April 19, 2021 • 27 mins
Alex grew up in a tight-knit community that often turned oppression into prejudice, and that’s exactly what pushed him to start thinking differently about race and society.
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Alex (00:10):
They were taught very much that different races had ethnic
personalities, everything wasracially based. And my
grandfather, that was the basisof how he thought about
different people's. Differentnationalities slash races had
different personalities. Itwasn't good or bad. It's just
fact. They are just differenttypes.
DB Crema (00:35):
This is United States of Race, personal stories of how
our earliest memories determinea lifetime of relationships.
Each episode features one guestsharing their experiences with
race. Listen, without prejudiceto their real, uninhibited
stories, because by sharing whenwe first learned, we are all
different, we find the commonthread that shows us how much we
(00:58):
are all the same. I'm your hostDB Crema. Today, we're joined by
Alex who grew up in a tight knitcommunity that often turned
oppression into prejudice. Andthat's exactly what pushed him
to start thinking differentlyabout race and society.
(01:19):
So when did you become aware ofrace?
Alex (01:22):
Yeah, I think that's, it's kind of a
funny question, becauseeverything is altered by memory.
And so it makes me wonder, youknow, some of my earliest
memories of race are, you know,maybe in first or second grade
in the school yard, reciting aracist song, which I'd obviously
been taught, you know, andeverybody universally sang,
about Chinese people and CocaCola. And I don't know why it
(01:46):
was so ubiquitous, by the whitekids anyway. But it was, and I
have no idea where it came from.
My elementary school touteditself as the most diverse
elementary school in the countryat that moment. You know, it was
a upper middle classneighborhood with lots of
professors and business ownersand restaurant owners. And it
(02:10):
was exceptionally diverse,ethnically, racially, you know,
but it was hardly like, somekind of Shangri La utopian, you
know, integration story, right?
But yeah, but yeah, the superracist song that everybody's
saying, was I aware that it wasracial when I was in second
grade, or whatever it was? Idon't know. But I mean, like the
entire elementary school knewthis set it repeated it.
DB Crema (02:34):
Did the Asian kids sing the song as well?
Alex (02:36):
Probably not, no. But not as if any of us noticed.
DB Crema (02:40):
Did you have any sense of inappropriateness about
singing that song?
Alex (02:45):
I think my initial reaction to it was, I thought it
was strange. And honestly, Ithink that a lot of my childhood
memories, now that I look backat them, when I was confronted
in some way, with what I wouldnow call overt racism, my
reaction to it as a child was, Iwas kind of perplexed or
(03:07):
confused, because it seemed alittle non sequitur. You know,
and like the the earliestchildhood memory I want to tell
you, it was when I called a girlwho had recently immigrated from
Africa, Blackie. And it was thismoment, that kind of got
embedded into my memory. Andthat's and that's again, it was
(03:29):
like, it felt like it came outof nowhere. Now I know exactly
where it came out of, you know,but at the time, it's like, I
felt blindsided by it. Like,where the hell did that come out
of? I...so I was very unpopular.
At this point, I think the mostunpopular boy, you know.And
there were lots, you know, therewas a social hierarchy, even in
(03:53):
fourth grade, and I wascompletely at the bottom of it.
And by then I had, like, I had areal chip on my shoulder, you
know, I was expecting to beabused and bullied and degraded
one way or another, and evensort of the nice popular girls,
I felt like were mocking me,even when they weren't trying
to, that's the way I would takeit anyhow. So by then I was
(04:14):
already like, fully on theoffensive-defensive. And I have
no idea what the conflict wasabout. It had nothing to do with
this girl. Like, she was from anEnglish speaking country in
Africa is all I remember,because she had, you know, an
interesting accent. And I don'teven think that she was in some
way the perpetrator of thislatest slight on my dignity, you
(04:38):
know. It was probably just, youknow, the nice popular girls had
included her and she was somehowwith them. But I vividly
remember the moment - she wasabove me on this little slope on
the playground, you know, but itwas definitely that moment of
like, all I have is thiswhiteness that you don't have.
(04:59):
And the moment afterwards, I waslike, Where the fuck did that
come from? Cuz I'd never saidanything like that to anyone
before. Or since. You know, andthen they I got brought into the
principal's office. And beforehe said anything, I was like,
fully in tears and just likebawling, you know, like, you
(05:19):
know, the whole thing. And so,yeah, and so that was a lesson
that was at the expense ofsomebody else. Right. So that's
the lesson that I benefited fromat an early age. Right, like
recognizing that there was thisthing that was just, you know,
that could just come out of me?
Because it could, because itwould work somehow, for me. But
(05:40):
it was at this girl's expense.
DB Crema (05:41):
Did you have any concept in that moment about
what was behind that? Like, whatthe power was that you were
wielding?
Alex (05:50):
I feel like I must have because I was so immediately
upset afterwards. Like,obviously, it felt like I had
done something terrible. Sowithout, like, somehow knowing
that it was powerful, I wouldn'thave used it. Right? Why would
have said that, in particular,you know? Why didn't I say
shorty or whatever, a foreigner?
