There’s a video documenting Chinese people being racist towards black people. I have yet to watch it beyond the first few seconds, which is a bad habit because I need to face these things if I’m to be a good comrade. No investigation, no right to speak. The replies contain horrified people of all colors, anecdotes of encountering racism, and right-wingers praising China, admitting unfamiliarity with their game or some shit. My first thought; China’s huge. There’s going to be racists. On the other hand, I was wondering if there was yet more to this than that.
You must log in or register to comment.
The important thing to understand is that even if there are racists in China they are systemically repressed. If you spout race hatred on social media in China it will get removed. If you keep doing it, you will get a visit from police.
I hope you’re right. Racism opposes China’s constitution. So I hope they practice measures against it rather than preach.
Well for starters, the twitter poster says “how depraved it is on CN social media” and says #xhs (a specific app). Already, it sounds like a dishonest generalization is being made. And from people on here who use xhs, I’ve never heard of them encountering racism toward black people as some regular thing and I would think they’d mention it if they had. But xhs is also not a Chinese-citizen-only app, so that is part of the picture to consider.
Most likely, there is some degree of racism toward black people among Chinese people living in China, but I’ve never heard of it being a regular thing. What I have heard is that black people there are sometimes treated more like an anomaly, like with wonder but in a friendly way. China does not have any reason to have systemic racism in the way that, for example, the US does. What they do have reason for is to have a respectful relationship of mutual benefit with African peoples/states and as a side effect, these relationships make it harder for the empire to continue exploiting Africa.
So coming up with ways to generalize China as racist toward black people, highlighting any edge case possible as the norm, and thereby trying to drive a wedge between Chinese and African, is no doubt one of the psyop goals of the empire.
In fact, here’s an example in one of the replies to that tweet:
You just realising now how good black people got it in western countries.
“You don’t know how good you have it” is what abusers say, which is what the western empire is toward black people. And this kind of statement is making my point for me. The goal of such a statement is not to combat racism (if it was, it would never claim the west is good to black people) but rather to undermine solidarity between anti-imperialist forces.
I suspected that. Was looking for confirmation from people better than I am at seeing it.
FWIW, I think you have the right idea to want to go through it in detail and not dismiss it out of hand. As it is, imperialist propaganda has degrees of dishonest to it. Sometimes it’s outright fabrication, sometimes it’s distortion, and knowing which is which can help with clarity on what’s going on in the world.
For example, Russia is obviously not communist at this point and there are criticisms we could direct at it for capitalist practices I’m sure, but it’s also a pillar of anti-imperialism in the world right now.
So then we arrive at critical support for Russia. But then you have the agents of imperialism who may do a thing like (while pretending to be “leftist”), “Psst, that Russia is pretty bad isn’t it, being capitalist and all?” And then leave out the part about their anti-imperialism. Encouraging criticism from the left and discouraging solidarity with the parts that counter imperialism.
So yeah, it can be a tricky thing. But that’s the kind of thing I look for. Whose side is something coming from and toward what end? Someone can look superficially aligned and even say/share something that has elements of accuracy to it without having the same goals. Like the patsocs who may be superficially aligned on certain views, but then diverge into a more pro-settler position.
Yeah, and I also want to avoid confusing “critical support” with “not allowed to critique at all because they’re anti-imperialist”. It’s a bit of a line and there’s risk of being suspected of being a fed or wrecker.
I don’t think you have an obligation to expose yourself to ragebait. The govt will literally make these people publicly apologize
I appreciate that, but I think I do. I need to be investigative. Too often our enemies dismiss our troves of evidence of US or Ukraine atrocities as ragebait, I don’t wish to be like them. And a big part of being a communist or activist, I think, is being able to handle discomfort.
I’d go with your first thought, that China contains multitudes. Some may be carrying residual pre-revolutionary racism, or picked it up from foreign media. Not everyone in China is an enlightened ML.
