How Serbs and Black Americans Are Alike

Okay, so I keep getting this skeptical look on everybody’s face when I say “We’re so alike!” Nobody wants to believe me. How could some obscure Europeans (Serbs) that our very own CIA labeled fascist be like African Americans? That makes no sense. It’s been hard for me to summarize since I’ve observed so many little things and big things and all the things in between. But after several years of careful observation since I found out who I really was and could hang with my own peeps, I’ve narrowed it down to just a few key elements, all of which relate directly to our common histories/experience of the world.

You know how they say all cultures have unique little qualities to their collective body language? Like they say Asians, being so overpopulated, really value their personal space and don’t like people up in their face.

We love it. We be right up in your face, all touchy-feely, intense eye contact, loud, very LOUD,

and S-O-O-O-O DRAMATIC!!!!

We don’t just have drama queens. What have drama KINGS!!!

It’s glorious. Slavan. Just try observing a gathering of Serbs without gleefully whispering to yourself, “These people are so ghetto!”

And then there’s the really important thing that sealed the deal for me. Rebecca West noticed it in the thirties and wrote about it in “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.” (Guess who the lamb was?)  The thing I craved and couldn’t live without, that made Black people so irresistible. Our unbridled obsession.   The thing we can’t go a day or night without:

Talking about The Man.

You know, that enslaving, colonizing, invading, exploiting motherfucker, or јеbač mаjke in our language. It’s not uncommon for that to be the most used phrase in a Serbian individual’s vocabulary. The guy to the left can’t go a paragraph without it.

Which brings us to the historical reality. We were slaves to The Turk (note variation on The Man) for 500 years, up until the mid 19^th century (naturally). It wasn’t so much they were raping our women. Nah. They were (legally) stealing our little girls. (Perverts). And selling them into harems. It was so common a practice, their upper class now looks like us.

But we seem to have a bit of that Stockholm Syndrome. When we have Turkish features — you know the dark, dramatic features and the full lips — we’re really proud of them and think they make us good looking.

Especially our women.

Have you ever heard such foolishness?

It can be confusing being in a crowd of Serbs, or watching a Serbian movie. It will seem like a really huge extended family. Everybody’s calling each other by all these familial terms — you know, brother, sister,  baby,  uncle.  And since everybody’s always in each other’s face, hugging, kissing, fussing and barring their souls, it looks like a really CLOSE extended family.

Now let me be clear here, these are not the traits of crude, rude inferiors. These are the traits of a superbly adapted, cathartic culture tailor-made to surviving the un-survivable.

So now you know why this little lost genocided soul who didn’t know who she was felt so at home with the Americans the most like us and wouldn’t let go, like it was some lost treasure you’d pay anything for.

You never do know what you got till it’s gone.