this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2026
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Yeah you know about these Russians, right??
With their...
Blonde hairs and their... wide stance
?
Anybody?
"They're from Russia so they're bad and now we can easily kill them." That's the whole gist. Same playbook with Africans, Arabs, Latin Americans, etc etc.
Orcs.
Their vile racism, our playful bywords
You might want to enlighten yourself by talking to some Ukrainians and Russians though.
They almost invariably see themselves as the same (ethnic) people
I have spoken to both, but that will always be anecdotal. For Russians this is pretty much always the case so far as I can tell, they don't see Ukrainians as a separate people at all. And yes, it is also true of some Ukrainians. Yet there is a very large contingent of Ukrainians whose entire identity hinges on them hating and distancing themselves from Russians. A major aspect of the tensions between eastern and western Ukraine was that the latter (after fascists solidified their power in the 2014 coup) banned the speaking of the more traditional Russian way of speaking. The western Ukrainian government also banned (and destroyed) about 19 million books for either being in the Russian language, being Soviet literature, or for covering history they don't like. There are many Ukrainians including the vast majority of those who have political power in the west, who not only deny that they are the same "(ethnic) people" as Russians, but who vociferously insist that Russians are lesser and to be demonized, even the ones who are literally Ukrainian but identify as being Russian-heritage people (as people in eastern Ukraine tend to identify). Your comment completely glosses over this very apparent and very consequential fact.
I don't know any Ukrainians who claim, as you say, that Russians are 'lesser' in an ethnic sense. It's always out of contempt for their love of imperialism/subjugation/nationalism and never something 'genetic'
Do you think you could visually distinguish a Russian from a Ukrainian?
I can't also tell apart europeans. They all just look 'european' to me. It doesn't matter how we see them. Do Ukrainians consider themselves different from Russians? Yes, they do, and that's what matters.
It is Ukrainian nationalism that is the problem here, what was the root of the Ukrainian ethnic cleansing campaign against the Russian-identifying eastern populace. This was Ukrainian subjugation of Russians. It is the Ukrainians who are putting swastika, totencopfs, etc on everything and openly idolizing WWII era nazis like Bandera. If you don't think that literal ethnic cleansing isn't about heritage (aka "genetics") then I don't know what to tell you, you're just not living in consensus reality.
Yeah it's even more ridiculous to be racist towards only one of them.
Yeah wow you got me there, that's not at all you making my point for me. The way we dehumanise russians today has historic traces, which mean it's totally good.
As we all know the nationalism of the european empires was totally non racist.
Russians adversaries getting named Ivan (by US) or Russki (by Germans) could be a bit derogatory but would you really consider yourself racist for it? It's more like Shelbyville thing
Behold: The height of liberal intelligentsia.
The amount of pretzels that could be made from your linguistic twistings would feed the world. Instead of just accepting that yes you have dehumanising language and yes the rhetoric about russians is racist, you instead end up in a situation where you have to end up justifying various pejoratives.
Calling russians Ivan isn't racist at all, just like how referring to indians as "pajeets" is totally fine as well.
Not that this has anything to do with my initial statement which was that russians are called "orcs" a fantasy race of evil destroyers. You trying to move the goalposts and change the subject is obvious and sad. Instead of trying to find other pejoratives that you think aren't really that bad how about you try to relate to what is written?
Not being able to admit to any fault is a sign of a deeply unhealthy mind.
Change the subject? I'm directly addressing the use of 'orcs' and whether it is, indeed an ethnic slur or not. So maybe the fact you need to misquote me to try and wiggle your point fits that accusation better instead, lol
Do you think you could visually distinguish a Russian from a Ukrainian?
"directly addressing" is when you try to argue about a bunch of other slurs instead of actually talking about the one at hand - And other poor rhetorical tricks you can learn on reddit.
Maybe try starting a sentence with "I dont think calling Russians orcs is dehumanising or racist because..." and then find some other argument than "because i dont find slurs racist in general".
