White fragility is a defensive action, whereby white people react violently and defensively whenever racism is brought up. The aim of such hostility is to make the person bringing up the topic so attacked that he or she will not dare bring up the subject ever again.
Finance Minister Riikka Purra and Jussi Halla-aho of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, an anti-immigration party, often write and speak in a demeaning manner about migrants and minorities. Do their postings ever get old? They don’t. They are always there ready to release their toxicity.
THE POSTING WAS UPDATED
White fragility is a kneejerk reaction to instill fear and shut the mouths of racialized people. As an antiracist activit, one must be strong and not be intimidated by such hostility. Even if the concept of white fragility was coined by Robin Diangelo to expose racism in the US, it applies to Finland as well.
In a 2008 poting, Finance Minister and head of the PS Riikka Purra wrote with the pseudonym “riikka,” wrote: “If you gave me a weapon, [youth with migrant background] corpses would appear on a commuter train, you see.” Source: European Islamophobic Report 2023.
Engaging in conversations about racism may trigger a range of defensive reactions, feelings, and behaviors, such as hostile anger, fear, and silence. Finland is no different.
UPDATE: After I had mentioned to councilperson Tanja Hartonen that her past writings revealed how she voted to give money to the Crisis Center as opposed to multicultural association Mimosa, she exploded and started yelling at me stating a number of times what I wrote about her was “outrageous.” She said at the time she could have pressed charges for defamation.
Was her reaction appropriate and becoming of a member of a city council committee?
She was so riled up that I couldn’t utter a word, never mind falsely accusing me of of calling her a racist.
Note: I did not mention her problematic blog post on Uusi Suomi, she did, and it would have been a travesty if she could press charges successfully for writing such trash that was taken down by the moderators.
Below, is a post by Tanja Hartonen, today a Mikkeli Center Party councilperson who was originally a member of the Social Democratic Party and then became a member of the PS.
Below is a blog post that Hartonen wrote in 2014 that resurfaced by her in December at a Mikkeli city committee meeting. Hartonen’s posting back then was so toxic that it was taken down by the Uusi Suomi moderators.
Even if she attempted to playdown the posting by stating it was written a long time ago and that she was planning back then to charge me with defamation, does such a post ever get old?
At the time of her posting, Hartonen was eyeing the 2015 general election and certainly wanted more fuel for her campaign by spreading anti-immigration rhetoric. At the time I was also worried for four Muslim teenagers who moved at the time to Mäntyharju as quota refugees.
Below is the original 2014 posting by Hartonen that was picked up by Migrant Tales.
Writes Hartonen: “Soon Finland won’t look like Finland anymore, or Finns at this rate. At this rate, we’ll become a minority in our own country. Cultural enrichment (what a term!) is in some people’s opinion a good thing? Oh in order to make Finns more sociable? What’s wrong with our culture anyway? If somebody doesn’t speak or kiss you, that’s how things are.“
Read Hartonen’s blog post translation here.
As an anti-racist activist, I have received numerous death threats throughout the years and other accusations. One of the weirdest was from a person wanting money so he would drop his defamation charge against me. The odd matter is that he wrote everything anonymously.
I am now being accused by Hartonen of calling her at a city council committee meeting a racist, which is totally false.
Anyone can file a police complaint. It’s juicy stuff for the media even if it isn’t true.
Racism is a social ill. Even if racism in Finland has raised its ugly head in the past years and espcially now with the PS in government, President Alexander Stubb and other parties are not against immigrants coming to Finland.
The only anti-immigration party is the PS, which only has 15% support, according to recent opinion polls.
White fragility is alive and kicking in Mikkeli and Finland and it enjoys a lot of privlege.
