The Politics of Eurovision: Ukraine and Racism in 2012

While I love Eurovision (and perhaps I would even consider myself a Eurovision geek), that's not the only thing I love.  I love good young adult fiction and dystopian stories.  Hence, my love for Suzanne Collins' amazing trilogy, The Hunger Games.

Recently, Jezebel.com ran several articles discussing race as it relates to The Hunger Games.  The most shocking, in my opinion, was an article about angry racist tweets.  Without spoiling the books, the tweets questioned why black actors were cast as certain characters (the characters are described by the author as being black) and one even said that she was no longer saddened by a character's death when she found out the character was actually black.

With this in the back of my head, I should not have been shocked by the racist comments directed against 2012 Ukrainian competitor Gaitana.

Gaitana, one of the pioneers of R&B music in Eastern Europe, is of Congolese and Ukrainian descent.  She was born in Kiev, but spent the next four years in the Republic of the Congo before returning to Ukraine with her mother.  She sings in three languages and knows two more, and writes and composes all of her own songs.  She plays the saxophone.  The Kyiv Post called her unpretentious and discussed how she likes to cook and wants to have children.

However, as as Armenia and Azerbaijan have already shown us, an international singing competition is the best place for complex demographic and political issues to be addressed.  As the Kyiv Post reported, Yuriy Syrotyuk, a senior member of the Svoboda party (an extremist right wing party that, among other things, seeks to include nationality on Ukrainian passports and ban adoption of Ukranian children by non-Ukrainians), criticized Gaitana's selection, stating “Gaitana is not an organic representative of the Ukrainian culture” and that, since Gaitaiana is biracial, Ukraine will be “associated with a different continent.”  He further stated, "As we want to be accepted to the European Union, it could be our opportunity to show the Europeans that we are also a European nation. We need to show our originality."

Let's take a look at that statement again.  Gaitana does not deserve to represent Ukraine because she's not white enough.  Despite being born in Kiev, having lived most of her life in Kiev, and being a pioneer of Ukrainian music, in the eyes of some, the simple fact that she is biracial somehow makes her not a true representative of Ukrainian culture (never mind that there a hell of a lot of originality in the song itself).

Does she need a birth certificate?  Would that make you happy?

Syrotyuk later tried to backtrack, claiming he was merely criticizing the Ukrainian selection process, and did not make any comment about Gaitana's race or skin color.  Really?  REALLY?!  The concern that was Gaitana, a biracial woman, would make people associate Ukraine with Africa.  If that's not a comment about skin color, I don't know what is.  And, to be sure, I'm certain that the true representatives of Ukrainian culture are white performers such as Verka Serduchka and Svetlana Loboda who sing in English.  Ukraine:  Come for the glitter, stay for the drag queens.

Now I wish I could write this whole thing off as someone who really truly misspoke (at best) or a racist with a microphone (at worst).  After all, in 2012, a biracial singer couldn't really cause that much of a stir outside of Tea Party-esque circles.  Boy, was I wrong.  These are all comments copied directly from the official "Be My Guest" youtube video:

I didn't write this to imply that Ukrainians are any more racist than anyone else, or than race relations are more problematic in Ukraine than here in the United States or elsewhere in world.  Rather, it's to show that no matter how far we think we've come, there's still a long way to go.  What shocks me isn't that there are people who have these thoughts, and we can't police thoughts.  But rather, what shocks me is how blunt they are in saying it.

Claiming Gaitana is somehow unfit to represent Ukraine because of her race says the wrong thing not just about Ukraine, but about humanity.  Whether you love or hate the song, she has worked hard to be able to get up onto that stage, and the color of her skin should have no bearing on whether or not she's "Ukrainian enough" (whatever that means).

Maybe in the end, we should just take what Gaitana herself says to heart.  It's not about politics or demographics or xenophobia.  It's simply life.   “Of course I am Ukrainian! I live here, I work here, I sing here, I fall in love here.”