“Not we snubbed them!” People in Russia are outraged by other people's excesses, forgetting about their own

The powerful anti-racist wave raised in America rolled across the ocean and reached Europe. Here is what Nikolai Petrov from London reports:

“At 15-15.30 there was noise under the windows - the crowd began to walk from Victoria Station to the embankment and the parliament at the BLM solidarity rally - Black lives matter. The vanguard was not very massive: they walked, blocking the street, but, in general, observing social distance, then the crowd grew, went in a steady stream and walked for at least half an hour. Most in masks and with slogans, mainly on hand-painted cardboard: Silence is violence; White silence is compliance; Be the voice, not echo; No ju stice, no peace; Respect existence or expect resistance; Racism is a pandemic; Racism is small dick energy; American racism is caused by British colonialism; LGBT support BLM; Fuck the fascist system; Fuck white privilege; Fuck Trump, fuck Boris; What a sad little life, Boris; Expose the ethnic wage gap; Justice 4 Grenell; During the march the column saw a couple of police groups, 4 people, marching on the sidewalk at a rate of demonstrators. The chant of “Black lives matter”, the roar is sometimes formidable, sometimes joyful; the buzz of cars, the rhythm of the drums. The crowd, about a third white, mostly dark, is cold today, sometimes drizzling rain. After half an hour or an hour, the return wave started..."

Meanwhile, residents of entire neighborhoods are kneeling in Britain in redemption for racism, xenophobia and patriarchy.

As a public figure Yuri Samodurov rightly observes:

“These people sincerely want to overcome racism. And it deserves only respect. But if this happened in Moscow, and in Moscow there was “soft” and sometimes not very soft racism towards the natives of the Caucasus and Central Asia, the police would have dispersed the Muscovites who had knelt down on the street!”

About how these events are perceived in Russia, the historian and political scientist Sergei Medvedev writes in his blog:

“In Russia, as usual, their own forms of life are in the Petri dish: last year they mocked Greta, and this year - over BLM. As if all the problems with the environment and police violence had already been solved at home, and now we can ironize over the West, which has lost its shores in its political correctness. They give Floyd’s list of offenses, statistics on racial crime and pogrom participants, they are interested in what kind of tribe should be sought in the clan of slave owners, and most importantly, people are very annoyed by the need to repent and apologize, as if Russians were forced to apologize to blacks (Jews, Chukchi, Crimean Tatars, Kazakhs, Estonians, Czechs, underline the necessary). Western political correctness outrages more than domestic injustice - because the latter has already been used to, sniffed, and used to a lower position. Patriarchal consciousness, slavish resentment: resent other people's excesses, forgetting about their own. We apologize to Kadyrov on the first tweet, but fire to black. We didn’t rot them (we didn’t burn Jews, we didn’t exterminate the Indians) - we don’t need to apologize, right?

Meanwhile, the BLM movement growing in the world, spurred by cove and quarantine, is far from being only about Floyd and not even about skin color. It is about the fundamental injustice of the modern world and about unrepresented groups, about the fascist nature of power and the constant role of structural violence, about women, children, blacks, migrants, about nature, warming, animal rights - all of these are painful triggers for the consciousness of the Russian average man. Although if you think about these protests, they are about Mokhnatkin’s broken spine, and about the fuel oil spill in Taimyr, and about the stolen constitution, but why think about it if it's so nice to be indignant at the softness of the West, creeping in front of all sorts of Greta and Floyds - is it common sense and natural smell of a simple Russian man in slippers..."

The journalist Anna Narinskaya was appalled at the wild racist reaction to the events on her blog:

“Lord, after all, the racism of the Russian-speaking Facebook is something incredible. It seemed to me that from the beginning of the nineties, when philologists who left Moscow and found themselves in New York without work pointed me to an African-American garbage man and said, “Here they are, they take away all our work from us, in this country there’s everything for them,” a lot has changed. But no. Some kind of complete deliberate rejection of the problem. Somehow, the very quickly crushed Adidas store became more important than just a killed person, but generally decades of selective police brutality.

Complete (and also deliberate) misunderstanding of the historical perspective. In America, only in 1967 finally allowed mixed marriages. When they say that we have not completely outlived the Soviet here, we respectfully shake our heads. Some striking double standards. And exactly the same (again on purpose!) Misunderstanding that this, including, is a social problem. For example, the Kovid hit so hard precisely on the African-American population - after all, it is the African Americans who work in that unprivileged social stratum that remained to work during the epidemic (scavengers, firefighters, orderlies).

Despite the fact that in America this overlapped with the never-resolved (and often created by the authorities) urban problem - the ghetto. But all this does not bother anyone. There are these “they” who are smashing everyone. And we call them without these political troubles of yours, because we won’t come down to some kind of language conventions there (Yes, I understand that in Russian it is much milder than in English, but there is a peace agreement.

This word is consonant with how contemptuously called slaves in plantations, this is considered an insult. What will fall off from you if you write “African-American?” Moreover, this racism does not depend on geographical boundaries. What is Russia, what is the former USSR, what is America, what is Europe. I don’t want to analyze it now, although it’s not like it is Newton’s bin

I just want to be angry and ashamed..."

In support of her words, Narinskaya gives a very revealing example of how strong in our country racist and xenophobic sentiments are:

“After the explosion of comments in a post about racism (currently there are more than 700 of them), I want to tell you something. A story from their own, as they say, life. About seven years ago, quite late in the evening, my husband Kostya walked along Tversky Boulevard. It was dark and not crowded. But the people were - mostly young. In the distance, under the lantern, two policemen were seen. And due to the fact that they were standing under the lantern, Kostya noticed - in this area of light - how confidently they rushed forward and pulled a person from the central path of the boulevard.

When he reached them, he saw that they were hanging over a boy (about seventeen years old, for example) of a Central Asian appearance and that tears were running down his face. Kostya came up. At that moment, they shook his registration in front of him, screaming that it was worthless, they pulled out all the money he already had (500 rubles, it seems), but this was not enough for them - so they dragged him to the department in order to achieve a “ransom”.

Kostya said that he was immediately calling Kommersant and Ekho Moskvy, that he had memorized the numbers on their tokens, that he himself was a journalist and would not leave it like that - in general, they shoved the unfortunate Kostya in his arms. He was completely unconscious and could not even rearrange his legs. As a result, Kostya brought him to our house and put him to sleep on the sofa in the living room.

How I screamed when I ran into it in the morning and how representatives of the Uzbek Diaspora came to thank us with a cake - this is another story. And now I'm talking about racism:

1) Different young people were walking along the boulevard. The police pulled it out. Due to racism. Yes, in the end they wanted to cash in on him, that is, as if out of greed, but it was general racism that gave them such an opportunity

2) Not a single person except Kostya was interested in what was happening. Because of racism. We, of course, are generally indifferent to people, but if a boy of non-Asian appearance cried like that, most likely someone would have approached.

3) The boy’s certificate was in order. But he still felt completely powerless. Because of racism. Because he understood how people like him are treated here. In general, in our country, citizens feel powerless in front of the police, and in the case of a migrant this one is multiplied by a hundred 4) Saved by Kostya, this boy was simply afraid to go down the street alone.

Due to racism. Because he understood that this whole world was against him and unmistakably recognized in him a “stranger” simply by the features of his face. Now think - how is it to live in a world where you are “negatively” singled out every day? And what can this lead to?

And just don’t tell me about the fact that in your courtyard "the janitor from Central Asia is very accustomed and even boorish." Because I have a Jewish friend myself..."