Or girl? I don't know anythingelse. Right? That's what came
(06:13):
out. And I think, I mean, I seelike, in hindsight, to me it
taught me a lot aboutconditioning. Like, I'm
conditioned to this.
DB Crema (06:25):
Do you have any recollection where that
conditioning came from or howyou how it got formed? Right?
Alex (06:31):
Like, I know exactly where it came from, you know, in my
household. But I grew up in avery, very tight knit Russian,
you know, Jewish diaspora. Imean, my parents, and their
friends loved Ronald Reagan. Andthey spent, you know, every week
to all hours, bemoaning theSoviet Union, and talking about
(06:53):
how they, you know, sort of thesystematic, truly systematic
entrenched racism that theyexperienced as Jews in the
Soviet Union, and how, you know,they were denied everything. And
they had Jew stamped in theirpassports. And then, on the flip
side, fully absorbing, like theangry black man myth, you know,
(07:15):
that the republicans wereputting out in the 80s, the
welfare queen sort of images.
There's a lot, there was so muchon the television like that, you
know. The implied language was,you know, there's so much of it
in there. But any time, blackpeople were discussed, around
the dinner table in these largergatherings, which happened all
the time, every week, whetherwe're talking about jesse
(07:37):
jackson running for presidentover talking about, quote, black
on black violence, that was truefor them.
DB Crema (07:45):
Do you think that your parents carried those ideas with
them from Russia?
Alex (07:53):
Yes
DB Crema (07:53):
Or did that form coming here?
Alex (07:55):
No, it did not form here, at all.
DB Crema (07:59):
As Russians were they aligned for like, well-aligned
for the Republican viewpoint?
Alex (08:02):
I think coming from Russia, they had very fully
formed racial ideas. And comingfrom Russia, they came to the
United States being completelyprimed for all the myths about
African Americans, all the mythsabout Asian Americans, all the
myths about Native Americans.
Like, to me now, and like, as anadult, or even as a young adult,
(08:23):
the point of view seemed likejust preposterously un-self
aware. You know, just totallylike, my suffering can't compare
to the suffering of others, likemy suffering is ultimate. So to
back up a little bit, we came tothis country as political
refugees. Right? So we had noofficial right to come into the
(08:46):
country, we didn't come to thecountry legally - not by normal
legal means. Right, we came as aspecial case. And our special
case was we were Soviet Jews.
And because it was advantageousfor the United States, we got
the special status. Go forwardwith this same people who got
here as political refugees -move forward 30 years, right,
(09:13):
they're like build the wall. Soas an adult, and I hear them
saying this, talking aboutillegal immigration, you know, I
just, I see red instantly.
Because it's saying that havingyour children made prisoner by a
cartel - that suffering is lessworthy than the suffering you
went through in the SovietUnion. Because why? Because
(09:36):
you're white, and they're Brown.
You know what I mean? It's justlike that attitude was very
unacceptable to me as an adult.
And as also as a kid growing upin that diaspora, growing up in
this very liberal, diverseschool system. I didn't get it.
I didn't I understand. In theSoviet Union, you had your
(10:02):
quote/unquote, race written intoyour passport. So you were a
Kazak, you were a Jew, you werea Georgian, you were a
Belarusian, whatever. Yeah, andthat was who you were. And the
Soviet Union was incrediblydiverse. The one thing they did
not have was black people. And,you know, everybody learned
(10:25):
everything they knew about theworld, from these little
children's books, these littleSoviet children's books. And in
the little Soviet children'sbooks, Christopher Columbus was
a hero. And this is what theylearned. And this is what they
believed, you know, and that'slike, the foundational myths of
their childhood. And theybrought them here, and they fit
perfectly into whatever thetelevision was telling them.
DB Crema (10:49):
Why do you think they, your parents, but people more
generally have this need to holdon to those myths that don't
even have anything to do withthem? Nor does the changing of
the myth or the modification ofthat myth impact them at all?
Alex (11:04):
I mean, I think that, and I think I do this, and I don't
know, if everybody else doesthis. We build our identities on
what we're not more than on whatwe are. So. So why do people
hold on to these myths that havereally nothing to do with them?
(11:29):
I feel like my parents feltoppressed. My parents were
oppressed, in their context, inthe Soviet Union. They were
objectively oppressed. They weredenied jobs solely based on
their ethnicity, you know, theywere discriminated against
(11:52):
overtly. And I feel like youbuild your identity on,
initially on what you're not. Sowell, I'm a Jew, but I'm not
stupid. And if we study hardenough, and you know, work hard
enough, we'll show that we'reactually better. It's a
reaction, that could go a numberof different ways. And I feel
(12:14):
that my mother, certainly, inresponse to being told that no
matter what she did, she wouldalways be a Jew, and therefore
have something fundamentallywrong with her. Her response to
that wasn't, this whole idea ofcharacterizing people based on
(12:37):
the accident of their birth is abunch of crap. That was not her
reaction. Instead, her reaction,and many other people's reaction
was, no, we're better than youare. And we're better than you
are, because the values that youare upholding as good are
bullshit. And the thing thatwe're about is better, right? So
(12:59):
like, for Jews in the SovietUnion, it might be being smarter
is better than being strong. Youknow, and so just very super
simplified, you know, but aslike a child, right, forming
these identities. So okay, well,they'll always beat the crap out
of us in the school yard. Butwe're gonna get straight A's.
