Yeah, Belarussians are sometimes referred to as бульбаши (from бульба = one of the names for potato in Slavic languages and a cognate of English bulb) in Russian. Some people may or may not consider this a slur though so don’t actually use it please.
I am not Belarussian so it’s not for me to judge whether this is offensive to the point of banning it but I would say, generally, that the Russian terms for the various ethnicities inhabiting the former Russian empire are best avoided. As the current use of a similar word for Ukrainians (which I’m not even going to type here) shows, things can quickly turn from “friendly banter” to full-on racist, nationalist, supremacist abuse. At the same time, some would argue that such terms were always about supremacy, and I recently find myself agreeing with this more and more.
Yeah, Belarussians are sometimes referred to as бульбаши (from бульба = one of the names for potato in Slavic languages and a cognate of English bulb) in Russian. Some people may or may not consider this a slur though so don’t actually use it please.
Funny. In Denmark “potato” is used as a slang term for white people.
Potato skin is not even white lol
Thanks for the info
cw racism
this that bad then? It was being passed around some lefty spaces, and some right russian-supporting ones a few years ago, like and I’ll delete picture
I am not Belarussian so it’s not for me to judge whether this is offensive to the point of banning it but I would say, generally, that the Russian terms for the various ethnicities inhabiting the former Russian empire are best avoided. As the current use of a similar word for Ukrainians (which I’m not even going to type here) shows, things can quickly turn from “friendly banter” to full-on racist, nationalist, supremacist abuse. At the same time, some would argue that such terms were always about supremacy, and I recently find myself agreeing with this more and more.