And you are lynching Negroes
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"And you are lynching Negroes" (Russian: "А у вас негров линчуют", Serbian (Cyrillic alphabet): "А што ви бијете црнце?", Serbian (Latin alphabet), Croatian: "A što vi bijete crnce?", Polish: "A u was biją Murzynów", Czech: "A u vás lynčují Černochy", Hungarian: "Amerikában pedig verik a négereket" (Literally, "And in America, they are beating up negroes"), Bulgarian: "А вие защо биете негрите?" (Literally, "Why do you lynch the Blacks?")) is an ironic cliché based on a typical counter-accusation made by the Soviet Union during the Cold War whenever the United States government criticized the Soviet Union for human rights abuses. This phrase is common in modern Russian, Polish and Serbian usage to refer pejoratively to this type of logical fallacy rhetorical device.
Such counter-claims would be made both in propaganda for internal consumption as well as in propaganda targeted at the West. The claim had validity in the 1960s when it originated, as there were human rights abuses including lynchings of African Americans going on in some U.S. Southern states. There were also many public and televised conflicts between the black population and police during that period.
As a fixed expression, the phrase is often found in a variety of jokes, usually mocking the original propaganda usage of the term.
Among them is the short joke of Radio Yerevan: an American calls the radio and asks whether it was true that Soviet engineers could not afford a car of their own design. After a short while the journalist responds And you are lynching Negroes.
Another one goes like this: a group of American engineers is visiting Moscow subway; there is a time-table, but not a single train arrived on time. American engineers express their concern to their Russian counterparts. A guy, member of the KGB, who listens to the conversation, promptly replies: "And you are beating up Negroes".
[edit] See also
- Ad hominem tu quoque (an irrelevant accusation of hypocrisy)
- Association fallacy
- Two wrongs make a right (fallacy)
[edit] References
"Soviet Russia and the Negro", an essay by Claude McKay. From Crisis 27 (December 1923, January 1942): 61-65, 114-18. Available at Modern American Poetry Online Journal
