thread of discrimination, genocide, xenophobia, antislavism and orientalism against slavs around the world since ppl wanna ignore it :) all we want is some awareness and sympathy and understanding.

let’s start off by a little education on who slavic ppl are!! wikipedia definition of slavs: ethnolinguistic group of slavic-speaking peoples native to eurasia, from central, eastern & southeastern europe to north asia & central asia, and historically western europe & west asia

slavic people can be classified into west slavs (poles, czechs and slovaks), east slavs (russians, belarusians and ukrainians) and south slavs (slovenes, croatians, bosniaks, serbians, bulgarians, macedonians and montenegrins). multiple minority slavic ethnicities also exist!

some of these slavic ethnicities include kashubians (poland), sorbians (eastern germany, to a lesser extent poland and czech republic), rusyns (ukraine/russia/slovakia), cossacks (ukraine/russia/belarus/georgia/kazakhstan) and gorani (serbia/albania).

now let’s get into what this thread is actually about. let’s talk about some issues slavic people have faced and still face today, that many (especially westerners) like to ignore.

it’s usually “slavs are white” or “slavs are european” so why should we give a fuck about them? well our struggles are BIG, eastern europe is entirely different from western europe, & white ppl in parts of north africa n asia somehow don’t get invalidated like this. :)

also, no slavs cant face racism bc racially they are white. but some of the things i link will say “racism”, which is actually xenophobia & prejudices tied to slavs being very different from western white ppl. different in culture or looks/phenotype, for example.

another disclaimer no slavs dont have it as bad as poc, especially bipoc, of COURSE. i wont be denying our white privilege. were allowed to talk abt our struggles without being told were trying to seem like the most oppressed ppl in the world. we arent, & we dont “want” to be.

1. SLAVIC WOMEN: SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND STEREOTYPES

starting off with a mix of misogyny & xenophobia. slavic women are very often stereotyped as prostitutes, mail-order wives, strippers, “easy”. the stereotypes of being submissive, anti-feminist & housewives also play a role.

the number of “mail-order bride” and “slavic dating” websites, especially for ukrainian and russian women, is sickening and fetishizing. so many western men wish to have a “hot slavic girl”.

this is not only normalized for westerners, but many east asian men also have this idea. they are willing to pay “a lot” for a slavic wife, and claim slavic women are good housewives. slavic women are seen as easy, prostitutes, and “good business”.

these asian men are willing to go to slavic countries to get a wife. in china, matchmaking events are also organized to match chinese men with slavic (usually russian and ukrainian) women. more on this later in the thread.

an example from south africa.

naturally this leads to types of sexual harassment, which could either be actual assault or human sex trafficking (specifically a reality for mail order brides) or “subtle” ways such as verbal harassment and jokes abt prostitution made to a slavic woman’s face.

some personal experiences of mine, a polish woman living in norway:

- my sister’s boyfriend was mocked for having a polish girlfriend bc polish women are apparently “easy”. they said he shouldn’t get with her.

- when i went to poland with my class in 2017 for a holocaust education trip, my male classmates were excited to see stripclubs on the street and expected brothels. they even jokingly asked me abt “polish strippers” as a 15 year old.

some “lovely” insight from reddit

personal experience from a russian woman with sexualization/harassment.

a quote from an anonymous german sex buyer.

the best famous example would be melania trump, who is slovene. let me just say i don’t support melania in any way shape or form, and she’s not a good person, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to push xenophobic ideas that refer to every slavic woman and not just her.

part 2 of examples for melania

personal experience from a polish woman about the way germans speak about mostly russians as well as czech women. also provides some insight on “sex tourism”. rough translation at the end

2. XENOPHOBIA IN NORTHERN AND WESTERN EUROPE

perhaps the biggest offenders when it comes to antislavism are western and northern europeans. they don’t shy away from mocking accents, making hurtful jokes, believing harmful stereotypes, discriminating in the workplace.

slavs are always thought of as thieves. bad people. alcoholics. criminals. slavic countries are considered poor and worthless shitholes. slavs are used for severely underpaid labor combined with mistreatment.

a personal experience from a person with a ukrainian grandmother mocked for her accent.

polish person explains from their point of view how poland is viewed/stereotyped in western europe.