(13:20):
And they would get the shit beatout of them in the schoolyard.
You know, my older brother, whowas there longer than me who
went to first grade there wasidentified as a Jew by his
teacher, and separated in linefrom everybody else. Like, there
was no way to hide. You couldn'tpass. They would make sure to
call you out. So like, you hadto find a way to feel like what
(13:44):
they were saying about you wasfalse.
DB Crema (13:48):
How did you form your opinions very different from the
environment you grew up in?
Alex (13:53):
Yeah. How did I form my opinions different than my
parents or how did I turn outdifferently from them? I don't
know that I have, in some ways.
Which is to say, certainly, myattitudes are different and my
worldview is super, superdifferent. But I'm undeniably
(14:13):
their genetic product, and have,you know, some combination of
their psychological andemotional makeup, right. So I
must be more similar to them.
It's interesting because mygrandfather, who is the most
(14:38):
overtly racist person that I'vemet. No, maybe the second most
overtly person that I've met, tobe honest. But um, we're
practically identical twins. Welook almost... our mannerisms
are exactly alike, we fly offthe handle in the same way, we
have the same temper. We'realmost the same person. But
(15:01):
yeah, we have these vastlydifferent views. We grew up in
different countries, atdifferent times. I honestly
think it doesn't have anythingto do with me, I think it has
everything to do with just myenvironment. I suspect given the
same stimula, if you put me intomy grandfather, right, I'd
(15:21):
probably turn out exactly likehim. It's just a completely
different context. A totallydifferent environment. I was
taught different things. Thatdoesn't mean I was conditioned
any differently, but I was justtaught explicitly different
things.
DB Crema (15:36):
So I don't understand that difference, because you
were taught in your homeenvironment. And clearly, you're
taught by your environment, aswell in school, through social
osmosis, all those things, but,so I don't understand the
difference between conditionedand taught and how you see that
effect having impacted you.
Alex (15:52):
Um, that's a good question. I certainly think
that, in general, I chose myexterior environment over my
home environment, dramaticallyin all my choices growing up. I
think I'm like super American,even though I'm super judgy of
Americans. I'm still super,super American. So it's not
(16:16):
strange that I would adapt thevalues and the lessons of super
liberal affluent white Americaover the Russian Jewish
diaspora. But on the other hand,even in the American culture,
that I was immersed in outsidethe house and in the Russian
(16:38):
diaspora were the same racistideas. They were packaged
differently. They came fromslightly different places. But
the ideas were exactly the same.
I think just the differencebetween conditioning and being
taught something is justimplicit and explicit. And so
the teacher, you know, the whiteteacher, in the elementary
(17:01):
school looking out on a sea ofwhite, Asian, brown, black
children, most of them fromaffluent families, explicitly
taught a kind of 1970s,colorblind kind of curriculum,
right? What's inside reallymatters, you know, sort of
(17:23):
reciting bits of the I Have aDream speech. Things like that.
DB Crema (17:32):
So what about the schools now? You're in the
schools like, what...
Alex (17:35):
Oh, wow, man, the schools now, jeez. I mean, 11
years ago, I came into the townwhere I am still working. The
business manager came into thelittle interview that I had with
the superintendent. He justhappened to walk into the
office, and he looked at me andsaid, oh, wow, the diversity
hire. And he was joking. Ithink, because I was a guy, or
(17:58):
because I was a Russian, orbecause I was a Jew. I don't
know what he meant. But he wasvery jaunty, and thought it was
a great joke to say that I wasthe diversity hire. This place
was so white, that a white guy
DB Crema (18:11):
Nice white parents.
with a Russian sounding name wasthe diversity hire, I guess,
according to this dude. But now11 years on, the foreigners are
coming into town, and boy, arethere some people who don't like
it, especially with the womenwho work in the office,
(18:34):
especially the women who work inthe cafeteria, and over the
years, they've said overtlyracist shit to me and complained
to me about the foreign accentsthat they have to deal with,
right, because I pass prettywell as white. Listen to my acce
t and everything. You know, um..
because I am white, and somhow it might make them feel
omfortable to tell me all thiseally, gross racist shit they r
(18:55):
ally want to say out loud. Tat's the other thing that's am
zing. Like, they really want tosay it out loud a lot. You kn
w, like the anger, the hared, it's in there. It just ha
to find a way out, I guess. Thracism in this school system i
not subtle. Then you have althe really powerful stuff, yo
(19:19):
know, from the concerned whitmothers.
Alex (19:25):
Yeah, yeah, that. Yeah. I listened to that podcast. You
get the real systemic stuff fromthem because they're just
concerned for their children'seducation and they don't want
this or they don't want that.
