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Are the Tsarnaevs White?

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I have seen over 20 progressive sources ask this question:

Are Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokar Tsarnaev white?

Of course, the question always gets attributed to somebody else:

Of course they are. But, that question still lingers in the air as white Americans–and some others–try to reconcile “terrorism” with a sacred view of “American” identity as benign, safe, harmless, exception, and non-violent.

It is a very cute strategy. Ascribe the worries and preoccupations that plague you but that you are ashamed of to somebody else and then denounce them passionately as a way of cleansing yourself from what you consider shameful.

I’m sure nobody gives a rat’s ass but I will still mention that, in the country the Tsarnaevs are actually from, they would not be considered white and that this is one of the main underpinnings of the relationship between the Russian Federation and Chechnya right now. But it is useless to expect Americans en masse to recognize the existence of other countries. As a result, the completely idiotic analogies that aim to Americanize the Tsarnaevs beyond all recognition (as you can see in the linked post) will continue to be made.

30 responses to “Are the Tsarnaevs White?”

  1. Roberto Severino Avatar
    Roberto Severino

    Wouldn’t this be pretty racist in itself to be so preoccupied with whether Tsarnaev was White or not? What a pointless thing to be focused on. Those people just didn’t want the terrorist to be Arab or else they felt it would have invalidated their views.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      People are trying hard to inscribe the Tsarnaevs into one of the favorite American narratives. Whether the reality is in any way related to these narratives is of no concern to anybody. I find this incapacity to look outside the US borders and discover that there is a whole world out there to be very sad and pitiful. The universe is a lot wider and richer than these narratives. Why not try to find out about it? It might actually be a fun experience.

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  2. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    Timothy McVeigh and Brevik were white.

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  3. el Avatar
    el

    Of course, they are white. Arabs in and around Israel are of white race too. How does it help anybody?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      See how you do exactly what I criticize in the post? 🙂 You take these men and immediately inscribe them into a narrative that matters to you but that has nothing whatsoever to do with them.

      The world is bigger than the US. And it is also much bigger than Israel. 🙂

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  4. el Avatar
    el

    Have you heard of Russia almost paying (probably) for its’ help to Asad?

    http://news.sky.com/story/1084647/missiles-fired-at-passenger-jet-over-syria

    “Syrian [officials] informed us that on Monday morning, unidentified forces launched two ground-to-air missiles which exploded in the air very close to a civilian aircraft [with 159 passengers] belonging to a Russian airline.”

    Also,
    “Defecting Syrian Officer: Chemical Weapons Already Transferred to Hezbollah”

    http://www.jewishpress.com/news/defecting-syrian-officer-chemical-weapons-have-already-been-transferred-to-hezbollah/2012/12/09/?src=ataglance

    What would have happened now had Syria had nuclear weapons?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      This is the most interesting thought-provoking article on the region I have read recently: http://www.thenation.com/article/173980/inside-americas-dirty-wars

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  5. n8chz Avatar
    n8chz

    Are Chechens among the Caucasian peoples?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      This is a term that is used in a completely different way in the country where they come from than it is used in the US. When a Russian person says, “An individual of Caucasian nationality”, this is precisely a way of saying that the individual in question is not white. An alternative (which is considered offensive but is still widely used) to this phrase is “black.” So a Russian person is more likely to refer to a Chechen as “black” than as anything else. The word “white” would definitely never be used.

      Remember, we are talking about a completely different vision of race in a completely different cultural environment.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        The point I’m trying to make is that race is a completely meaningless, invented concept. What is black for some people, is white for others. And vice versa.

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      2. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “So a Russian person is more likely to refer to a Chechen as “black” than as anything else”

        Would they use the same word to refer to a person from sub-saharan Africa? A quick taxonomy of Russian folk racial categories (distinct from ethnic-religious categories as far as is practical)would be useful…

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Yes, black is the word for Africans, too. Unless we are dealing with especially enlightened people who would use the word African.

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    2. valter07 Avatar
      valter07

      Chechens are among the Caucasian people in both meanings of the word. Except the “American” meaning (=”white”) is completely alien to the people of the FSU. So alien that it took us time to understand, when we started reading American texts, why the “Caucasian” people play so dominant role in American life. 🙂
      In Russian the word “Caucasians” (though neutral) means all people of Caucasus mountains region: Chechens, Ingush, Dagestani, Azerbaidzhani, Georgians, Armenians. As the latter two nations are Christian, there are no religious connotations in the word “Caucasian”.

