Getting To The Point

 "Many of our children… are already growing up without knowing or remembering their kindred tribe. Singing songs written by the descendants of African-American slaves, often playing the ape and imitating the habits and language, brimming with, frankly, second-rate quasi-cultural vulgarity. Clinging to this secondariness, being proud of it. Hence the growth of overt spiritual emptiness, depression, suicides. The lack of meaning in life."

If you are coming to this quote, and wondering who might have said or written such a thing, stretch out with your feelings. Are you thinking maybe Nick Fuentes? How about Marjorie Taylor Greene? Tucker Carlson perhaps? Maybe this was part of one of those all-too-familiar "manifestos" found in the aftermath of one of our mass shootings? 

Well, I suppose I can say with some tiny bit of relief that this was not written by an American politician or journalist. Nope, this one came from Vadim Shumkov, governor of the Kurgan region in Russia. He was using his Telegram account, the Russian equivalent of a service like Twitter or Instagram, to spout his opinions on what he considers the decline of the youth of his country. 

He did not choose to name his country's current and ongoing war with Ukraine for any of this malaise. It's the music. It's the TV shows. The secondariness. 

It's the excuse that the rest of Mister Shumkov's government doesn't see the need to correct. They're fine letting some pointy headed nincompoop describe the social emotional circumstances of their country's youth. It's not the mass conscription. It's not the oppressive regime that has been in power for the past decade. It's the songs written the by the descendants of African-American slaves. 

Sound pretty ridiculous, doesn't it. Kind of like, “You can call us racists, white supremacists, Nazis, & bigots. You can disavow us on social media from your cushy Campus Reform job. But you will not replace us. The rootless transnational elite knows that a tidal wave of white identity is coming. And they know that once the word gets out, they will not be able to stop us. The fire rises!” Or suggesting that Iraq is a “crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semiliterate primitive monkeys.” 

Those would be the words of Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson. Not members of a foreign government. It's our own people flinging invective about. It's not brave. It's not incisive. It's racist. No matter how you slice it or where it comes from. 

Stop it.