DB Crema (19:36):
You mentioned as you were talking about the lunch
ladies and other people in theschool and how they feel
comfortable talking to you andthe way you put it, It's like
they feel comfortable talking tome like they see me as a white
man. It stood out to mebecause...
Alex (19:54):
Why shouldn't they?
DB Crema (19:54):
Why shouldn't they and like...
Alex (19:55):
I think it's a good question.
DB Crema (19:56):
Why? You don't seem to associate yourself that way.
Alex (19:59):
Yeah so, why did I say, I'm passing as a white man? I
think that it's a very recentchange that I've had in how I
understand my own identity as awhite man. Because I think that
a few years ago, I would bequite adamant that I did not
(20:23):
feel white. And it was probablyonly since I got involved with
this active school integrationprogram that we have, and
started going to their annualconferences, which are pretty
intense and sort of amazing, interms of racial education in
(20:45):
America, that I started toreally question that refusal,
the pushing away of thatidentity of being a white man.
And it's interesting, too,because at the same time, one
idea that I've held on to, youknow, since I was educated at a
very early age, about theHolocaust, and intense
(21:10):
anti-semitism, you know, inmodern Soviet Union, that you
don't get to decide youridentity. That your identity is
imposed on you, right? The Jewsin Germany wanted to be as
German, they were dandies. Theydidn't wear, you know, kippots,
they didn't have pe'ots, youknow, they didn't do any Jewish
stuff. They were Germans, youknow, and then the Nazis came
(21:32):
around... like, you know, Ithink it's very easy for people
to hold contradictory ideas, andcontradictory identities in
their mind. So, you know,through most of my young
adulthood, and my adulthood, Iwould never fully admit to being
a white man. Just not anAmerican, just not the standard,
(21:55):
not vanilla. Whatever. Just notthat though. Yeah, until
somehow, just a few years ago,right, I applied that same
principle that I knew aboutother things to whiteness. You
mostly are, how you're treated.
Your day is defined by howyou're perceived by others, and
(22:15):
how people react to you on themost basic level, you know. And
when I colored by hair all sortsof colors and would go into a
store, and everybody would besuspicious of me, that was a
choice. You know what I mean?
Then I just cut all my hair off,and everything was chill after
that. I had full control overit. That's, I mean, really, it's
(22:38):
about, it's about control. Thatidea is central. Is there
something about your identitythat you have control over? More
importantly, is there somethingabout the perception of your
identity that you have controlover? Because I feel like it's
the perception of the identitythat affects your daily life.
(23:00):
You know, but I think that thesort of the saying, like, I'm
not a white guy is about alsonot wanting to let other people
define who you are.
DB Crema (23:15):
I like that you brought it right around to
um...something I was thinkingabout as you know, you talked
about changing your hair color,and that you could control the
reaction to you. There's aprivilege in that. And I like
that you brought it around tothis point about like, there are
things you can change, you cancontrol how people treat you
react to you. And there's a lotof things that one cannot change
(23:38):
about themselves and control.
Alex (23:40):
I think there's a lot of things that you can't control
when it comes to people'sreactions to you. But that said,
I feel like I in particular, amcertainly one of a very few
people in the history ofhumanity. Let me rephrase that.
(24:02):
I don't think there have beenvery many people in the history
of humanity who were quite asprivileged as I am. In terms of
just sheer power, sheer controlover how people perceive me. I'm
not adept at it, perhaps I mightnot have the skills. But I don't
even need to have the skills.
Because one glaring thing thatI've noticed in my life is that
(24:27):
I can fuck up royally, and havenothing but good stuff happened
to me. And that's happened to meover and over and over again.
And that's because I have amassive safety net in the guise
of my parents. And it's alsobecause I'm a white male in
America and I have a life freeof violence. Completely free of
(24:49):
violence. That, to me, it putsme like immediately in the top
20th percentile of the currenthuman population. Right away.
The main enormous disadvantageof any kind of privileged is
that, if things go well for you,if you're popular, if you don't
(25:11):
have learning disabilities, ifthings come easily to you, you
never have to adapt. You neverhave to do any creative problem
solving. You never have tostruggle and overcome. So yeah,
like I'm tremendouslyprivileged. I feel like I'm
sitting on a pile of history,right? I've got everything that
a human being ever wantedthrough history, you know. It
(25:33):
also blinds you. You're blind,you don't know what you don't
know. You're looking at theworld through this tiny little
peep hole. You're never going totake on somebody else's
perspective. You can't do that.
You're incapable of doing it.
But you can trust that they arean expert on their perspective.
Mostly, I think, my mantra overthe last couple of years has
(25:56):
been a humility of perspective.
DB Crema (26:12):
Thanks for listening to United States of Race. The
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(26:57):
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gmail.com. Until next time.
They were taught very much that different races had ethnic
personalities, everything wasracially based. And my
grandfather, that was the basisof how he thought about
different people's. Differentnationalities slash races had
different personalities. Itwasn't good or bad. It's just
fact. They are just differenttypes.
DB Crema (00:35):
This is United States of Race, personal stories of how
our earliest memories determinea lifetime of relationships.
Each episode features one guestsharing their experiences with
race. Listen, without prejudiceto their real, uninhibited
stories, because by sharing whenwe first learned, we are all
different, we find the commonthread that shows us how much we
(00:58):
are all the same. I'm your hostDB Crema. Today, we're joined by
Alex who grew up in a tight knitcommunity that often turned
oppression into prejudice. Andthat's exactly what pushed him
to start thinking differentlyabout race and society.
(01:19):
So when did you become aware ofrace?
Alex (01:22):
Yeah, I think that's, it's kind of a
funny question, becauseeverything is altered by memory.
And so it makes me wonder, youknow, some of my earliest
memories of race are, you know,maybe in first or second grade
in the school yard, reciting aracist song, which I'd obviously
been taught, you know, andeverybody universally sang,
about Chinese people and CocaCola. And I don't know why it
(01:46):
was so ubiquitous, by the whitekids anyway. But it was, and I
have no idea where it came from.
My elementary school touteditself as the most diverse
elementary school in the countryat that moment. You know, it was
a upper middle classneighborhood with lots of
professors and business ownersand restaurant owners. And it
(02:10):
was exceptionally diverse,ethnically, racially, you know,
but it was hardly like, somekind of Shangri La utopian, you
know, integration story, right?
But yeah, but yeah, the superracist song that everybody's
saying, was I aware that it wasracial when I was in second
grade, or whatever it was? Idon't know. But I mean, like the
entire elementary school knewthis set it repeated it.
DB Crema (02:34):
Did the Asian kids sing the song as well?
Alex (02:36):
Probably not, no. But not as if any of us noticed.
DB Crema (02:40):
Did you have any sense of inappropriateness about
singing that song?
Alex (02:45):
I think my initial reaction to it was, I thought it
was strange. And honestly, Ithink that a lot of my childhood
memories, now that I look backat them, when I was confronted
in some way, with what I wouldnow call overt racism, my
reaction to it as a child was, Iwas kind of perplexed or
(03:07):
confused, because it seemed alittle non sequitur. You know,
and like the the earliestchildhood memory I want to tell
you, it was when I called a girlwho had recently immigrated from
Africa, Blackie. And it was thismoment, that kind of got
embedded into my memory. Andthat's and that's again, it was
(03:29):
like, it felt like it came outof nowhere. Now I know exactly
where it came out of, you know,but at the time, it's like, I
felt blindsided by it. Like,where the hell did that come out
of? I...so I was very unpopular.
At this point, I think the mostunpopular boy, you know.And
there were lots, you know, therewas a social hierarchy, even in
(03:53):
fourth grade, and I wascompletely at the bottom of it.
And by then I had, like, I had areal chip on my shoulder, you
know, I was expecting to beabused and bullied and degraded
one way or another, and evensort of the nice popular girls,
I felt like were mocking me,even when they weren't trying
to, that's the way I would takeit anyhow. So by then I was
(04:14):
already like, fully on theoffensive-defensive. And I have
no idea what the conflict wasabout. It had nothing to do with
this girl. Like, she was from anEnglish speaking country in
Africa is all I remember,because she had, you know, an
interesting accent. And I don'teven think that she was in some
way the perpetrator of thislatest slight on my dignity, you
(04:38):
know. It was probably just, youknow, the nice popular girls had
included her and she was somehowwith them. But I vividly
remember the moment - she wasabove me on this little slope on
the playground, you know, but itwas definitely that moment of
like, all I have is thiswhiteness that you don't have.
(04:59):
And the moment afterwards, I waslike, Where the fuck did that
come from? Cuz I'd never saidanything like that to anyone
before. Or since. You know, andthen they I got brought into the
principal's office. And beforehe said anything, I was like,
fully in tears and just likebawling, you know, like, you
(05:19):
know, the whole thing. And so,yeah, and so that was a lesson
that was at the expense ofsomebody else. Right. So that's
the lesson that I benefited fromat an early age. Right, like
recognizing that there was thisthing that was just, you know,
that could just come out of me?
Because it could, because itwould work somehow, for me. But
(05:40):
it was at this girl's expense.
DB Crema (05:41):
Did you have any concept in that moment about
what was behind that? Like, whatthe power was that you were
wielding?
Alex (05:50):
I feel like I must have because I was so immediately
upset afterwards. Like,obviously, it felt like I had
done something terrible. Sowithout, like, somehow knowing
that it was powerful, I wouldn'thave used it. Right? Why would
have said that, in particular,you know? Why didn't I say
shorty or whatever, a foreigner?
Or girl? I don't know anythingelse. Right? That's what came
(06:13):
out. And I think, I mean, I seelike, in hindsight, to me it
taught me a lot aboutconditioning. Like, I'm
conditioned to this.
DB Crema (06:25):
Do you have any recollection where that
conditioning came from or howyou how it got formed? Right?
Alex (06:31):
Like, I know exactly where it came from, you know, in my
household. But I grew up in avery, very tight knit Russian,
you know, Jewish diaspora. Imean, my parents, and their
friends loved Ronald Reagan. Andthey spent, you know, every week
to all hours, bemoaning theSoviet Union, and talking about
(06:53):
how they, you know, sort of thesystematic, truly systematic
entrenched racism that theyexperienced as Jews in the
Soviet Union, and how, you know,they were denied everything. And
they had Jew stamped in theirpassports. And then, on the flip
side, fully absorbing, like theangry black man myth, you know,
(07:15):
that the republicans wereputting out in the 80s, the
welfare queen sort of images.
There's a lot, there was so muchon the television like that, you
know. The implied language was,you know, there's so much of it
in there. But any time, blackpeople were discussed, around
the dinner table in these largergatherings, which happened all
the time, every week, whetherwe're talking about jesse
(07:37):
jackson running for presidentover talking about, quote, black
on black violence, that was truefor them.
DB Crema (07:45):
Do you think that your parents carried those ideas with
them from Russia?
Alex (07:53):
Yes
DB Crema (07:53):
Or did that form coming here?
Alex (07:55):
No, it did not form here, at all.
DB Crema (07:59):
As Russians were they aligned for like, well-aligned
for the Republican viewpoint?
Alex (08:02):
I think coming from Russia, they had very fully
formed racial ideas. And comingfrom Russia, they came to the
United States being completelyprimed for all the myths about
African Americans, all the mythsabout Asian Americans, all the
myths about Native Americans.
Like, to me now, and like, as anadult, or even as a young adult,
(08:23):
the point of view seemed likejust preposterously un-self
aware. You know, just totallylike, my suffering can't compare
to the suffering of others, likemy suffering is ultimate. So to
back up a little bit, we came tothis country as political
refugees. Right? So we had noofficial right to come into the
(08:46):
country, we didn't come to thecountry legally - not by normal
legal means. Right, we came as aspecial case. And our special
case was we were Soviet Jews.
And because it was advantageousfor the United States, we got
the special status. Go forwardwith this same people who got
here as political refugees -move forward 30 years, right,
(09:13):
they're like build the wall. Soas an adult, and I hear them
saying this, talking aboutillegal immigration, you know, I
just, I see red instantly.
Because it's saying that havingyour children made prisoner by a
cartel - that suffering is lessworthy than the suffering you
went through in the SovietUnion. Because why? Because
(09:36):
you're white, and they're Brown.
You know what I mean? It's justlike that attitude was very
unacceptable to me as an adult.
And as also as a kid growing upin that diaspora, growing up in
this very liberal, diverseschool system. I didn't get it.
I didn't I understand. In theSoviet Union, you had your
(10:02):
quote/unquote, race written intoyour passport. So you were a
Kazak, you were a Jew, you werea Georgian, you were a
Belarusian, whatever. Yeah, andthat was who you were. And the
Soviet Union was incrediblydiverse. The one thing they did
not have was black people. And,you know, everybody learned
(10:25):
everything they knew about theworld, from these little
children's books, these littleSoviet children's books. And in
the little Soviet children'sbooks, Christopher Columbus was
a hero. And this is what theylearned. And this is what they
believed, you know, and that'slike, the foundational myths of
their childhood. And theybrought them here, and they fit
perfectly into whatever thetelevision was telling them.
DB Crema (10:49):
Why do you think they, your parents, but people more
generally have this need to holdon to those myths that don't
even have anything to do withthem? Nor does the changing of
the myth or the modification ofthat myth impact them at all?
Alex (11:04):
I mean, I think that, and I think I do this, and I don't
know, if everybody else doesthis. We build our identities on
what we're not more than on whatwe are. So. So why do people
hold on to these myths that havereally nothing to do with them?
(11:29):
I feel like my parents feltoppressed. My parents were
oppressed, in their context, inthe Soviet Union. They were
objectively oppressed. They weredenied jobs solely based on
their ethnicity, you know, theywere discriminated against
(11:52):
overtly. And I feel like youbuild your identity on,
initially on what you're not. Sowell, I'm a Jew, but I'm not
stupid. And if we study hardenough, and you know, work hard
enough, we'll show that we'reactually better. It's a
reaction, that could go a numberof different ways. And I feel
(12:14):
that my mother, certainly, inresponse to being told that no
matter what she did, she wouldalways be a Jew, and therefore
have something fundamentallywrong with her. Her response to
that wasn't, this whole idea ofcharacterizing people based on
(12:37):
the accident of their birth is abunch of crap. That was not her
reaction. Instead, her reaction,and many other people's reaction
was, no, we're better than youare. And we're better than you
are, because the values that youare upholding as good are
bullshit. And the thing thatwe're about is better, right? So
(12:59):
like, for Jews in the SovietUnion, it might be being smarter
is better than being strong. Youknow, and so just very super
simplified, you know, but aslike a child, right, forming
these identities. So okay, well,they'll always beat the crap out
of us in the school yard. Butwe're gonna get straight A's.
