OTHER RACES

[Kokopelli]

Thank you, I will have to read it.

This should give you an idea of the politics involved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom%27s_Cabin
It's interesting that the term "Uncle Tom" is considered an insult. It's usually used by smug white lefties to describe "conservative" blacks. Yes, conservative blacks do exist.

You know the movie series "Roots" is fiction?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2375751/posts

Remember the Titans
http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/rememberthetitans.php
"Brian's Song" is closer to real life.

It has reached this point.


You may find this interesting too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pla%C3%A7age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_people_of_color
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gens_de_couleur_libres

[mendeleyev]

Something caused me to do a doubletake this past autumn at a scene near our Metro station. It was late August and getting cold already in Moscow after some days of rain. I had just rode over a stop to the large clothing market to purchase a new jacket near Metro Dubrovka and was exiting our home Metro station when there was the unmistakable sound of a young 35ish American black woman bitching about the weather (in English, well sort of English) to her man. You'd of thought that she was in Philly or Phoenix by the lingo she was verbally tossing at the man as they loaded foodstuffs from the nearby kiosks into a car.

I chuckled to myself upon seeing that he was clearly a Russian/Slavic male. She was not bad looking, but nothing to write home about either and obviously not on the side streets of Detroit so her language and style of speech was noticed by more folk than just myself. "Girlfriend, you might want to zip the lip, otherwise he may decide to rediscover the joys of Russian beauty" was my thought as I walked past their car and headed towards home.


In another time however, at least a decade or more ago...

I was sitting alone on a Moscow Metro coming back into town from a trip out in the countryside to clean the gravesite of my father in law. Three young black teens, too young to be in University, had boarded our Metro car. When they had entered the wagon and sat down, several riders got up and moved to other parts of the wagon. I tried to initiate a conversation clearly to the chagrin of other passengers and the teens barely responded. Among themselves however they spoke excellent Russian.

Not likely from Africa directly they had more features like black Americans without the obvious American mannerisms. I wondered then if their parents or grandparents had been part of the black communist movement that migrated in the early days from the USA to CCCP at the invitation of Stalin.

Whatever their story they were clearly isolated both by choice in the way they moved around Moscow and by the reaction of Russian citizens.

[Belvis]

For all you know, those Russian girlfriends were informants.  Even if the USSR was "pro African", it was still pretty xenophobic, and a Soviet citizen who had a lot of contact with foreigners, in my experience, was usually an informant.

I learn here so many new things about Soviet life that I wander if my youth passed in a  different state.
Yes, we loved to talk about KGB informants, discussed who can be the one, but did not really care about. For sure, girls as informants would be the subject for many  obscene jokes. In my south-russian city there were many african students in 1980's. They had girlfriends, it was nothing special. Many of these girls moved to Africa in soviet times where they suffered then from sort of black rasism and/or polygamy.
I don't know if these girlfriends were all informants. I know they were usually pretty, and KGB did not pay them alimony.

[Ranetka]

I learn here so many new things about Soviet life that I wander if my youth passed in a  different state.

Welcome to my world!

[Gator]

Thank you, I will have to read it.

Not recommended.  It is a Tropic of Cancer for the less literate, and more self-identifiable by being set in the South rather than Paris. 

[Gator]

It's interesting that the term "Uncle Tom" is considered an insult. It's usually used by smug white lefties to describe "conservative" blacks. Yes, conservative blacks do exist.

Yes, "Uncle Tom" is an insult.  A radical black would probably use the term to describe conservative blacks, e. g. Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, Herman Cain, Allen West.    However, it is more applicable to those who seem servile to white people.
 

[Muzh]

Yes, "Uncle Tom" is an insult.  A radical black would probably use the term to describe conservative blacks, e. g. Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, Herman Cain, Allen West.    However, it is more applicable to those who seem servile to white people.

 

[Gator]

Muzh,
 
I don't know what is humorous.  Perhaps our experiences with black people differ.  I have a couple of conservative black friends, and 'Uncle Tom' does not apply to them.   Perhaps that great American hero Malik Shabazz  would refer to them as such. 
 

[GQBlues]

There was a recent rift between Duke graduate and basketball star Grant Hill against the former Fab-4 from Michigan when Jalen Rose recounted a sentiment about what they, as a group, thought of the likes of Grant Hill, black Americans who spoke void of jive and lived comfortably along the confines of a white American neighborhood.

Grant Hill took offense for being labeled as Uncle Tom. Not because he thought Uncle Tom was an insult, but because he believes it further reinforces the stereotype about black Americans as ignorant and easily coerced to things they otherwise should know better. Uncle Tom , he said, meant as much if not more for black Americans as Rosa Parks. Instead, what should've been a beacon of pride was turned to an offensive symbol for black Americans. Yet many black Americans would, knowingly or otherwise, persist in catering to the racial hate by those they disdain.

They wanted Uncle Tom to be an insult to the black community. "Sadly, ignorance is the greater insult to us all", he said. "...and one, for racism!"

[Muzh]

Muzh,
 
I don't know what is humorous.  Perhaps our experiences with black people differ.  I have a couple of conservative black friends, and 'Uncle Tom' does not apply to them.   Perhaps that great American hero Malik Shabazz  would refer to them as such.

 
Gator, between you and me, who's the minority here?
 
The reason I ask is because I promise you your experiences are not the same as mine.
 
Borrowing from GQ's post, ignorance is an insult to everyone involved.

[Belvis]

Now, you can claim that none of this happened, that I have no idea what I am talking about but it all did, and I'm only giving you the funnier stories I care to share, not the really dark stuff.  This happened all the way to the collapse of the USSR.  I'm happy that both you and Ranetka have fond memories of Soviet times.  But your Soviet reality was not everyone's Soviet reality.

My husband still refers to the USSR as "a belch from hell".  He has no fond memories of the Soviet state.  Zero.  People, yes.  The rest, no.

Boethius, thank you for the story.  You lived in different Soviet world than I saw. May be you're right, there was the Kafkaesque world in SU for some men.
I've read similar stories about dissidents but never about just descendants from the noble families or victims of political repressions. In 1980's (actually during Brezhnev's rule) the "class origin" did not matter much in social life. There were many ways to make up the right social status.

[Boethius]

In 1980's (actually during Brezhnev's rule) the "class origin" did not matter much in social life. There were many ways to make up the right social status.

On this, I would disagree.  I met my husband during Brezhnev's time, his family was still a "class enemy" then.  However, we did not marry until long after his death (and after a few leadership changes).

In terms of social class, yes, you are correct, to some extent, even in the 1970's this was true.  One of my husband's aunts was a devoted commie, and she prospered, notwithstanding her roots (though from the side of the family that was not nobility).

Had my husband joined the Komsomol, been a casual informant, proven his loyalty, he could have had an easier life.  He may have even been allowed to join the trade union.  He told me once that, at some point before his military service, he tried "to be Soviet".  But, he could not.  So, he decided he would rather die as who he is, than live his life as a lie.

[Belvis]

Had my husband joined the Komsomol, been a casual informant, proven his loyalty, he could have had an easier life.  He may have even been allowed to join the trade union.  He told me once that, at some point before his military service, he tried "to be Soviet".  But, he could not.  So, he decided he would rather die as who he is, than live his life as a lie.

The theme of KGB  informants is highly exaggerated. I always dreamed to see one
I respect your husband. Folks, who  , are doomed to failure, however they compel others to think.

[Gator]

 
Gator, between you and me, who's the minority here?  The reason I ask is because I promise you your experiences are not the same as mine.

I am pink and you are brown.  So?  And I have lived in a void?  I am older than you and grew up in the South in the time of dramatic change.  Do you think me a "Cracker" just because I find Obama lacking in so many ways.  So what have I not observed?  Perhaps you mean an outrage that I suffered personally.   Some bad unjustified things from a position of power have happened to me too, not involving my skin color, but bad nevertheless.  Some people are bad.  I have forgotten if not forgiven and moved on.   
 

Borrowing from GQ's post, ignorance is an insult to everyone involved.

So please educate me.  I will accept an insult if it has merit.   Nevertheless, I still stand behind what I wrote.  My definition seems consistent with Wiki's:

 The phrase "Uncle Tom" has also become an epithet  for a person who is slavish and excessively subservient to perceived authority
figures, particularly a black person who behaves in a subservient manner to white people; or any person perceived to be a participant in the oppression of
their own group.

So what is wrong about Wiki's definition?  Or has 'Uncle Tom' evolved into something different in the 21st C, and admittedly I am not current by choice?    Or perhaps you are confusing Uncle Tom with Oreo, another derogatory term?

Ironically, the original character Uncle Tom in Stowe's novel was portrayed as young and muscular who was beaten to death for not complying with his master's demand to betray the location of two runaways.   He was passive nevertheless, much like MLK. 

[Boethius]

The theme of KGB  informants is highly exaggerated. I always dreamed to see one
I respect your husband. Folks, who  , are doomed to failure, however they compel others to think.

I never said they were all KGB informants.  Sometimes, informants were for the party (though in reality, all that information ended up in the same place).  However, it was far more pervasive than you think.  I recall reading an article after the collapse about a KGB officer (named, by name in the article) whose assignment was to collect information on students at Leningrad State University.  He said in 1989, he stopped recording most information he received.  He became disillusioned at the high numbers of informants, and realized the absurdity of his situation when, in his own words, "the informants began informing on informants".

Depending on your age, you probably did know one, or more than one.  Now, they are all respectable business people, university professors, Rada/Duma members, oligarchs, or married to foreigners.

My husband could tell who was informing on him.  He would often do things like tell differing stories to different people, to determine which one would get back to him more quickly, and from what official channel.  It was useful to know who your informants were.  One was a putative "friend".  I have posted about him in the past (He, by the way, had a two week sex-fest with an American tourist, no consequences.  He was even allowed to go on a tour to Bulgaria after that).  As he was an alcoholic, as far as informants go, while sleazy, he wasn't the worst.

