Art McGee:
> Race is just a signifier for ideology, religion,
> economics, culture, and a whole bunch of other stuff that
> white folks didn't like about us. Skin color had nothing
> to do with it.
Let me make sure that was clear:
Racists have never hated anyone because of race.
Art -- God knows I don't want to get into this _again_, because people invariably misunderstand what I am saying, but I do not disagree with you (even though there are almost no "us" in this part of the world) -- the little piece I wrote was about how ethnic antagonisms are cognized by the people doing the antagonizing, not about the causes of the conflict. Actually I pretty clearly I thought laid out what I believe the causes for these are in the Russian context (introduction of labor market, loss of collective identity, importation of ideas from the West, etc.).
The Russian word for "race" is only about 40 years old.