Why Are Irish People Predjudis Agains Blacks

Four years ago, around the time I was settling into life in Russia, a adult female asked me about racism in America. She said, "We don't have that here in Russia because we enslaved each other."

When I asked what she meant, she said, "Well, it is non like I can await at my neighbour and say: you, your antecedent enslaved my ancestor, so it is your fault. We are notwithstanding, so it is nobody'south fault."

I didn't know her as well well but I couldn't aid saying, "You know, that isn't really what racism is about in America. Information technology is a office of it, just information technology's non like 'my ancestors enslaved your ancestors, so: racism.' America is withal a very racist place. It was congenital on a foundation of systemic racism, from slavery, to segregation, to the institutional racism we have today.

She said that she didn't know what systemic racism was, so I explained every bit all-time I could: "Imagine America is a house with many floors. Everyone in America is born into that house with the goal of getting to the roof where everything is 1000 and people take buckets of coin and success.

"At present, well-nigh people never brand it to the roof, or even shut. Most people spend their lives trying to climb upwardly a few floors to drib off some progeny in the hopes that they will climb higher. The problem with systemic racism is that, while white families are oft born a few floors up, near black families are built-in in the basement. And this is a funny house where the higher y'all get, the easier it is to climb, with more than open doors, and people to help you along the way. In the basement at that place are mostly locked doors and mazes where no 1 shows yous where to go.

"Even if everything were equal now, which it isn't, it wasn't more than a single generation back that laws openly kept black people down in that basement. This ways that inherited property and wealth, the prosperity of neighborhoods, and the access to college instruction and services but started a generation ago. So, white people take had a six or seven generations head showtime up the stairs of this business firm. And if all of the power is at the meridian, who do you call up is still making those rules?"

At which indicate she crossed her artillery and said, "Yeah, well, what about Obama, then?"

Conservative agenda

A Black Lives Matter march in New York, July 13, 2020

AP

This would not exist the terminal time I'd have this conversation, or similar ones, with Russians, who in my experience, are genuinely curious about things and don't shy abroad from asking questions. It is a respectable quality that leads to Russians beingness a lot more well informed on a variety of topics, while other cultures that don't express this bold curiosity aren't as educated.

When I told my friend virtually the house it would take been much more user-friendly if I could have downloaded the past 300 years of American history into her brain along with statistics on systemic racial discrimination, just I was working with what I had at the time. At present, as the dialogues around these issues take go a worldwide fascination, I have plant a lot of Russians acting more than certain-footed in their comments about race. Interestingly, the majority of the comments I've received get a little something like this:

"America doesn't have racism anymore. It was a problem earlier when black people weren't allowed into the aforementioned places as white people, but non anymore."

This was news to me. I learned at a immature age from blackness friends that things weren't so lovely equally American conservatives similar to pretend. Even in the 90s, in very liberal Massachusetts where I am from, there were instances of burning crosses and bricks being thrown through windows of my black friends'  homes.

Today, the KKK, a historically racist organisation, is nevertheless limping along in many places in the U.S. Disproportionate police brutality and openly racist public beliefs is still quite mutual. This isn't to mention the persistent violence against black people (upwards to and including murder) regularly documented by witnesses' prison cell phone videos.

The stench of racism in America is only a scratch and a sniff away. So, when some Russians told me America isn't racist anymore, I had to ask: Where are you getting your information? And, without fail, I was sent links to YouTube videos, Reddit posts, and conservative blogs.

And then, fifty-fifty more curious, I asked if they'd e'er talked most these things with an American black person. Non a unmarried one had. This isn't to say that at that place aren't well-informed Russians out there with a plethora of black friends to call upon who still believe these things, only they seemed starkly absent from the chat.

When I asked some Russians why they thought the prison system in America was disproportionately black, I got the response of "thug culture encourages this behavior." However, statistics prove that white and black people exercise drugs at well-nigh the same rate, and then why would the number of black people in prison for drug charges be so exponentially higher, unless, for some reason, black people were targeted and searched exponentially more often, which is exactly what happens.

