There is absolutely zero verifiable evidence which indicate that Pushkin’s maternal grandfather had any link to East Africa! I know that Pushkin’s supposedly link to Ethiopia and or East Africa  is popular with the Russians because of the Orthodox connection but that is that. As for your rather tragically sad and funny racial classificatory scheme which makes  Pushkin was 1/8 African and 1/8—somethg else- how do come to know that? This is the American method of racial construction based on lies and more lies. They think race is carried in the blood! Pushkin can never be an American precisely for this reason. Alexandra Dumont had a black Haitian ( former slave) grandmother and that is also a common knowledge in French society. Only the U.S., Nazi Germany and white Supremacist South Africa use this type of sick blood based racial calculus!  However, I like your reference to “passing”—beca use that is exact what the  majority of the  Americans  with black and white mixed background  have done in the past: “pass” for white. So you would have been happy if Pushkin passed! He did not have to because he was a Russian and in Russia of his time race did not exist.

The word n*gger is a word that also defines a stupid person of any race, slang. It is especially ridiculous to treat the word as such an offense when black youth scream it at each other in public and in songs and while joking with one another. The real racism is in saying white people aren't allowed to use certain words because they are white. Now, apparently, we aren't even allowed to read the word. I hate multiculturalists.

(cont...)
So Pushskin was actually 6/8 Russian, 1/8 Esthonian, 1/8 Ethiopian. Though indeed his looks were not those of the ''average Russian-proper'' they were very much European looks and would pass totally unoticed in south Russia where more black-haired people lived (mixes with Greeks, Romanians, Armenians, Georgians etc.). In reality most of the times artists (apparently after his will) tried actively to emphasize on his lineage from ''Peter's negro'' that they ''black-washed'' his features to look a bit more exotic.

Now why would anyone involve Pushkin into this discussion about the ''n'' word and other such stories is irrelevant. Pushkin is no evidence of lack of racism among Russians nor of course could he ever become any flag of Western Africans (those called negros by the English and other West Europeans). He had a distant link through his maternal great-grandfather to north Ethiopia to those christian orthodox tribes there who are even today known to be of the lighter-coloured tribed of Africa and genetically related to Western Africans practically as much as French are to Mongolians or Indians.