My personality came about in a place where everything exciting was in my mind, which is why I'm a permanent rube who notices everything, no matter how much is going on. Among the ambient information in a city like Moscow, I till over especially print.
Early in my sojourn a fashionable young man with gelled hedgehog hair and aviator glasses tuned my mind to fascism by walking past in an anational camo tanktop with "Waffen SS Sports Club" written on it in Fraktur. All across the city, I started to read similar thoughts- the most frequent one smattered mens' and womens' chests with "Winners are not Judged... Winners are not Judged.... Winners are not Judged" in fonts different on every shirt I saw, which proved that this was a cultural exclamation shared by more than one factory owner.
I prolonged the conversation through my students, who I used as a survey group.
I went to my students at an international cosmetics company and asked them what they thought. Most of them were pretty cultivated people, and the first group of students, most of them over 30, was able to discuss immigrant labor as an accountancy question, but because of foreign business trips and French colleagues these Russians were diluted. One of them relieved me by exclaiming, "I do not understand this!" when I probed his group about the hate of blacks I often encountered.
Igor and Vladimir were bodybuilder telephone-salesmen in their early 30's who were treated to my classes by their benevolent boss. They didn't have complexes about suggesting their favorite whores to me, so I figured they would speak freely with me about my topic of interest, which they brought up themselves.
"Do you think black man can be president?" The 2008 election was still two years ahead and it seemed to me that McCain was most likely to win.
"I don't see why not."
"He is nigger. Can he get votes?" In Russian, the n-word is just another word, but I still wasn't sure if they wanted to ask if it a black man could win, or if he should win.
"You know that is a very hard word, don't you?"
"Can he get votes?" The way they don't even perceive my objection says a lot.
"Sure, why not?"
"White people vote black people?"
"Sure, if the black guy acts more or less white."
"Black people- it's people?" I want to correct him, but feel strange writing the correct version on the board.
"Yes, they are."
"People like us?"
"Who is us?"
"Why black people have no money? Why Africa has no money?"
My job is not to talk to my students, but rather to make them talk, but in this situation I feel obliged to make an exception, and go into a forty-minute explanation of the geographical and climatic situation that has led to a poor Africa. My explanation (actually Jared Diamond's) deepens- Africa is full of tropical illnesses and below the Sahara has no native draft animals, a key factor which prevented them from building more complex civilizations; Europeans had guns; they furrow their brows and begin to blink less- they must be listening closely. I am changing their minds. When I finish, class time is nearly over, but we continue because the conversation is so interesting for them, and I correct the grammar mistakes they've made in the course of the class. Finally they leave, and tell me with a laugh as they walk out, "We have expression in Russia." Even before they've spoken, I understand that my work has been in vain. "The black man can run, but the white man can shoot."
I have never like my own culture or any others, but the belief that other people are born less human than us is dangerous, and since I'm getting paid 20 dollars an hour anyway, I decide to use the time to enrich them, too.
Early in my sojourn a fashionable young man with gelled hedgehog hair and aviator glasses tuned my mind to fascism by walking past in an anational camo tanktop with "Waffen SS Sports Club" written on it in Fraktur. All across the city, I started to read similar thoughts- the most frequent one smattered mens' and womens' chests with "Winners are not Judged... Winners are not Judged.... Winners are not Judged" in fonts different on every shirt I saw, which proved that this was a cultural exclamation shared by more than one factory owner.
I prolonged the conversation through my students, who I used as a survey group.
I went to my students at an international cosmetics company and asked them what they thought. Most of them were pretty cultivated people, and the first group of students, most of them over 30, was able to discuss immigrant labor as an accountancy question, but because of foreign business trips and French colleagues these Russians were diluted. One of them relieved me by exclaiming, "I do not understand this!" when I probed his group about the hate of blacks I often encountered.
Igor and Vladimir were bodybuilder telephone-salesmen in their early 30's who were treated to my classes by their benevolent boss. They didn't have complexes about suggesting their favorite whores to me, so I figured they would speak freely with me about my topic of interest, which they brought up themselves.
"Do you think black man can be president?" The 2008 election was still two years ahead and it seemed to me that McCain was most likely to win.
"I don't see why not."
"He is nigger. Can he get votes?" In Russian, the n-word is just another word, but I still wasn't sure if they wanted to ask if it a black man could win, or if he should win.
"You know that is a very hard word, don't you?"
"Can he get votes?" The way they don't even perceive my objection says a lot.
"Sure, why not?"
"White people vote black people?"
"Sure, if the black guy acts more or less white."
"Black people- it's people?" I want to correct him, but feel strange writing the correct version on the board.
"Yes, they are."
"People like us?"
"Who is us?"
"Why black people have no money? Why Africa has no money?"
My job is not to talk to my students, but rather to make them talk, but in this situation I feel obliged to make an exception, and go into a forty-minute explanation of the geographical and climatic situation that has led to a poor Africa. My explanation (actually Jared Diamond's) deepens- Africa is full of tropical illnesses and below the Sahara has no native draft animals, a key factor which prevented them from building more complex civilizations; Europeans had guns; they furrow their brows and begin to blink less- they must be listening closely. I am changing their minds. When I finish, class time is nearly over, but we continue because the conversation is so interesting for them, and I correct the grammar mistakes they've made in the course of the class. Finally they leave, and tell me with a laugh as they walk out, "We have expression in Russia." Even before they've spoken, I understand that my work has been in vain. "The black man can run, but the white man can shoot."
I have never like my own culture or any others, but the belief that other people are born less human than us is dangerous, and since I'm getting paid 20 dollars an hour anyway, I decide to use the time to enrich them, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment