Posted on 09/03/2009 2:38:51 AM PDT by Jonny foreigner
Some might call him brave, others naive, or even reckless, but the one thing Joachim Crima is not is ordinary. He is black, and he is Russian.
And now this watermelon seller, and former student from Guinea Bissau, is attempting to become the first black man ever to be elected to public office in Russia. Mr Crima has become an overnight media sensation here. On the day I visited him in his home town Srednyaya Akhtuba in southern Russia, two other TV crews were with him. The next day two more were due in town.
The country's newspapers have dubbed him Russia's Barack Obama. The implication is that Russians could be ready to elect a black man, even if it is only for a local county council.
Mr Crima's optimism and exuberance are infectious. As I followed him around the local market you could see people warming to him.
Even the dour country folk found it hard to resist his warm smile and open hand as, in lilting Russian, he joked and bantered with the stall holders.
"Good for you," said one tall man leaning against his Lada car "we need new leaders in this place".
Battle ahead
"At first people thought I was joking," Mr Crima told me. "They asked me if I was doing this to promote my business. But now I am a registered candidate they take me more seriously." And he is optimistic that he can win: "There is a chance of winning because I see the way people react to me," he told me.
But to do so Mr Crima has a massive mountain to climb.
In his election slogan "I will work like a negro for Russia" Mr Crima adopts a word commonly used a racial slur...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Recent research by the Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy suggests nearly 60% of Africans living in Moscow have been physically assaulted.
How do you say “Hope and Change” of “Yes We Can” in Russian?
So ... what are his policies? We couldn’t care less what his skin color is.
“In Russia the racist slur for black Africans is”
What “racist slur” I have lived in a Russian speaking country for the last 5 years and am often in Russia. “Chorney Zhopa” is the only term I have ever heard used when referring to a black person. There may be another term but if there is nobody ever uses it.
I think the chances of the watermelon seller getting elected are similar to our chances of booting Zero out of the White House before he destroys the country... slim and none.
He’s the proverbial “Black Russian.”
The term goes back to the Cold War when there was a lot of Africans from Soviet-allied countries coming to Moscow for schooling. Likely it has fallen out of use.
“Chorney Zhopa” certainly has not fallen out of use. Shortly after Zero was elected I was in Moscow and was asked a few times in Russian “What do you think of chorney zhopa Obama” or some permutation thereof.
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