African-American migrants to the Soviet Union

May 3, 2015 7:19 PM

"My father felt that the U.S.S.R. treated him better than America. He was happy here."
posted by the hot hot side of randy (24 comments total)

"When I'm in America, I feel that I'm African American [...] But when I'm in Russia, I feel Russian."
posted by 256 at 8:17 PM on May 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

My mother knew Payl Robeson. I heard quite a bit about Black Americans who went to live in the early USSR.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 8:21 PM on May 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Listen, Christ,
You did alright in your day, I reckon—
But that day’s gone now.
They ghosted you up a swell story, too,
Called it Bible—
But it’s dead now,
The popes and the preachers’ve
Made too much money from it.
They’ve sold you to too many Kings, generals, robbers, and killers—
Even to the Tzar and the Cossacks,
Even to Rockefeller’s Church,
Even to THE SATURDAY EVENING POST.
You ain’t no good no more.
They’ve pawned you
Till you’ve done wore out.

Goodbye,
Christ Jesus Lord God Jehova,
Beat it on away from here now.
Make way for a new guy with no religion at all—
A real guy named
Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin Worker ME—

I said, ME!

Go ahead on now,
You’re getting in the way of things, Lord.
And please take Saint Gandhi with you when you go,
And Saint Pope Pius,
And Saint Aimee McPherson,
And big black Saint Becton
Of the Consecrated Dime.
And step on the gas, Christ!
Move!

Don’t be so slow about movin'!
The world is mine from now on—
And nobody’s gonna sell ME
To a king, or a general,
Or a millionaire.

Langston Hughes
posted by Gymnopedist at 8:25 PM on May 3, 2015 [8 favorites]

I went to a talk recently that was essentially something like, "Are there African-Americans in Europe?" (It was a Berkeley professor researching this sort of thing.) At the time I was all, well, duh? but...apparently there's very few black people in Russia. Ooof.
Maybe that's another research topic for her?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:50 PM on May 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

Langston Hughes wrote of his travels in the USSR in I Wonder When I Wander, which was an interesting read on early Soviet Russia and their familiarity with American issues.
posted by childofTethys at 10:12 PM on May 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Thanks for mentioning that, childofTethys; it sounds really interesting.
posted by Gymnopedist at 10:26 PM on May 3, 2015

"Are there African-Americans in Europe?"

Not unless they're tourists.
posted by Rangi at 10:34 PM on May 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

"Are there African-Americans in Europe?"

Not unless they're tourists.
posted by Rangi at 3:34 PM on May 4 [+] [!]


What? Or immigrants, or short term residents, or holders of multiple citizenships, or second or third generation residents who still hold on to their heritage. Why wouldn't there be these categories?
posted by lollusc at 1:38 AM on May 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Are there African-Americans in Europe?"

Not unless they're tourists.

What? What about the ones working for (American or global) banks, private equity groups, corporate lawyers, IT companies...?
posted by Mister Bijou at 2:09 AM on May 4, 2015

"Are there African-Americans in Europe?"

Not unless they're tourists.

Born after the Cold War ended perhaps? You do know that there used to be all those army bases all over Western Europe packed to the brim with US soldiers, many of whom indeed were African-American, quite a few of which found hey, even in 1950ties ex-nazi West Germany they're treating me better than Bumfuck, Alabama where I come from and stuck around after their service ended.

Not to mention the expats that came over between the World Wars: those Lost Generation poets weren't all white, you know. Even in nazi Germany there were a handful of African-Americans married to German women...

The thing to take away from the article btw isn't that Russia or Europe treated African-Americans better than the US did at the same time, though they did, but rather that their being American trumped their being black. Once you had "mass" immigration to the Soviet Union of African students from its various client states, being black stopped being exotic and interesting and became a threat.

You see the same thing happening in Western European countries too as immigration kicked off in the sixties.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:04 AM on May 4, 2015 [8 favorites]

The thing to take away from the article btw isn't that Russia or Europe treated African-Americans better than the US did at the same time, though they did, but rather that their being American trumped their being black. Once you had "mass" immigration to the Soviet Union of African students from its various client states, being black stopped being exotic and interesting and became a threat.

Or in other words, it takes a critical number to move from "curiosity" to "minority". And while minorities often are being discriminated against, curiosities often are not.
posted by sour cream at 4:29 AM on May 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

"Are there African-Americans in Europe?"

Not unless they're tourists.

James Baldwin

As a result of being disillusioned by American prejudice against blacks and gays, Baldwin left the United States at the age of 24 and settled in Paris, France. His flight was not just a desire to distance himself from American prejudice, but to see himself and his writing beyond an African-American context. Baldwin did not want to be read as "merely a Negro; or, even, merely a Negro writer". Also, he left the United States desiring to come to terms with his sexual ambivalence and flee the hopelessness that many young African-American men like himself succumbed to in New York.

In Paris, Baldwin was soon involved in the cultural radicalism of the Left Bank. His work started to be published in literary anthologies, notably Zero, which was edited by his friend Themistocles Hoetis and which had already published essays by Richard Wright.

Josephine Baker

After a short while, Baker was the most successful American entertainer working in France. Ernest Hemingway called her "the most sensational woman anyone ever saw."

posted by fraula at 5:20 AM on May 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

"Are there African-Americans in Europe?"

There are lots of people with a skin color other than white here in the Netherlands, if you bother to look for skin color, but we call none of them "African-Dutch" or something like that.

We use their heritage countries a lot - Surinam, Ghana, Curacao, Marocco, Turkey, China, etc, but I've NEVER heard the phrase "African-Dutch"

So far I've just assumed it's a way US citizens use to say "look, I'm not racist, really, but I would look like one if I used any different expression, and I really don't want to look like one"

Correct me if I'm wrong.
posted by DreamerFi at 5:59 AM on May 4, 2015

I've NEVER heard the phrase "African-Dutch"

I've heard an aboriginal Australian described as "African-American" solely on the basis of skin color -- which is especially hilarious if you know anything about the genetics of the human diaspora.

But "African-American" isn't just a way to say "black". Because there were several generations of the slave trade stealing people from many different places inside Africa followed by many generations of life inside the United States, most African-Americans can't trace their ancestry back to a single African culture. Moreover, because this has been going on for roughly four hundred years, there are elements of "African-American" cultures that are unique to this continent -- having evolved in isolation from what was happening in Africa.

By contrast, I imagine most of the "Africans" in Western Europe have arrived in the last hundred years, willingly, in control of their own movement and destiny and in an era where it was much easier to maintain relations with family and friends on their country of origin.
posted by Slothrup at 6:24 AM on May 4, 2015 [7 favorites]

We use their heritage countries a lot - Surinam, Ghana, Curacao, Marocco, Turkey, China, etc, but I've NEVER heard the phrase "African-Dutch"

That's because it's Afro-Dutch, or Afro-Nederlander/Hollander or the quite hideous "allochtoon" to sweep all people suspected of not being really Dutch under one label, or the sickly sweet "medelander" to do the same but in a nicer way.

But yes, most of the black communities in the Netherlands do organise according to origin (Ghanese, Surinam, Antilles, Cape Verdes, etc).
posted by MartinWisse at 6:58 AM on May 4, 2015

You do know that there used to be all those army bases all over Western Europe packed to the brim with US soldiers, many of whom indeed were African-American, quite a few of which found hey, even in 1950ties ex-nazi West Germany they're treating me better than Bumfuck, Alabama where I come from and stuck around after their service ended.

