ usually.” Stuck in Russia with only hideously expensive flights home, Jacques and other black Russians are trapped.
I met Samba when studying at the State University of St. Petersburg in the summer of 2006. We were both eighteen. Samba had been there for a year already, so he showed me the ropes: which far-right students to avoid when they dribbled home late from the vodka bars, how to reach the sealed-off rooftop of the crumbling Khrushchev-era tower-block without falling off. When he learned I was Jewish, he become more sympathetic: “The Russians hate us Blacks, but you Jews are rubbish like us here.”
But Samba wasn’t free from prejudice himself: “Is it true Jews control America? Can you take me there then?”…
July 13, 2009 at 11:11 AM
This article offers a great insight into Europe away from the PC university/think tank mileau. Even here in Germany, few people would wish anything bad on blacks. But many people must rely on stereotypes because there are too few blacks for them to have interactions with and form their own opinions about them as individuals.
We certainly have not had an easy time dealing with racism in the US, but we have progressed toward being a more open nation, able to deal with people as individuals. Our struggles have been broadcast across the globe, but few have learned the right lessons from them. We aren’t the worst country in the world.
July 13, 2009 at 3:03 PM
Just to clarify, the Russian word “negr” simply means a black person, someone of negroid race. In no way it is a slur. Similarly, the Polish word “Zhid” simply means a Jew in Polish, while in Russian the same word is used as an ethnic slur.
That is not to say that there is no racism in Russia. It is there, and it is worst than anything in the West. Ironically, it goes back to the Soviet times, when children of African pro-Soviet elite were attending colleges there and had way more privileges than an average Soviet college kid. Those kids from Africa were also often a$$holes, just as their parents were brutal dictators.
Eric.
October 15, 2009 at 7:48 AM
Eric, I agree about the arrogance of many Africans studying abroad. The schemes and scams do not help either, nor do the abusive way some, not all men treat women, even those of the host country. However, I believe most students of any race want to study and have a good career at home or abroad. The “abroad” factor feeds racism when nationals are jobless at home. Still, this does not excuse violence and cowardice driected at non-whites and ethnic Russians. Two girls, both 9 years old have been beated and stabbed in Russia, and one died! Amidst this, will all images of and references to Aleksandr Pushkin be destroyed due to his African descent? I think a boycott of Russian tourism and goods will stop the violence. Money talks! By the way, I am a Catholic of free Black descent, and my patriarch was Irish. Also, I find it disturbing that just 60 years ago, Russians fought the Nazis and liberated many concentration camps despite its own anti-Semitism over time. Now the children and grandchildren of those men are becoming neo-Nazis. Apparently the Berlin Wall opened up more than free passage.
November 11, 2009 at 3:20 PM
[...] of the most racist countries on planet earth. BBC NEWS | Europe | Living with race hate in Russia Racism In Russia: Obama Only Too Happy To Channel Bo Jangles Sigmund, Carl and Alfred The Jawa Report: Racism in Russia: My Experience All of those links seem to be reporting on [...]
January 25, 2010 at 3:25 PM
Racism is an American innovation and therefore racism is America’s blame. If the US never existed the world’s people would be living in peace.
January 25, 2010 at 3:28 PM
That is close to the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard.
Incredible.