• Katana314@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    Racism or other forms of discrimination apply to a protected class of people; any group sharing attributes beyond their control (bearing dark skin, a particular place of birth, a religion, etc)

    Russians are a protected class. Vladimir Putin, the evil individual who ordered an unprovoked war on Ukraine causing thousands of innocent deaths, is not a protected class.

    While I have seen racist uses of monkey imagery towards black people, never have I seen it towards Russians. In conclusion, there is strong implication that this meme targets the latter, not the former.

    • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      15 hours ago

      While I have seen racist uses of monkey imagery towards black people, never have I seen it towards Russians.

      Welcome to Lemmy. Get ready to see more and more racism towards russians.

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        I’ll be alarmed when I see it happen, as someone who’s been here a year. Everything hateful I’ve seen has been directed at the warmongering effort and tyrant in charge, not the populace.

    • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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      20 hours ago

      While I have seen racist uses of monkey imagery towards black people, never have I seen it towards Russians.

      Ever since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, German discourse at least was full of racist remarks on how russians basically have no culture, aren’t even European, etc.

      I’d argue that comparing people to Apes should be judged just like depicting people like squids/kraken (which is an antisemitic caricature).