Some consider announcements like “I will rent an apartment to the Slavs” and “We are inviting a Russian to work” as the norm of life. Others are horrified by this. Where does intolerance towards strangers come from in a person and how to control it?
Hollywood actress Halle Berry has filed a lawsuit against the father of her six-year-old daughter, Canadian fashion model Gabriel Aubry, for straightening and lightening the girl’s naturally curly hair. Berry accuses the former roommate of racism and that he destroys his daughter’s psyche and lowers her self-esteem, accustoming her to the idea that her African roots are a disgrace and they need to be eradicated. Aubrey by hook or by crook wants to raise her daughter as white, and Halle Berry considers her an African American, like herself.
Unlike Halle Berry, GetTaxi taxi drivers are unlikely to sue for racism – recently, without their knowledge, their names were changed en masse, from Caucasian and Asian to Russian (Hasan became Khariton among dispatchers, Damir – Daniil, and Yerdzhanik – Eugene). “Customers complain that names are difficult to pronounce and give drivers with non-Russian names lower marks,” explains the company*.
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A little earlier, Internet users harassed 25-year-old Victoria Maladayeva, who reached the final of the Mrs. St. Petersburg** contest. Dissatisfaction was caused by the nationality of the young woman (she is a Buryat) and her political views – she does not agree with the policy of President Vladimir Putin towards Ukraine. The most striking thing in this story is not even the cavernous racism of the voters (“Buryat fool”, “shave your head in the toilet bowl”), but the actions of the contest organizers. Director Natalia Rogova told the media: “The vote was popular, so we couldn’t shut people up, everyone has the right to speak out.”
In Moscow, women from Kyrgyzstan are persecuted by their own compatriots. The Kirghiz community in Moscow is the most numerous. “Among a part of the Kyrgyz environment, relations between the sexes are quite rigidly normalized,” says Evgeny Varshaver, head of the study***. “A Kyrgyz can make a remark to an unfamiliar Kyrgyz woman, say, in public transport, if she hugs a representative of another nationality.”
Why is no one surprised?
Why is it that for many of us, whether in Russia or Kyrgyzstan, racist statements inciting ethnic hatred are the norm? Psychologist Yevgeny Osin believes that the reason is that in our society there is no clear assessment of nationalist statements as unacceptable: “European society has learned this lesson: today you can and should love your people and be proud of them, but declare that representatives of one nation better than the representatives of the other is indecent: this is a demonstration of barbarism. Specific laws in developed countries differ (in Russia, such statements are prohibited by the Constitution – Article 29), but everywhere such statements receive a negative moral assessment in society.
Racism and, more broadly, fascism is not called a virus for nothing – it is very easy to catch it. “Xenophobia has remained in us since the time of the primitive tribal system – intolerance towards strangers, reaching physiological disgust, the desire to destroy or at least discriminate,” explains social philosopher, Council of Europe expert, member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights Andrey Yurov. – Xenophobia was formed as a natural reaction of the tribe to an external threat from other tribes. But in the course of evolution, other aspirations arose in us – for equality, freedom, peace and solidarity with other people. It is important to learn to recognize and control your racist impulses.”
In order to control the archaic racist impulses in oneself, it is necessary to remember that demonstrating one’s nationalism, racism, sexism is not “cool”, but ashamed. Even when it doesn’t break the law, it is degrading to other people and dangerous to society as a whole. If we are tolerant of manifestations of intolerance, we ourselves, without noticing, can slip into the abyss of mass consciousness, as happened in Germany, Yugoslavia, Rwanda – and can happen again.
The antidote to the power of group consciousness, which forces us to divide people into “us” and “them”, can be culture: it was not for nothing that the Nazis, having come to power in Germany in 1933, began with the destruction of books. The works of Heine, Kant, Stefan Zweig, Thomas Mann and other authors, which contained the idea that universal human values are more important than national differences, seemed “anti-German” to the Nazis.
Blue-eyed vs brown-eyed
The famous African-American TV presenter Oprah Winfrey once conducted an experiment on her show ****. Before the show began, she divided the audience in the studio by eye color. Brown-eyed guests were treated very warmly and respectfully – treated to coffee, seated in the most comfortable places. Lighteyes, on the other hand, were made to wait a long time outside for their turn and were tagged with blue ribbons so that viewers could immediately recognize them on the show. Then they brought in an “expert on racism” – an ordinary teacher from Iowa acted in his role. She told the audience that on the basis of her “scientific experiments” she found out that people with brown eyes, unlike light-eyed people, have more developed mental abilities, they are more beautiful, more disciplined and persistent in achieving their goals. The video shows how quickly people “fell into racism” within an hour after the start of the program. A viewer with brown eyes could tell that he has a blue-eyed friend, but he is lazy. And the other – that only now he understood why his sister-in-law is so nasty and angry – because she has bright eyes!
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“People can be easily convinced of the superiority of some over others,” concludes Oprah Winfrey. – If no one instilled racial prejudice in us, then we would not know the difference. For a person to become a racist, someone must teach him this. Place children with different skin colors in the same room. If they are not screwed by their parents about the color of their skin, they will play well with each other.
Psychologist Evgeny Osin: “Among the Germans who persecuted Jews and sent them to the gas chambers during the Second World War, there were also real sadists. But after half a century of research, psychologists can confidently say: for the most part, these Germans were the most ordinary people who acted as part of the Nazi state. And later, when the social situation changed and this power passed, the Germans were surprised and asked themselves: “How could this happen to us? What can be done to prevent this from happening again?
“I am nobody”
The other day, Nobel laureate James Watson (James Watson) put up for auction his Nobel order – the award went under the hammer for $ 4 million *****. A forced step – a famous and respected biologist in the past, co-discoverer of the molecular structure of DNA, faced a lack of money. Watson was expelled from academies and denied the right to lecture at universities in many countries because of his racist remarks.
In 2007, in an interview with The Sunday Times, he stated that he was pessimistic about the future of Africa: “in helping them, we proceed from the fact that they are equal to us in intelligence, although scientific studies say otherwise.” Watson added that while “some believe that all people are born equal, those who have had to deal with black workers know that this is not the case.” The words caused shock and indignation – all the more because they were expressed by a scientist. Watson’s DNA discovery colleagues issued statements one after another: “There is not a single feature in the human genome that would allow us to claim that skin color affects intelligence … He betrayed us in the worst possible way. This is a disgusting and sad end to a brilliant scientific career.
Racist remarks are not Watson’s only forte. He also stated in print that “fat people are lazy, so no one hires them”, repeatedly insulted his DNA discovery partner Rosalind Franklin, speaking rudely about her appearance, and did not want to pay tribute to her work in his Nobel speech. Now, years later, Watson found himself in total isolation: “I became a nobody,” he told The Financial Times. “No one pays attention to me, no one wants to admit that I exist.”
This story is a clear proof that a racist can wake up in each of us – neither status nor education plays a role. “In fact, we are talking about the emotional immaturity of the individual,” says psychologist Tatyana Bednik. – Such people in assessing others can rely on only one factor – appearance, nationality, gender. They are not fully aware of their individual characteristics, they do not understand the nuances of their strengths and weaknesses, feelings (for them, there are only polar feelings like “love-hate”, but there are no shades of feelings). That is why they have such generalizations as “all fat people are lazy and whining”, “all Jews are swindlers”.
Psychologist Evgeny Osin: “Identification with a social group is a necessary stage in the development of a personality. As we grow older, we begin to answer the question “Who am I?”, identifying ourselves with boys or girls, brunettes or blondes, fans of a rock band or football team. But in the process of this development, a person is born with his own unique identity, and sooner or later we begin to understand that “I” is something more than a representative of a certain gender or people. “There is no name for my features,” as the poet Rumi wrote. But then who is “I”? This question can confuse us, and many people, instead of looking for an answer to it, refuse to search for themselves and designate themselves in terms of social groups, as if saying: “I am Russian (Buryat, German, Jew – insert the right one) , and that’s it”. Psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm called this an escape from freedom. In this situation, belonging to a social group will be overvalued for a person, and a threat to the group will be a threat to his own identity, to himself.
Read more:* tvrain.ru/articles/chelovek_iz_kalugi_znaet_moskvu_tak_zhe_ploho_kak_i_chelovek_iz_mahachkaly_pravozaschitnik_verhovskij_ob_eksperimente_gettaxi_po_zamene_nerusskih_imen-379083/
** novayagazeta.spb.ru/articles/9253/
*** vb.kg/doc/294747_evgeniy_varshaver:_moskovskie_kyrgyzy_hraniat_rodiny_v_serdce.html
**** kommersant.ru/doc/2264036
***** theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/12/discoverer-of-dna-forced-to-sell-his-nobel-prize/383288/