part 1; this is a viral story published on the largest news site in norway. it tells the story of polish people who came to norway to earn money by picking strawberries and ended up abused. as always there will be translations at the end

part 2;

part 3;

part 4;

polish people are stereotyped as “strawberry pickers” in norway and jokes are made about this. norwegians claim poles steal their jobs; a personal experience is my own father hearing a norwegian coworker talking shit about polish workers he heard speaking polish (1/3)

he said poles come here and take their jobs. my dad said uhm, you know i’m polish right? the man became uncomfortable as my dad explained to him how norwegian bosses use eastern europeans’ economies to use them for underpaid labor, and it’s their fault, not the workers’. (2/3)

the man claimed to understand and agree but kept asking if my dad understood what the polish men were talking about. he jokingly asked if theyre talking about “what they’re gonna drink later” after which my dad had to argue with him. (3/3)

here is a personal experience of a polish person from east germany. the last photo is a rough translation.

example from a polish person of casual stereotyping in germany: translation at the end.

here’s a video talking about slavs (and other eastern europeans) in the netherlands.

a personal experience of a russian friend of mine was being asked whether she owns a bear, whether she’s related to putin, and whether her family drinks vodka all the time. jokes about russian mafia and harassing her for putin’s actions also happened sometimes.

not to mention, “boho” fashion appropriates quite a lot of different cultures and one of them is slavic, and especially ukrainian vyshyvanka has been appropriated too. i don’t know if anyone ukrainian actually feels strongly disrespected when it comes to this, but it exists.

also slavic “gopnik” adidas costumes when you’re not slavic are not funny it’s weird (some of these men said they “let their inner slav out for halloween”).

another personal experience was with a previous male traffic school teacher. we were sitting in the car as he was teaching me abt driving in the dark, when a car drove by rly fast. i said “wow he was driving too fast” & my teacher proceeded to say “yeah he’s one of those poles”.

he didn’t know i was polish. i was shocked, since this was the first time i experienced something like this from a stranger, and uncomfortable, so i didn’t say anything even though i should’ve.

another thing i experienced was when i dropped gum on the floor in the bus so i went down on my knees and scrubbed it. a classmate proceeded to joke and say “now you’re looking like a real pole” (referring to polish cleaning ladies) so i shoved the dirty paper in his face. :)

apparently polish ppl (and hungarians too in this ss) shouldn’t get the coronavirus vaccine bc their governments are bad.

gotta love the soviet union and theft comments huh?

this is very sad; a polish person explains their experience with a xenophobic physical attack in the west. i was specifically asked to cut out a part of the story as op fears recognition.

personal experience from a pole from netherlands

my sister’s boyfriend, who is bosniak, was a refugee in norway after the yugoslav war. this happened at school i think, not exactly sure, but a sum of money went missing and he was immediately blamed for it, and forced to look for money he didn’t know the location of. he was 6.

my sister, working at a bar, said she frequently experienced xenophobic comments. one specific event, was when a drunk norwegian man got mad that she wouldn’t serve him anymore: he started calling her a bitch, a polish fuck, stood up on the bar, kicked the cash register. (1/2)

my sister said she wanted to cry, and for a long while no one did anything to stop the man, until finally someone told him to calm down. (2/2)

xenophobic portrayal of a polish child on norwegian tv. translation in the last photo (this was the description of a petition).

norwegian men talking about “cheap poles”. translation included.

this pole experienced discrimination in germany; translated of course.

they were right until they said shithole.

this one... heavy tw for this post & next one, theres graphic images. here is a link to a video explaining the police brutality-death of a slovak man in belgium. this is tragic, my heart absolutely breaks for this man & the disgusting pigs should be gone.

here’s some more insight, and a photo with the faces of the gross fuckers who murdered him. photos include blood and a NAZI SALUTE as jozef is dying.

and finally, the sorbians. sorbians are an ethnic slavic minority living in eastern germany, who face xenophobia and antislavism from germans, in the form of verbal attacks, vandalism and more.

so many jokes, stereotypes, people will constantly make fun of your accent. i have experienced it myself, many people i know have, it’s not a pleasant experience. be happy i speak the language?

messed up the thread a little bit, here’s the rest lmao https://twitter.com/slavfem/status/1346894399926628357