Beau of the Fifth Column: Let's talk about a teachable moment about race from Ukraine....

[TexasTowelie]

[SheltieLover]

1. Kicking for visibility

[True Dough]

2. Insightful comment on the video

Formulka
52 minutes ago (edited)

Speaking from experience, here in central Europe people are incredibly racist. Not the young people (at least not most of them) but the older generation. And they don't think it's bad either, people would say "yeah I'm racist". It isn't a glaring problem, because people of different races usually stick to the capital cities where people are way more liberal than elsewhere. But it doesn't change this fact and explains the way we (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia apparently Ukraine as well) responded the way we did during the Syrian crisis. We closed the door and suggesting otherwise was a political suicide, so our politicians either lamented the evil refugees or stayed silent about it.

Ukraine is different, they are "our people" - even though Ukrainians are/were seen as "lesser" in eyes of many people, relegated and known for doing menial tasks only (it sounds horrible and it is, people around here in general look down on them) - they are not seen as different enough to be a threat to our monoculture, so helping them is ok with most of the population. It doesn't change the racism, it only covers it up.

[Phoenix61]

3. Insightful as always. nt

[IronLionZion]

4. I've heard similar stuff from American Peace Corps volunteers in Ukraine

Nonwhites had a much worse time with bananas thrown at them and monkey noises and so on. It's worse in the East and rural areas.

And I've seen even here on DU during the recession, where nonwhite American citizens became "less American" for many jobs reserved for whites by simply pretending that US citizens have to be white.