White and Black

It looks like this interesting text might have been originally written in Russian and translated into English. We received it from someone who reads this website. The original author – one Mr. Yuri Kolker, a Russian poet; born in the USSR back in 1946, now living in London. We looked him up online. You can find his short bio here. We never heard of him, but the subjects he addresses are directly linked to what is taking place in America. In our view this is highly thought-provoking, sharp and extremely politically incorrect perspective on the world gone mad with ‘racism’ and ‘anti-racism’.

Mr. Kolker’s point of view makes for an interesting allusion of historical events and ancient civilizations. Some of what he says is, in our view, debatable, but it doesn’t detract from his line of thinking. He doesn’t mince words and makes apologies to no one.

As part of the USSR, Russia had followed the socialist path as a state in the 20^th century. The same socialism is now coming to America under the guise of ‘woke’ and ‘race’ theories. It is not hard to imagine that thinking individuals who lived under socialism have critical view of the world not exactly in line with Western outlook (and certainly not in line with political correctness). Russia is much more traditional in its ways and approaches, but there lies its own acumen. Burden of historical experience only adds to that wisdom.

We really need to hear other voices discussing this issue. Coming from someone not burdened with America’s “white man’s guilt”, not ashamed to express exactly what he thinks. Such analysis and open speech had long been banned in America. The world out there may not see eye-to-eye with us and that is good. Isn’t it time we learned something?

We find the following most fascinating. The format is that of conversation taking place between Mr. Kolker and his grown-up daughter, and his after-thoughts addressed to his wife. It is not inflammatory hate by any stretch of imagination. These are reflections of mentally anguished parent who finds his own child, raised in Britain, now infected with “critical race theory”. It is the same sickness that casts a mighty long shadow over the entire world.

This is a long text, but do take time to read it in its entirety.

Eric

Communicating from opposing corners

You ask me how I can forsake my own daughter. But I’m asking you now – who did we devote our lives to, what kind of a person have we raised through hard times and scarcity? While being kind and tender, she is either dim-witted or totally devoid of morals.

The fiery Phlegethon River has divided us.

When she was a child, we hauled her out of ‘Mother Russia’, saving her from communist lies and what do we get? She is now full of these lies. She tells me in my face that black is white, that slavery is freedom! Her ability to think doesn’t extend beyond two-century-old catchphrases, beyond Robert Owen’s revered memory.  She’s a graduate of British university… Who is this person we raised?

Goddamn Homo Soveticus – now in our own family.

I never tried to talk to our daughter on political and social subjects; it was her who approached me with assorted nonsense. I should have never told her about ancient Hypatia (of who she, obviously, never heard). And that’s when the first grenade exploded: philosophy and math were created by men for men, women were barred entry. For centuries women were oppressed by men (without realizing it). That is the reason why so few women became mathematicians, physicists, thinkers and artists. When I try to tell her that women by Nature itself were oriented towards different kind of creation, she wouldn’t hear any it. She demands full equality with men. Wouldn’t accept the thought that full equality would result in the end of procreation of humanity; annihilation of mankind, an Armageddon worse than atomic war.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg. That memorable evening our conversation has gotten more disturbing. Somewhere, across the ocean, a policeman had accidentally killed a lawbreaker. By chance, the policeman was white and the perpetrator – black, although it could have easily been the opposite. The white and black horde got enraged; looting under the racist slogan “Black Lives Matter” had commenced. The clear meaning of this phrase is that blacks are more important than white, yellow and any other people on the planet. If you think about it, this is the most insolent and despicable racist motto you can imagine.

So, what did our daughter have to say? The slogan is not racist, it is anti-racist. Blacks everywhere are oppressed by whites; police and governments of democratic countries are afflicted by racism. By bringing down statues and looting stores, blacks are fighting for their rights. There are criminals who mingle with peaceful demonstrators, resulting in plunder, she explained.

I tell her: “In the civilized world racism is a punishable offense, and the courts are independent of political pressure; racism has long been condemned by the society; but they overdid it, too – the proverbial pendulum has swung in the opposite direction – given the same qualifications, blacks have preferences over whites when entering schools or workforce; it’s well documented.”

“Why is it then”, she asks with ironic smile on her face, “that blacks are poorer then whites?”

At that moment our debate reaches its fiery peak.

“In a free world”, I tell her, “working people are equal. Hard-working professional can get wealthy or become rich before they are old. Professional schools are open to anyone. The best example – in our times refugees from the Soviet Union arriving to America with few suitcases and adolescent kids – would be sending children to the best most expensive schools ten years later. Just work and don’t procrastinate. Nowhere in the world can you find white ghettos, where people would live off government subsidies forever. But there are plenty places where blacks never worked in their lives and crime is a way of life.

“Oh”, she yells at me in response, “you are a Nazi: there are supreme races and outcast races. To you blacks are less intelligent than whites! You are a racist!”

“Racism”, I try to explain, “implies not a critical view of other races, but racial hatred. Nazis were Nazis because the exterminated people of other races. One cannot deny differences between people, races and tribes. Those with critical thinking intact can never refute this. The contemporary civilization was created by the Ionic Greeks, the most talented people that ever lived. They had the sanity to separate thought from the altar, wisdom – from religious rites. Philosophy, math, physics, biology, history, theater, secular literature – they conceived it. On the other hand, Sparta, next door to that Greek civilization, is remembered for unimaginable fortitude, unheard of brutality and few smart phrases; yet they generated not a single idea.

Same goes for contemporary times. Blacks (I used the word ‘Negroes’, which is perfectly legitimate and appropriate in Russian, and our daughter had accepted it, albeit grudgingly); Negroes, as determined by scientific research, genetically are so much more diverse than white people. Any small African tribe’s genetic pool can run rings around any white, yellow or red-skinned people of our planet, combined together.

Genetically black race is superior to whites. They possess enormous potential. But at this time it is still only potential. No one knows if this potential will be realized. Historically, white man dominated. When white people entered Africa in the 15^th century, they enslaved and conquered Africans at the time. Free Africans knew no writing, no history. No one worked. Due to favorable climate and Nature’s bounty they didn’t have to work in the European sense of “work”. Their society was formed under a different set of rules. White Europeans not only enslaved and plundered. They also brought culture to Africa with the elements of civilization.

The story of black Africa had begun when the white man arrived there. The white men conquered and enslaved the black population because they were more powerful, and no one questioned it at the time. Enslavement had been practiced by mankind for ages, from the beginning of human history. It was a norm then. Imperialism was finally condemned only in the 20^th century.

From the 15^th century until Vasco da Gama arrival, black Africa possessed none of then-modern civilization accoutrements.

My daughter is yelling at me: “Cultures are all equal! There are no better or worse cultures, there are different cultures; you missed the train!”

I object. “It is you who missed the train. You are speaking in outdated slogans, yet life is changing and people don’t stop the thinking process for a moment. African people who built the pyramids on the Nile and developed agriculture there were a far superior race when compared to the nomadic tribes of their Sinai neighbors across the Red Sea. Then everything changed: thousands of years later Middle Eastern Arabs have not only surpassed the waning Egyptians but also the medieval Europeans. These competing races and peoples have never been culturally equal to each other. There always were front-runners and laggards. Today we see the same thing. The competition has not stopped. People of the Middle East have in time lost their competitive edge to the European culture.

This is what I think. This idea about cultures being equally valuable is a racist one. It is based on the premise that each person represents his race and his people, but not himself. But as we know, every one is different.

Feeling pride for belonging to a group of people is a slogan devoid of substance. If you want, you can start feeling proud for being born on Wednesday. Each nation contributes to mankind in its own way. Since they were fully liberated what have people of African descent gave to the world? They became pop music performers and fantastic achievers in sports – a notion no one challenges. Almost none of them became mathematicians, physics, economists and architects of global fame. Let’s compare them to Jews that came to America from Imperial Russia in the early 20^th century. These people arrived to America totally destitute, knew only Torah and Talmud; spoke no English or understood nothing about American culture. Yet in the next generation these people turned out Nobel laureates, yet no boxing champions. Peoples and cultures are very different, no one contends that. But to mankind “Matthew Passion” by Bach is more valuable than tam-tam music, while marble “David” by Michelangelo or Apollo Belvedere are infinitely more prized than the most intricate African wood carvings.

Our daughter tells me: “I’m ashamed that my dad is a racist”

My response: “I’m sorry my daughter’s unable to think clearly”

Prolonged silence… Thus we exchanged opinions.

If she was able to accept my reasoning, I, with some caveats, would have accepted racism accusations on my account. Racism as “preference” cannot go away. It will go away no sooner than races would disappear from the face of the Earth. I’m a racist because I married a white woman, and not a black one. I never had friends among Negroes. Throughout my long life I never shared their cultural interests or preferences. At the same time I made no friends with people from India, who were culturally superior to the neighboring nations and white Europeans.

A man is free to love blonds and not love brunettes. Preference is not an insult, not a crime. It is with light heart that I accept accusation of THIS kind of “racism without hate”. I love white people’s faces. I’m not fond of African facial features. I don’t care for their skin color either.  But there is not a grain of aggression in me against their civil rights. In a row between two people I would side with the one who is right – not the one I like. This is how a law should work, when it is upheld.

Racism as distrust is incurable. Police forces in America employ blacks, whites, Asians, people of Indian descent. They carry no racial animosity against black people of America. They are not prejudiced. To push “all police is racist” point of view one must have no integrity. Yet statistically crime among blacks is higher than among whites. Black policeman may examine his own brethren in front of him with greater scrutiny that white men.

If only our daughter could argue while listening to the other side. But, no, she is on the side of the oppressed and offended. She believes in justice and equality. It doesn’t occur to her that justice and equality are really unattainable in our world; they are a facade for resentment.

Wouldn’t a decent person want equality of all men and women, of blacks and whites? Yes, we should all vote for equality with both hands. Yet it’s a treacherous path, one over abyss. It doesn’t hurt to keep that in mind.

The devil of equality leads us into destruction of humankind. We are expected to accept that all people are equal not only in the eyes of the law, but also in their abilities and talents. Here, the yearning for equality, which in its core is resentment, is most discernible.

If our daughter was a bit smarter, we could have talked why thinkers are preoccupied with the fate of the United States. But America is not the only defender of civilization. Economical, political and military rise of that country is a very recent phenomenon. It was Europe that for ages served as cradle of civilization. If the worst of the forecasts are true, the USA in not in peril. The mankind is. We are becoming less humane.

It all started with the fight for the rights of oppressed; with defense of outcast and offended; with noble slogans. When they came to power, Nazis wanted justice for Germany; it was saddled with punishing reparations after losing World War I. The Soviet communists were equally “noble” in their demands. Initially, one could have never accused Bolsheviks of Nazi-style hate. But what happened in the aftermath of the Russian revolution? Concentration camps in Siberia.

Our daughter is a good person: she is kind and outgoing, attentive to our needs. She isn’t greedy, attends to us in our old age and everyone who’s in trouble. She’s an animal lover, gives to good causes; she is very good with kids and people in general. She is free of bitterness. Yet she takes half-a-step to the side – and we have fiery Phlegethon between us. How did it happen? We, her parents, forever lived in the world of intellectual conversations, with thinker friends and are well-read. And now we have a daughter who lives by catchphrases and utterly simplified notions. She is no longer twenty, just a tad under fifty years of age. I can do nothing; with bitterness I must admit my daughter has become a stranger to me. She may be a kind person, yet the fools do more hurt in this world than rascals. She is on the side of people who work against the mankind, towards its destruction. And we thought we left the Soviet Union behind… I would be happy to leave this prison when I leave this world.

Yuri Kolker

September 25, 2020

London