(13:20):
And they would get the shit beatout of them in the schoolyard.
You know, my older brother, whowas there longer than me who
went to first grade there wasidentified as a Jew by his
teacher, and separated in linefrom everybody else. Like, there
was no way to hide. You couldn'tpass. They would make sure to
call you out. So like, you hadto find a way to feel like what
(13:44):
they were saying about you wasfalse.
DB Crema (13:48):
How did you form your opinions very different from the
environment you grew up in?
Alex (13:53):
Yeah. How did I form my opinions different than my
parents or how did I turn outdifferently from them? I don't
know that I have, in some ways.
Which is to say, certainly, myattitudes are different and my
worldview is super, superdifferent. But I'm undeniably
(14:13):
their genetic product, and have,you know, some combination of
their psychological andemotional makeup, right. So I
must be more similar to them.
It's interesting because mygrandfather, who is the most
(14:38):
overtly racist person that I'vemet. No, maybe the second most
overtly person that I've met, tobe honest. But um, we're
practically identical twins. Welook almost... our mannerisms
are exactly alike, we fly offthe handle in the same way, we
have the same temper. We'realmost the same person. But
(15:01):
yeah, we have these vastlydifferent views. We grew up in
different countries, atdifferent times. I honestly
think it doesn't have anythingto do with me, I think it has
everything to do with just myenvironment. I suspect given the
same stimula, if you put me intomy grandfather, right, I'd
(15:21):
probably turn out exactly likehim. It's just a completely
different context. A totallydifferent environment. I was
taught different things. Thatdoesn't mean I was conditioned
any differently, but I was justtaught explicitly different
things.
DB Crema (15:36):
So I don't understand that difference, because you
were taught in your homeenvironment. And clearly, you're
taught by your environment, aswell in school, through social
osmosis, all those things, but,so I don't understand the
difference between conditionedand taught and how you see that
effect having impacted you.
Alex (15:52):
Um, that's a good question. I certainly think
that, in general, I chose myexterior environment over my
home environment, dramaticallyin all my choices growing up. I
think I'm like super American,even though I'm super judgy of
Americans. I'm still super,super American. So it's not
(16:16):
strange that I would adapt thevalues and the lessons of super
liberal affluent white Americaover the Russian Jewish
diaspora. But on the other hand,even in the American culture,
that I was immersed in outsidethe house and in the Russian
(16:38):
diaspora were the same racistideas. They were packaged
differently. They came fromslightly different places. But
the ideas were exactly the same.
I think just the differencebetween conditioning and being
taught something is justimplicit and explicit. And so
the teacher, you know, the whiteteacher, in the elementary
(17:01):
school looking out on a sea ofwhite, Asian, brown, black
children, most of them fromaffluent families, explicitly
taught a kind of 1970s,colorblind kind of curriculum,
right? What's inside reallymatters, you know, sort of
(17:23):
reciting bits of the I Have aDream speech. Things like that.
DB Crema (17:32):
So what about the schools now? You're in the
schools like, what...
Alex (17:35):
Oh, wow, man, the schools now, jeez. I mean, 11
years ago, I came into the townwhere I am still working. The
business manager came into thelittle interview that I had with
the superintendent. He justhappened to walk into the
office, and he looked at me andsaid, oh, wow, the diversity
hire. And he was joking. Ithink, because I was a guy, or
(17:58):
because I was a Russian, orbecause I was a Jew. I don't
know what he meant. But he wasvery jaunty, and thought it was
a great joke to say that I wasthe diversity hire. This place
was so white, that a white guy
DB Crema (18:11):
Nice white parents.
with a Russian sounding name wasthe diversity hire, I guess,
according to this dude. But now11 years on, the foreigners are
coming into town, and boy, arethere some people who don't like
it, especially with the womenwho work in the office,
(18:34):
especially the women who work inthe cafeteria, and over the
years, they've said overtlyracist shit to me and complained
to me about the foreign accentsthat they have to deal with,
right, because I pass prettywell as white. Listen to my acce
t and everything. You know, um..
because I am white, and somhow it might make them feel
omfortable to tell me all thiseally, gross racist shit they r
(18:55):
ally want to say out loud. Tat's the other thing that's am
zing. Like, they really want tosay it out loud a lot. You kn
w, like the anger, the hared, it's in there. It just ha
to find a way out, I guess. Thracism in this school system i
not subtle. Then you have althe really powerful stuff, yo
(19:19):
know, from the concerned whitmothers.
Alex (19:25):
Yeah, yeah, that. Yeah. I listened to that podcast. You
get the real systemic stuff fromthem because they're just
concerned for their children'seducation and they don't want
this or they don't want that.
DB Crema (19:36):
You mentioned as you were talking about the lunch
ladies and other people in theschool and how they feel
comfortable talking to you andthe way you put it, It's like
they feel comfortable talking tome like they see me as a white
man. It stood out to mebecause...
Alex (19:54):
Why shouldn't they?
DB Crema (19:54):
Why shouldn't they and like...
Alex (19:55):
I think it's a good question.