[Eduard]

I agree with you, Phil. I read "Uncle Tom's cabin" ("Хижина дяди Тома" in Russian) when I was a kid. It was actually a required reading at my school in Moscow and I remember being very impressed by the book and even cried. I was really surprised to hear "Uncle Tom" used as a derogatory term by the black community here in the US because I didn't feel it was appropriate at all in the book's context. But I wouldn't be surprised to find that most people who use the term as such have NOT read the book.

[OlgaH]

I agree with you, Phil. I read "Uncle Tom's cabin" ("Хижина дяди Тома" in Russian) when I was a kid. It was actually a required reading at my school in Moscow...

Eduard, not only in Moscow. The same compulsory Educational program was all over the USSR, and actually it is still the same system. 

[Ranetka]

Boethius,
 
I do not dispute your experience, how can I?
 
You are right, your stories are very very far from my life. I have nothing bad to say about the USSR, it gave my parents and myself education and opportunitites. They were a teacher and an engineer, good, decent people. I am 41 but I and my parents were late children, my maternal grandparents were actually born in 19th century. My grandmother learnt to read at the age of 16 thanks to Soviet Union. You know my grand grandfather was born a slave (krepostnoi) , my aunt told me a little bit of pre-revolutionary family stories and it's not pretty at all.
 

 
History is never black and white, and life is not either.
 
 

[OlgaH]

Father of my grandmother was a victim of Stalin's repressions. He was executed as a public enemy due to his social origin. My granny's mother died from tuberculosis after several months spent in prison. My granny and her sisters were children of public enemy, and they were afraid to talk about their parents whole their life, even after denouncing of Stalin's regime.

[Ranetka]

Father of my grandmother was a victim of Stalin's repressions. He was executed as a public enemy due to his social origin. My granny's mother died from tuberculosis after several months spent in prison. My granny and her sisters were children of public enemy, and they were afraid to talk about their parents whole their life, even after denouncing of Stalin's regime.

B ut then it did not stop you from getting an education and the job you wanted?

[OlgaH]

B ut then it did not stop you from getting an education and the job you wanted?

Ranetka, my point was that my granny and her sisters had to forget about their parents, keep the secrets and lie to survive and make their living.   

[Boethius]

Olga also grew up at a different time.  She would not have entered university until after the collapse.
 
Ranetka, life isn't black and white, but if you are targeted by "the system", you will, by necessity, learn things others may never even know existed.  And, certainly, your grandparents and parents would never have appeared at protest rallies against the CPSU, or openly (i.e. to neighbours, colleagues) criticized life in the USSR (I mean before so called "glasnost'").

[OlgaH]

Olga also grew up at a different time.  She would not have entered university until after the collapse.

actually I entered university 2 years before the collapse 

[Ranetka]

[quote author=Boethius link=topic=13789.msg297748#msg297748 date=133597
 
  And, certainly, your grandparents and parents would never openly (i.e. to neighbours, colleagues) criticized life in the USSR (I mean before so called "glasnost'").

 
Mine probably would not but I am from a scientific community town (Novisibirsk Akademgorodok) with higher then average proprotion of dissidents so met different people.
 
Again I do not dispute, your husband was an enemy of the state, your experience is vastly different.

[Boethius]

Olga, so you prove Ranetka's point.    However, my husband was from the wrong class.  He had a classmate who had moved to his school from Russia.  He said the teachers were always "exceptionally brutal" to him.  He was very quiet.  The classmate also took menial labour after graduation.
 
In his research of his own family, my husband stumbled across a photo of the Tsar Nicholas II with some advisors, names listed.  One had the same surname as his classmate.  He wondered if they were related, given the "official" attitude to that boy.  So, he researched a little further, and learned the classmate's Grandfather had been one of the Tsar's top advisors.  "No wonder they were so nasty to him.", my husband told me at the time.
 
My family's experience in Western Ukraine was not that different from my husband's, either.  One cousin, to earn extra money, took in laundry.  That included laundry for an UPA unit.  In the 1950's, she was tortured to give them up (they were still fighting in that region of Ukraine), and, eventually sent to a gulag.  There, as a teen, she was raped daily by guards. 
 
On her release during Khrushchev's time, she married.  She could not stand to be touched, but wanted a child, and they had a son.  She and her husband lived very happily, and they had an "arrangement".  Her son, like my husband, could not enter a university.  He, like everyone in Western Ukraine, joined the Komsomol.  He was allowed to take night school correspondence to complete his education.  He did not grow up in his family's ancestral village, but in his father's village.  Other family members were allowed to become village teachers, but not one of them was allowed to settle outside the village, even though nearest city was fairly small.  Only the cousin who went to night school lived in that city.  Most moved there after the collapse, a couple, to Kyiv.  My family's story is, by Soviet standards, rather mundane.