And you are lynching Negroes

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Soviet propaganda poster depicting alleged lack of freedom in America
Soviet propaganda poster depicting alleged lack of freedom in America

"And you are lynching Negroes" (Russian: А у вас негров линчуют) (literally but in your [country] negroes are lynched) is a phrase known in several Eastern European countries (see below) used as a rhetorical device known as Tu quoque ("You, too") in political contexts.

The image of mobs in the United States lynching African American citizens was a part of the scary image of the United States propagated in the Soviet Union.[1][2]

The ironic usage of the phrase is traced to a Russian joke from the times of Nikita Khrushchev, about a dispute between an American and a Russian.[3] There were several versions of them. A version dated by 1962 goes as follows:[4] "The Voice of America asks the Soviet radio: 'Is it true that your shops are empty?' In three days the reply is given: And you are lynching negroes."

A similar ironic catch phrase is from a 1964 song by Soviet bard Yuri Vizbor:[5] "And in the area of ballet, we are ahead of the whole planet!" ("А также в области балета мы впереди планеты всей".)[6] The topic of the song is a dispute between a Soviet engineer and an "African prince".

[edit] Variants

Similar phrases are used in various languages of Eastern Europe, in different variants, often in reference to different jokes, albeit with the same idea.[7]

  • Serbian: А што ви бијете црнце?
  • Croatian: A što vi radite crncima?
  • Polish: A u was Murzynów biją![8]
  • Czech: A vy zase bijete černochy[9]
  • Slovak: A vy zasa bijete černochov
  • Hungarian: Amerikában (pedig) verik a négereket (Literally, "And in America, they are beating up negroes")[10]
  • Bulgarian: А вие защо биете негрите? ("And why do you beat the Negroes?")[7]
  • Bosnian: Zasto ubijate crnce?

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Interview with a Soviet emigrant
  2. ^ "СССР в мировом сообществе: от старого мышления к новому", Progress Publishers, 1990 p. 487 (Russian)
  3. ^ (Russian) "Your Letters", at Radio Liberty
  4. ^ Dora Shturman, Sergei Tiktin (1985) "Sovetskii Soiuz v zerkale politicheskogo anekdota" ("Soviet Union in the Mirror of the Politicial Joke"), Overseas Publications Interchange Ltd., London, ISBN 0903868628, p. 58 (Russian)
  5. ^ (Russian) "And in the area of ballet, we are ahead of the whole planet!"
  6. ^ (Russian) "A Tale of Technologist Petukhov", song by Yuri Vizbor
  7. ^ a b A record of a session of Bulgarian parliament (Bulgarian)
  8. ^ "Gdzie Murzynów biją albo racjonalizm na cenzurowanym" (Polish)
  9. ^ "Nepoučitelný Topolánek" (Czech)
  10. ^ "A pragmatikus szocializmus évtizedei"(Hungarian)
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