Better yet you could also start a sentence with "youre right, now that I think about it, calling a group of people by the name of Tolkiens evil race of malignant industrialists, is probably not too good. It is kind of othering - i mean its literally calling them not human. That's probably some sort of racism. Seeing as how my question was just what racism was directed towards Russians and you gave me an example, that probably the end of our interaction. Id have to be super weird in the head if I were to try to turn this into some sort of debate. Anyway thank you."
Maybe the fact my paraphrasing is an accurate synopsis of your world view means something, since youve not engaged with it beyond this one vague comment just here. Did the mirror i held up your racist redditor face sting?
Oh since they look like each other they cant be othering or doing racism. Ill have to inform the Hutus and Tutsis of this. Ill have to send a postcard to the Yugoslavian delegation.
Do you think aesthetics is the only thing determining racism? In Europe people are racist as fuck towards romanians, the Polish, eastern Europeans in general, despite them all being white and generally looking like so many other Europeans. When i was a kid italians were still seen as an exotic other and the memory of the spanish guestworker was still recent.
The fact some people look alike does not mean they cannot be othered, which Ive made clear to you a bunch of times already. Just because people look alike doesnt mean you cant be racist towards them.
You also seem to be stuck on the idea of this being exclusively something ukrainians say, despite this being introduced by no one but you. Yet another sad attempt at moving goalposts. Plenty of people call Russians orcs, plenty of people fearmonger about them. OP didnt make a post titled "ukrainians specifically are racist towards Russians". And the rhetoric online about Russians is racist. You just refuse to see it. When it is pointed out to you, you get very defensive. One can guess why.
Of course you already understand this. You started out by asking how someone could be racist towards Russians, yet very answer has just led to you trying to show off your poor debate skills, rather than what a normal person would do - acknowledge and appreciate the answer to their question.
Its pretty clear what youre trying to do and pretty sad you suck so much at it.
One could make a flowchart that would predict your behavior, its so cookie-cutter.
Wowza. You seem to be carrying a lot of luggage into this.
Why do you think you need to make the jump from 'racism' to 'othering'? Doesn't that qualify as 'moving the goalposts'?
Do you ever use 'othering' in your normal language?
Furhermore and back to the OT: where do you meet all those people who call Russians "orcs" anyway? For me that's like something I noticed in Ukrainian propaganda back in '22-'23 but didn't take off at all and since fizzled out.
Since this post is now more than a day old and therefore not likely to be seen by new people, there is little reason to continue this interaction. Therefore this will be my last response to you, you sad cretin.
Zoinks, hmm, ehm, uhm, and other faux affectations to show how above it i am.
No baggage, Im just pointing out what you are doing. I was going to suggest this as part of the next step in the flowchart: Condescention and fake affectations.
The only one who seems to be dragging things into this is you - The person who takes answers to their questions to be a challenge to them instead of what they are: Answers to questions.
Racism is Dehumanising. Dehumanising is othering. Ive been talking about that the whole time. You trying to initiate a meta-discussion, instead of relating to the subject at hand is another poor attempt at changing the subject.
I could also just point to me writing "othering is probably some kind of racism", but we both know it dont matter because you barely read this, youre just looking for something you can nitpick.
Again, finish the discussion we are having before trying to start a new one.
When we are done with this one we already have several queued up, I recommend we start with the one about "calling everyone from a nation by a stereotypical name from that place is not racist" and then we can move on to "the Empires in WW1 werent racist". After that we'll see if we have time to fit in a chat about my language (I'll give you a preview: Billionaires aren't human).
Before we get to any of that though we also have to have you acknowledge the arguments Ive made, which you so far fail to do. You just drop that talking point and continue on with new bullshit.
Oh so you do realise youre just spewing bullshit trying to change the subject? Neat!
I see it everywhere. Though I suppose since you dont experience it, it doesnt happen.
There's "those darn Russkies" and then there's "those filthy fucking orcs", and when the latter is being said by a guy with a sonnenrad tattooed around each nipple I'm not inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt.