This is where it gets tricky for Putin. Within Russia proper he is portraying himself as a liberator of African American people under seige in the United States of America. So, the Russian people view him as a necessary link in protecting African Americans anywhere in the world, including Russia.
Putin finds it convenient to
History Ph.D. candidate (click here) Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon’s interest in all things Russian started with a childhood illness. It forced her to stay home from fifth grade for a few weeks at her family’s farm in the rural southwest Texas community of Dayton, population about 7,000. “To pass time I watched this eight-hour miniseries on the History Channel called ‘Russia, Land of the Czars’ and it blew my mind,” she says. “In sixth grade I was the only student in my little middle school to do a book report on someone who wasn’t American: I did mine on Joseph Stalin.” And so, a Russian historian was born. Her current research in the School of Arts & Sciences revolves around how the African American experience in the Soviet Union shaped Black identity and how the presence of people of color shaped ideas and understandings of race, ethnicity, and nationality policy in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet space....
Just because Dr. Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon is studying Russia and it's lack of racial strife doesn't mean she should stop, she absolutely should continue her focus and her work. I am quite confident Dr. St. Julian-Varnon has no idea she is playing into Putin's narrative.
That happens, yes? Where an American is carrying out research or writing for publications with a focus that a communist leader finds helpful. To oppress that which Putin finds helpful is counter to the American story. The American story is that we guarantee freedom of speech and consider scholars research and writing invaluable.
But, for those that pump propaganda into Russians this focus might flatter the idea of a raceless country where bigotry does not exist and all people are happy. That is the type of propaganda that
The point is the Russian people, including it's military, are cut off from reality. We see it in the USA with the extremist right political wing which embraces White Supremacy to add to the voter count in any election.
Vladimir Putin has a problem. He decided Crimea and eastern Ukraine were his to take simply because he expects to reconstitute the Soviet Union. He is an ideologe and not a leader that finds himself with an entire country's military to carry out his planned and expected atrocities. All that for a false idea that he can turn history back three decades or more. That is grossly ill conceived priorities. Nearly two generations of people have matured and been born during that time. The world is different and Putin is basically unwanted as a leader with a false sense of himself.
This, today, in the year 2022 is what the people of the world face with a man with his hand on the nuclear button. This is a dangerous time on Earth for many reasons and Putin is one of them.
