A New View On Racism

This one will be a short one.

Let me start off by saying that I am an immigrant. However, you wouldn’t know unless you have an eye for what makes a white Russian, and if you did, you would sound like my kind of person.

I was born in Astrakhan in 1996, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. After being adopted at the age of 2-and-a-half years old, I was brought to the United States, to a small midwestern area in Michigan.

The reason I’m telling you this, is because I wanted to throw my hat in the ring of the national conversation of this country's renewed interest in race. You see, I had a strange relationship with racism. On one hand, if I never mentioned it, most never recognised that I wasn’t fully American. On the other, as someone proud of their heritage, I became painfully aware that speaking up about something like that could lead to negative interactions.

For instance, the first time I was told to go back to my own country was in the second grade.

From there, the insults only got worse.

Commie.

Ruskie.

Stupid Russian.

And I can see why. Look at villains in movies or on television. There’s a high chance that they’re Russian, or at the least, vaguely Eastern European. It’s completely understandable.

However, my situation is not that tough. I can blend in. If I want, I can play it off like I’m a regular blandly white American. Others can’t. There’s no way to pretend to be white if you’re black, or if you’re asian, or if you’re latino. In fact, it’s harder, because there might be pressure from both sides to be proud of culture. Not so if you’re like me.

I guess my point is, Racism is stupid, but those who say it doesn’t exist are more stupid. If a white Russian like me can notice it in subtle ways like in the media, imagine how awful it is for those who have a much more apparent bias against them.

Have you ever thought that maybe they’re not the problem? Maybe it’s the rest of us.