Racism misunderstood

Russian serfs

Public domain

I reached out to another Russians who take openly shown support for the Blackness Lives Matter movement to enquire why they thought so many other Russians were unaware of the existence of American racism. Nikita, from Moscow, had this to say:

"I think the reason that we (Russians) don't see it is that, in our life experience, racism is just not a grade of discrimination nosotros ofttimes face. In fact, 1 could live their life without facing information technology at all. Many people don't know whatever black people personally and think of racism as an American problem that takes its roots from slavery. Fifty-fifty though many of u.s.a. have grandparents who would say something like 'Blacks are animals'', nosotros would recall 'They're sometime and ignorant and I'chiliad progressive, I'thou not racist.' To empathise racism, a Russian person would need to travel around the globe, get to know people who are suffering from this problem, have a conversation, and do their research. These videos on YouTube of rioting and looting are just action shocking bits that people would lookout with more interest than long tiresome merely true and detailed assay of systematic racism."

Elena from Leningrad said: "I think these ideas are from immature stupid kids who don't actually empathize what racism is. There wasn't this kind of social inequality here in Russian federation, ever. At that place was Krepostnichestvo [serfdom - Russia Beyond], but it was abolished past the Tsar in 1861. Then no i actually remembers what slavery is. And so in the Soviet Matrimony information technology was socialism, and anybody was equal. Just all of the problems now accept little to do with slavery. I remember it's because we had a long socialist past, which really made everyone equal. They even killed and shot those of loftier rank. In Russian federation, in that location is that tendency to await at America and assume racism is the aforementioned as in Russian federation, how people are disrespectful toward people from places similar Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, etc. I think i third of Russians retrieve America has some mutual features with this, another tertiary thinks it's the same, and the last 3rd doesn't give a sh*t about racism. Really not even one tertiary, but a much larger group of people don't requite a sh*t. In my stance, people are having an opinion because it's mainstream, and they are greatly influenced by the West since they are all on social media. Not because they really sympathise what is going on. They simply want to be 'in this trend.'"

An educated opinion

It would be incommunicable to put a fraction of the scope of systemic racism into 1 commodity. But the time and effort to learn about it is important for anyone to become through before committing to an opinion that looks down on a whole race of people. With the BLM motion in America, everyone feels like they need to form an stance fast and nothing is faster than a quick Reddit thread or YouTube videos of conservative talking heads to brand you feel certain.

TIME Magazine writer Justin Worland summed it upwards in a recent article, "America'southward Long Overdue Awakening to Systemic Racism," pointing out some hard realities that everyone, not just Americans, should realize:

"To actually capture all the ways in which the arrangement is skewed against black people would crave tome upon tome. But even a short listing feels very long: black women are 3 to four times every bit likely equally white women to die in childbirth, in role because of a lack of admission to quality health intendance; black children are more likely to attend nether-resourced schools, thanks to a reliance on local property taxes for funding; black voters are four times as likely every bit white voters to report difficulties voting or engaging in politics than their white counterparts, in role because of laws that even today are designed to go on them from exercising their basic democratic rights; millions more have been disenfranchised because of felony convictions; hurricane flooding has been shown to hitting black neighborhoods disproportionately..."

Long-read articles and libraries worth of books on both private and systemic racism don't brand good viral material. A series of tweets or out-of-context video clips, dominoes of confirmation bias, seem to be all that many people, not just Russians, feel is plenty to condemn a motility and play deaf to the suffering of a grouping of people.

A lot of Russians I've spoken to cited clips of violence from the recent protests in America to justify their opinions. Even though these acts of violence are committed by fringe groups. Fifty-fifty though that behavior is condemned past the majority of protestors. Fifty-fifty though I'd doubtable if y'all and your family were born into that house, downwards those stairs, through the maze, existence backside a locked door for generations, then no one would blame you for wanting to burn that fucking house to the basis.

Benjamin Davis , an American writer living in Russia, explores various topics, from the pointless to the profound, through conversations with Russians. READ MORE: Why don't Russians smile?

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Source: https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/332476-russia-american-racism

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