DB Crema (19:56):
Why? You don't seem to associate yourself that way.
Alex (19:59):
Yeah so, why did I say, I'm passing as a white man? I
think that it's a very recentchange that I've had in how I
understand my own identity as awhite man. Because I think that
a few years ago, I would bequite adamant that I did not
(20:23):
feel white. And it was probablyonly since I got involved with
this active school integrationprogram that we have, and
started going to their annualconferences, which are pretty
intense and sort of amazing, interms of racial education in
(20:45):
America, that I started toreally question that refusal,
the pushing away of thatidentity of being a white man.
And it's interesting, too,because at the same time, one
idea that I've held on to, youknow, since I was educated at a
very early age, about theHolocaust, and intense
(21:10):
anti-semitism, you know, inmodern Soviet Union, that you
don't get to decide youridentity. That your identity is
imposed on you, right? The Jewsin Germany wanted to be as
German, they were dandies. Theydidn't wear, you know, kippots,
they didn't have pe'ots, youknow, they didn't do any Jewish
stuff. They were Germans, youknow, and then the Nazis came
(21:32):
around... like, you know, Ithink it's very easy for people
to hold contradictory ideas, andcontradictory identities in
their mind. So, you know,through most of my young
adulthood, and my adulthood, Iwould never fully admit to being
a white man. Just not anAmerican, just not the standard,
(21:55):
not vanilla. Whatever. Just notthat though. Yeah, until
somehow, just a few years ago,right, I applied that same
principle that I knew aboutother things to whiteness. You
mostly are, how you're treated.
Your day is defined by howyou're perceived by others, and
(22:15):
how people react to you on themost basic level, you know. And
when I colored by hair all sortsof colors and would go into a
store, and everybody would besuspicious of me, that was a
choice. You know what I mean?
Then I just cut all my hair off,and everything was chill after
that. I had full control overit. That's, I mean, really, it's
(22:38):
about, it's about control. Thatidea is central. Is there
something about your identitythat you have control over? More
importantly, is there somethingabout the perception of your
identity that you have controlover? Because I feel like it's
the perception of the identitythat affects your daily life.
(23:00):
You know, but I think that thesort of the saying, like, I'm
not a white guy is about alsonot wanting to let other people
define who you are.
DB Crema (23:15):
I like that you brought it right around to
um...something I was thinkingabout as you know, you talked
about changing your hair color,and that you could control the
reaction to you. There's aprivilege in that. And I like
that you brought it around tothis point about like, there are
things you can change, you cancontrol how people treat you
react to you. And there's a lotof things that one cannot change
(23:38):
about themselves and control.
Alex (23:40):
I think there's a lot of things that you can't control
when it comes to people'sreactions to you. But that said,
I feel like I in particular, amcertainly one of a very few
people in the history ofhumanity. Let me rephrase that.
(24:02):
I don't think there have beenvery many people in the history
of humanity who were quite asprivileged as I am. In terms of
just sheer power, sheer controlover how people perceive me. I'm
not adept at it, perhaps I mightnot have the skills. But I don't
even need to have the skills.
Because one glaring thing thatI've noticed in my life is that
(24:27):
I can fuck up royally, and havenothing but good stuff happened
to me. And that's happened to meover and over and over again.
And that's because I have amassive safety net in the guise
of my parents. And it's alsobecause I'm a white male in
America and I have a life freeof violence. Completely free of
(24:49):
violence. That, to me, it putsme like immediately in the top
20th percentile of the currenthuman population. Right away.
The main enormous disadvantageof any kind of privileged is
that, if things go well for you,if you're popular, if you don't
(25:11):
have learning disabilities, ifthings come easily to you, you
never have to adapt. You neverhave to do any creative problem
solving. You never have tostruggle and overcome. So yeah,
like I'm tremendouslyprivileged. I feel like I'm
sitting on a pile of history,right? I've got everything that
a human being ever wantedthrough history, you know. It
(25:33):
also blinds you. You're blind,you don't know what you don't
know. You're looking at theworld through this tiny little
peep hole. You're never going totake on somebody else's
perspective. You can't do that.
You're incapable of doing it.
But you can trust that they arean expert on their perspective.
Mostly, I think, my mantra overthe last couple of years has
(25:56):
been a humility of perspective.
DB Crema (26:12):
Thanks for listening to United States of Race. The
podcast was produced by me, DBCrema. Our artwork is designed
by Aly Creative, and our show ishosted by Buzzsprout which makes
it easy to start a podcast, getit listed with all the
directories and get your messageout to listeners everywhere. If
you love great storytelling, youcan follow United States of Race
(26:35):
on Spotify, Apple podcasts, orwherever you get your podcasts
and show us some love by ratingand writing a review on Apple
Podcasts or Podchaser. Also, youshould share this podcast with
your friends and anyone whobelieves in the power of
building connection throughsharing personal stories. Or you
can follow us on Instagram atunitedstatesofrace. And if you
(26:57):
have a story to share, send us amessage at unitedstatesofrace
gmail.com. Until next time.
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