Sunday, April 21, 2013
Крокодил fails
The pseudo-satirical magazine Крокодил, serving the Soviet Establishment loyally as always, has unintentionally failed in its assigned role.
Following FBI reports this morning that the suspects implicated in Monday’s Boston Marathon bombing are of Chechen descent, efforts to thoughtlessly stereotype the alleged terrorists were impeded by the majority of Americans’ lack of basic knowledge about Chechnya or the Chechen people, a new study has confirmed. “Our research shows that, while many Americans would like nothing more than to make sweeping, insensitive generalizations about these two individuals based purely on their ethnic identity, this process is largely impeded by the fact that 9 out of 10 Americans truly know next to nothing about Chechnya, including even the very barest details of what or where Chechnya is...”I suppose it's meant to be "funny" in the usual Bill Maher way, but this time Крокодил has revealed a truth that runs counter to official Politburo axioms. All Party Members are required to believe several hundred axiomatic assumptions, all of which are transparently, blatantly and provably false. The germane axiom here is "Ignorance breeds prejudice." If the axiom were true, then American ignorance about Chechens would cause us to develop all sorts of damaging bigotry about Chechens, not prevent us from developing biases. Needless to say, the ACTUAL FUCKING FACT is that familiarity breeds stereotypes, and stereotypes are pretty good generalizations. None of them are 100% true of all members of the group, but then no statement about humans is ever 100% true. We're complex critters, we're all different, and some of our differences are closely aligned with racial and ethnic divisions. ¶ 2:57 AM
