Get white and cry

I probably am lucky with a circle of communication, because I found out the word "inkwell" only last week. In the comments on the article about the girl who is now judged in Vietnam for the smuggling of drugs, she is called the "inkwell" - in a figurative sense, of course, and not in which Lenin blinded her from bread crumb. The girl’s family, in justification of the accused, claims that she was framed by a boyfriend-Nigerian. And in the comments they write: "He framed, did not substitute, no matter; so she needs, inkwell." That is, the one who had sex with a black man.

I thought before that the racist lingo could not surprise me. But the “inkwell” is something so much vile, directly referring to the still fresh wounds of the Western world. In the southern states of America, the practice of Lynchi -to -and -handed men was widespread in the middle of the century, when they were forced to a sexual act with a white woman. The angry crowd did not have the slightest desire to understand: whether there was really rape there, or a woman carried her passion outside her own race consciously and for love. Because a dark -skinned person was considered worse than white -skinned, almost animals, and therefore not capable of making love for the sake of tenderness - only as a predator, forcibly. And the woman was not considered a person who can control her body, but only a passive object.

It turns out that it seems like it is possible, for example, a Chechen and a worthy person, but at the same time a prerequisite is not to project onto yourself when they say that "blacks got"

I can’t say that over many years this attitude has changed a lot, despite the struggle for civil rights. And here is the "inkwell" - exactly about it. This term leveles an act of tenderness, passion or love for a person of African origin, making it something low, inhuman, possessing the ability to stain, lumber. This is just the most crushing power and horror of racism: he deprives those whom he is directed to, the right to be a person, the same as other people.

By the way, the term "inkwell" is also applied to women who have sex with men from the Caucasian regions. Studying the issue of racism in literature, I faced a fairly common topic in American literature: the so-called Passing novels (in Russian it will probably be called “novels about those who managed to get out”). That is, about the people of mixed races, while outwardly looking white, who, for one reason or another, decided to position themselves white, stopped communication with their dark -skinned family, left far from home, said goodbye to friends forever so that nothing could give them out. This is a very common trend outside of literature: indeed, people who had the opportunity to go for the whites often used it. And they are unlikely to receive for this condemnation from other people of mixed races or African American community.

Such examples are also found in the present, although more innocent: when a person looks white and simply does not find an opportunity to advertise his ethnicity. For example, these are famous actors to Vin Diesel and Dwayne "Scalle" Johnson. In Russia, such stories were also: the most famous case is, of course, Alexander Pushkin. It is clear that the motives to identify yourself with white in the poet - by the way, born in the nobility - in this case were completely different. In the Russian Empire, where only completely elected slaves from Africa could own Africa, there were generally too little dark -skinned ones to clearly draw a racial question. But the Americans of mixed races, who deliberately called themselves white, did this most often because the color of their skin (even if the unobvious) was always an obstacle and stigma. With a set of different factors, they could achieve success, become scientists, get rich, but still looked at them as if through a color prism, regarding them as the next dark -skinned people who escaped from ancient darkness and managed to make everything “white people”.

In today's Russia, there are more and more Africans, which is why the racial question is becoming more and more

In one of the most remarkable books about those who managed to go for the whites, in the novel “Autobiography of the former color man” by James Weldon Johnson, the main character who himself did not know that he was black, decides not to be ashamed of his race and become a great African American composer of the Ragtaym era. But then, seeing how they were lying on another dark -skinned one who was detained during intercourse with a white woman, changes his decision and spends the rest of his life, pretending to be white. He understands that with that black, drunkard and homeless, he has nothing to do with the color of the skin, but in the tragic situation, this circumstance will be the only important and playing role as a factor.

Although many years have passed, the situation is repeated when in the same United States, police or "warriors" shoot the next African American teenager, because he is in a jacket with a hood and type of type of purely bandit. Or when, in the expensive Swiss boutique, the American TV presenter Winfrey, the most influential woman in world media, refuses to show a crocodile bag for a dozen thousand euros: they cannot even assume that she is rich enough and will be able to afford such a purchase.

In today's Russia, there are more and more Africans, which is why the racial question is becoming more acute. But his main essence is nevertheless not in relations between people with white skin and people with black skin (although I in no case do not want to diminish the tragedy of the African existence in Russia). The question of relations between white Russians and Central Asians, and white Russians and, in general, also white Russians, but Chechens and Dagestanis, and not Russians, such as Azerbaijanis, who, in fact, of the same race, and sometimes even paler, but the thing-dark-haired ones, is much more relevant.

Reading the "Autobiography of the former color man", I could not get rid of the feeling that everything described - except that the linems and slavery, which are still on the underground level in Russia, are also deducted, this is about my homeland too. In pennies, popular in the south of the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, blacks were described by sloppy dressed, rude, illiterate, unable to extinguish animal instincts. So they continued (possibly, without even experiencing anything deliberately bad for them) to see white readers. In the same way, in the popular television program "Our Rush" natives of Tajikistan Ravshan and Jamshud are represented as stupid, who do not understand anything, barely speaking Russian, miserable little people. Sometimes subtitles appear that seem to translate the babble of Ravshan and Jamshud in their native language as an intellectual conversation about philosophy. And the white viewer laughs even more, because he is strongly convinced: Tajiks, people are not equal and almost animals, are not capable of this. Well, as if a hand poodle would suddenly speak about Beethoven's music. Ha ha ha.

The same thing - with the rest, those who do not fit into the fair -haired Central Russian Paradigm: Azerbaijanis, of course, are all as they say, “Loose, yes!”, And the Chechens and Dagestanis are all as one bandits. This set of stereotypes for a Russian who considers himself a Slav, the only truth about those who are lower, if not in the food pyramid, then let it in the hierarchy. And when a person, whether he is a Tajik, Azerbaijani or Chechen, achieves success, earns money and respect, for example, saves people from death, being a brilliant surgeon, he is usually considered justified. Because he seemed to move from the "lower" race or from the "lower" ethnic group, to a higher level of development, and now it can be judged as a "normal white" person. Also, people who start the songs "These Tajiks in Russian either, neither, neither, no me" or "wherever you look, are only black." Like, they are talking about bad, stupid, dangerous, they say this, but their friend-ultrasound is a respected doctor and a darling in general, and the wife of his nephew-you can’t say at all that the Chechenka.

It turns out that it seems like it is possible, for example, a Chechen and a worthy person, but at the same time a prerequisite is not to project onto themselves when they say that "blacks got". Because a worthy Chechen can no longer be considered a Chechen. She plays the "white", "Russian" rules, and he becomes "white" and "Russian". Someone in such a situation simply moves with the flow, even if it is not like it. Someone, on the contrary, happily agrees and already begins jokes about the "black". And I think: probably, my grandchildren will read novels about how in Russia someone managed to go for the "whites", although they could not understand what these "white" were.

Katya Kazbek-feminist, LGBT research, student

The author of the text did not receive rewards for him. The author’s opinion may not correspond to the point of view of the editorial office