This western-centric view of how race and nationality works bothers me. I would never say that Russia doesn’t have a race problem, but we have our own specifics, which make our situation different from other countries.
My friend send me a link, where English speakers call russian girl participating in some chinese show for singers - “colonizer”, basically having a bulling fest in a twitter replies.
Russia had never had colonies in a way many European countries had. Historians still argue about is it right to use the term “colonization” about Russia. Personally, I think it’s plausible but there is a good counter-argument, that Russian Empire hadn’t got the administrative and economical structure of colonial empire, and had a different model of ruling its subjects. As any empire, Russian empire was xenophobic by definition and was trying to unify things, which lead to many oppressive laws for cultural and ethnic minorities, and some of these laws acted like punishment for the disobedience, like attempts to russificate Poland in the 19th century (sorry).
But then comes 20th century and revolutions: 1905 one, and two in the 1917, in February and October.
Power is a resource, and then everything change, power structures shift too. For their own benefit and for survival (like in the Civil War) people had changed names, and never ever told their kids who they really are.
We had hungers in 20s and 30s due to a rapid industrialization and also due a criminal neglect and authorities decision, that some groups of people dying is alright (Holodomor, yes, I think it was soviet crime).
And then come Stalin repressions - a subject we still have problems talking about still. Many people died, there was a whole bureaucratic machine that killed people, so many people pretended that they aren’t themselves to stay alive.
So, as you can guess knowing family history in Russia is a rare thing. People know who are or were their grandparents, and may have a photo of great-grandparents, but lots of the important details are lost. You can even say (though I’m not sure) that knowing about your ancestors is a privilege here.
Then the War. Near 45 millions people died in the Second World War. Big part of European Russian territory were destroyed and needed to be rebuilt.
During the war some ethnic minorities (some Tatars, some Caucasians etc) were considered “untrustworthy” and were made to leave places there they lived with nothing and basically to survive in new places.
Due to centralization of USSR, where university graduates rarely had chosen place of work themselves, but mostly were send somewhere, there was a lot of mixing of people from different ends of the country.
Then USSR had fallen causing a new trauma for many people: imagine your country rapidly changing into a complete disappearance — it’s hard for humans. Especially if the whole economic system falls too.
And then the 90s. Long lines into shops with nothing in them, Chechen wars, slow economical growth, then 1998 crisis (russian 90s were awful and fresh and wild and strange, so you see younger Russian millennials grow up in a different atmosphere, and this the reason why I think that generation theory doesn’t work).
Russian history of 20th century is a wild ride of revolutions and oppression cycles. People were oppressed on a different base than in the US.
There were ethnic minorities which were systematically oppressed: like jewish people, for example. But it wasn’t on the base of skin colour, it was different.
In the modern Russia the closest thing to an American concept of “white person” is a “slavic person”. Again: the base of oppression is an ethnicity, your surname. Person’s skin colour could be the factor too, but it’s not because of it, it’s because people of some ethnicities have darker skin.
Even is person is slavic-looking, ethnic surname could generate problems for them.
One of the oppressed groups in Russia is literally Caucasians. People from Caucusus, belonging to one of the many Caucasian nationalities - that partially due the fact that there were terrorists camps, and terrorists from Caucasus organized many terracts in Russia (Nord-Ost, Beslan, several bombings in Moscow metro). So there is this stereotype of “Caucasian terrorist”, which influence lifes of people who have done nothing wrong, but they are met with xenophobia.
Another big one is Central Asians (Uzbeks, Tajiks etc) who come here to work on a low-wage jobs. Some of them stay here and bring their families here in Russia, and their kids study in russian schools, and they get russian passports (with a lot of difficulties, I won’t lie). But they aren’t becoming Russian.
Unfortunately, English doesn’t make a distinction between russian as a nation (россияне) and as a nationality (русские). So many people in Russia aren’t Russian ethically, it’s rather understandable. (look at the map! Siberia is a North Asia quite literally).
Is this girl Lana Russian-Russian? A difficult question. Her dad is Tatar, her mum is Russian (but nobody knows their ethnic history in Russia, so...). She learned new languages, moved into a new country, started career in a new country.
And if you know anything about modern China, the argument that Lana is colonizer become even funnier: because power dynamics in the Far East is very different.
And yes, there are strong prejudices against dark skinned people in the East, and the other girl Feifei, I think encounters a lot of them, and the casual racists are making lots of comments under her pictures. And yes, it’s disgusting.
And I perfectly understand the desire to protect her. But what is happening under Lana’s posts isn’t protection of Feifei. It’s straight-up bullying.
I find fascinating the international (western) fans reaction: their lack of knowledge, their desire to project the western power dynamics on chinese talent show, as well of complete lack of tact and etiquette.
I heard it’s called first-year syndrome, when after first year in the university it seems for some people that they know everything, while actually they only encountered the tip of iceberg... The world is big, and full of nuances, and they generalize things, which they shouldn’t.
To summarize this long-ass post:
- Russia isn’t West and isn’t Asia, we are mixed and have a rather tragic past and a shitty present;
- Power dynamics and racial context in each country is different and must be taken into account;
- Being oppressed in your own country isn’t an excuse to be an asshole online to other people.