This was indeed the case with my grandfather, who was a mechanic on the Western Front during WWII and attempted to stay in France even after hostilities ended for that exact reason. He was arrested and returned to the posterior of Alabama in the brig of a ship, forcing me to recognize the irony that my kin have been brought to America on ships against their will twice.
posted by koucha at 7:28 AM on May 4, 2015 [10 favorites]

I'm surprised that this article mentions the interviewee reading Pushkin, esteemed as the greatest Russian poet, but not that one of Pushkin's great-grandfathers came from Africa.
posted by XMLicious at 7:54 AM on May 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

Lots of black American jazz and blues musicians moved to Western Europe during the 20th century too - Benny Carter, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Clarke, Bud Powell, Sydney Bechet, Buck Clayton, James Moody, Doc Cheatham. Some big names. Eric Dolphy had said he was going to stay in Europe too, before he died from a diabetic coma.
posted by kersplunk at 8:45 AM on May 4, 2015

Thanks for posting this extremely interesting article, the hot hot side of randy! I had known of the phenomenon of African-Americans going to the USSR, some to stay, but it's fascinating to read the story of one such family from the inside. There's a certain amount of rose-colored retrospection, but this is a perfect anecdote that epitomizes a lot about Stalinist Russia:

Khanga said her grandfather escaped being nabbed by the secret police by a fluke. He was away from home the day they came for him. When Golden dutifully turned himself in, he was informed that the quota of arrests for his area had been fulfilled, Khanga said.

> Not unless they're tourists.

I think we can let this bit of lazy snark go now; it's been comprehensively refuted.

> I'm surprised that this article mentions the interviewee reading Pushkin, esteemed as the greatest Russian poet, but not that one of Pushkin's great-grandfathers came from Africa.

Me too!
posted by languagehat at 9:28 AM on May 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

> So far I've just assumed it's a way US citizens use to say "look, I'm not racist, really, but I would look like one if I used any different expression, and I really don't want to look like one"

Correct me if I'm wrong.

You're wrong. The expression was chosen by African-Americans themselves. OED:

Although both African and African-American were widely used in the United States in the 19th cent., the adoption of African-American as a preferred term among black Americans dates from the late 1960s and early 1970s (particularly after an April 1972 conference at which Ramona Edelin, president of the National Urban Coalition, proposed its use). The term gained widespread acceptance following its endorsement by the Reverend Jesse Jackson (b. 1941) during his presidential nomination campaign in 1988.

But thanks for your concern; I know how tempting it is to find a new way to bash Americans.
posted by languagehat at 9:30 AM on May 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

In Bosnia there were American Blacks who played basket-ball for different teams. I also saw on mixed race family on the bus in Sarajevo sometimes.
Africans came to all the ex-Yugoslavia as students. On fathered Nancy Abdel Sakhi, an actress who played roles as an African-American in Bosnian films.
I would have to say that without the burden of 500+ years of the slave-trade, Black people weren't discriminated against.

The people who came in for discrimination and still do are the Roma. Roma who fought for Bosnia - Hercegovina and lost limbs can't even get their military pensions.
The Roma still are treated badly in most of Europe.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 9:39 AM on May 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

English Wikipedia has entries for Afro-Russian and Abkhazians of African descent as well as an entry for Yelena Khanga who is mentioned in the OP.
posted by XMLicious at 1:04 PM on May 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think we can let this bit of lazy snark go now; it's been comprehensively refuted.

Yeah, that wasn't as funny as it first sounded. I actually typed "expatriate" before changing it to "tourist", and I know African-Americans could be in Europe for many other reasons. It was just a joke about how some people hypercorrect themselves to say "African-American" instead of "black <nationality>", which can lead to phrases like "British African-American." Apologies for the derail.
posted by Rangi at 6:33 PM on May 4, 2015

Or in other words, it takes a critical number to move from "curiosity" to "minority". And while minorities often are being discriminated against, curiosities often are not.

I totally get this. In the part of Canada from which Mr. Palmcorder hails, there are almost no Latinos of any kind. So even though there is some seriously ugly racism up there, it is pretty much all directed at First Nations folks, Pakistanis, and other groups with significant enclaves. It never even occurs to people to be racist about me.

Which is just about the saddest win ever.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 9:47 PM on May 4, 2015 [1 favorite]