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      1. n8chz Avatar
        n8chz

        What about the Nogai?

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  6. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    At the link in your post, the author says,
    “As Chechens, they were considered “black” in Russia (and what was the former Soviet Union). As Chechens, they can migrate to the United States where they then become honorable or quasi-White. Like other whites with malleable and/or contingent citizenship, as Chechens, a group newly inducted into full Whiteness during the last six or so decades, they are still on review. Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokar Tsarnaev are also Muslims. The latter category complicates matters.”

    Which is not the same as saying they were not considered “white” in Russia. To someone like that blogger, in the context of terrorism and crime in the US, if you read as phenotypically white, you are white. Hence the phenomenon of “passing”.

    Such an article is motivated by the fact that when someone who phenotypically looks like a minority commits a terrible act, terrible stereotypes are ascribed to all members of that minority by the majority. There’s an increase in police surveillance of people who look like that terrorist, if that terrorist doesn’t look “white”. So yes, it is myopic — because personal freedom and safety come into play.

    Before the Tsarnaevs were found, various people of different ethnic origins were falsely fingered. A high school track athlete (Morrocan), a bomb victim (a Saudi national), someone who had been missing for a month from his college and was found dead (an Indian born in the U.S. ) were all floated as “suspects.” They had absolutely NOTHING in common, except for the fact they were young men who did not read as “white”.

    I agree, Americans flatten everyone’s identity into boxes for their own reasons.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      ” So yes, it is myopic — because personal freedom and safety come into play.”

      – There are so many less dramatic cases where nobody’s safety comes into place where it is still impossible to make Americans see that the world is bigger than their experiences.

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  7. Titfortat Avatar
    Titfortat

    What colour do you think a Russian would say the Tsarvnaevs are before they found out their nationality?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “An individual of Caucasian nationality” or “black.” Or a really offensive term that still includes the word “black.”

      When everybody looks like me, the Tsarnaevs’ appearance really stands out.

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  8. Benoni Avatar
    Benoni

    I don’t understand why everyone feels the need to speculate about the ethnicity of others. They’re particularly interested in murderers for some reason. I remember when that Zimmerman guy shot Trayvon Martin and the media exploded with debate on whether he was white or hispanic. Utterly baffling.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I think this happens because this is the easiest and the least insightful way of analyzing everything. People feel that if they manage to put everybody into an identity box (white, black, Muslim, Asperger’s, etc.), the world has become less confusing and threatening.

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  9. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    I don’t know if they are white, but they ar4e Caucasian.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      We are going in circles here. They come from a region where the word “Caucasian” means non-white and is synonymous with “black.” The same words often have very different meanings in different cultures.

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  10. NancyP Avatar
    NancyP

    “Are Cossacks “white”?” Do ethnic Russians tolerate the Cossacks due to military tradition? Or are Cossacks granted honorary Russian ethnicity?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      The people who call themselves Cossack today are all ethnic Russians.

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  11. musteryou Avatar
    musteryou

    Does being white predispose one to certain essential tendencies, like domination of others, for instance?

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    1. titfortat Avatar
      titfortat

      @muster

      Well, by the looks of things, you can probably answer your own question.

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      1. musteryou Avatar
        musteryou

        Yes, I could always answer my own questions — pose them and answer them. That’s what I do. Actually here is the answer!!! Biological differences at the level of what is most commonly called “race” do not entail significant psychological differences. Please let me answer my own question some more if this answer confuses you.

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  12. titfortat Avatar
    titfortat

    Biological differences at the level of what is most commonly called “race” do not entail significant psychological differences.(Muster)

    Hmmm, but do they entail “slight” differences, like you being dominant and white looking for that matter? 😉

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    1. Evelina Anville Avatar
      Evelina Anville

      Titfortat: perhaps a better way of describing race is that it is constituted on the basis of arbitrary differences. Do differences in skin color exist? Certainly. Is there any reason why a slight difference in melanin should constitute a fundamental organizing principal in society? Clearly not. We just as easily could have created “race” according to height, eye color, or musical preference. Race is a human invention–not a biological imperative. And so in some cultures, like the Russian culture, people that Americans would consider “white” are racially “othered.” “Whiteness” is an arbitrary–not a universal construct. That’s all anyone is trying to say.

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      1. Titfortat Avatar
        Titfortat

        Evelina

        You should remind some of the MRA’s of that when certain feminists are railing about the white male dominating the world………or something like that. 🙂

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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