White saviors come in many sizes and shapes. Whatever shape and size, they stunt equality for one simple reason: The white savior is on top handing out his harmful empathy to minorities.
How can I claim that white saviors aren’t well-intentioned people?
Not only disobey unjust laws but challenge white saviors.
From personal experience.
While racism and discrimination are constant variables that rob people of their equal rights and opportunities, they also regulate them to second-class status.
Finnish white privilege #89
When you are a second-class member of society, the ones blocking you in many cases from realizing your full potential are those damn white saviors crying crocodile tears over you.
The only way to deal with this toxic situation is by exposing it and making your opinion heard: I don’t want your help that relegates me in a wheelchair. Treat me equally with all the rights and obligations entitled theoretically to me.
There was no red wave, never mind a red tsunami, in the midterm elections in the United States. Defying the precedent of past elections, the Democrats gave the Republicans a beating they will not easily forget. What lessons can Finland learn from the US midterm elections?
For one, voters shunned extremist positions on issues like election denial, immigration, abortion, and civil rights.
If there are losers in Finland resulting from the US elections, it is, without a doubt, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party. We could compare it to the early 2010s when populist anti-immigration parties like the PS entered the major leagues of Finnish politics.
Everything was riding high for the PS until an Islamophobe mass murderer, Anders Breivik, killed 77 innocent people in Norway.
Finland’s very own MAGA Perussuomalaiset, Vilhelm Junnila, and Veikko Valliin. Source: Facebook
Watch Thursday’s parliamentary question-and-answer sessions if you want to watch “the crazies” lashing out whenever the PS candidates awoke by the magic term maahanmuutto (immigration). They go off the wall throwing their extremist spaghetti wherever it may stick.
Apart from the rejection of extremist Republican candidates, leadership was needed from other politicians to call out these crazies.
In September, President Joe Biden called the MAGA Republicans “semi-fascists.”
It is high time we do the same in Finland and call out these extremist politicians for what they are: fascists and a threat to democracy.
Well, Sannikka is at it again, and wouldn’t you know that she had something lowly to say about migrants?
Tuesday’s A-studio talk show was about civil disobedience, and Sannikka asked an environmental activist if her civil disobedience would include crimes committed by migrants.
WTF?
That is pretty far-fetched and reveals that Sannikka has an agenda against minorities and migrants.
The Finnish mainstream media has a poor reputation in the eyes of racialized Finns for spreading and labeling them. Yle did it again on its 8:30 pm news, where it led with a picture of a white youth giving the finger, followed by no sources except for “the police believes” that street gang criminal activity has taken a turn for the worst.
Then the reporter gives her verdict, sourcing her opinions to the police without mentioning statistical information, never mind an official’s name.
“Shootings in public places, bragging about criminals and showing it on social media indicate that street gang criminal activity has grown in Finland, according to the police.”
The Yle reporter states that the National Bureau of Investigation (KRP) said four years ago that there were no youth street gangs in Finland. Today there are about ten gangs, mainly in Turku and Helsinki and surroundings, with about 200 members, according to the police.
Surprise, surprise: “Youth gangs are different from motorcycle gangs,” the reporter states, “since they listen to rap music, they are mainly men of foreign background and exert influence in the neighborhoods they live.”
It’s been over 40 years since a group of foreigners and Finns organized a demonstration from the Porthania’s University of Helsinki to the steps of parliament. It happened on a Tuesday, 19 October, and it was a very cold day.
Tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, which has had a murky history for publishing and attacking Somalis and other migrants in the 1990s, publishes a story about two Romany women who shoplift 2,600 euros of merchandise.
Certainly, shoplifting is a crime, but what about when a tabloid publishes a story that reinforces stereotypes about a certain group? Considering that Ilta-Sanomat was responsible in the 1990s for fueling Finnish racism against groups like the Somalis, isn’t that “a crime” also?
In the Finnish media, tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat have published racist stories. From left to right: This year, Finland will receive 10,000 illegal refugees (sic!); The Somalis coned the authorities to give them asylum; (right) Suomen Kuvalehti wrote in 1940 that the Finnish soldier did not run away, but an African tribe in the Indian Ocean does.
Apart from pointing out that the two women had hidden the merchandise in their Romany dresses, one of the suspects had yelled and acted aggressively against the security guard.
What would have happened if the shoplifters had been white Finns? If it were news, the tabloid would probably lead with the following headline: “A white Finns shoplifts.”
Who would be interested in reading such a story?
In our opinion, the story about the Romany women shoplifters has no other role than exposing the reporter’s prejudices and racist stereotypes of Romany women.
#Astudio host Marja Sannikka kicks off the next topic on the talk show on gang violence with the following words that sound like a thriller: “Knives, violence, revenge. Finnish youth gang crime grows at a worrying pace.”
In the talk show, does Sannikka gives us any facts about “the worrying [growth] pace” of gang violence in Finland? Instead, she speaks to four youths in the Vantaa neighborhood of Tikkurilla who give their views on the topic without any facts.
“I think matters have got worse in the past two years,” says one, “while another says that “people act more aggressively than before.” Knives and other weapons are more common, according to them.
While – again, without any statistical data – it takes about 10 minutes for Sannikka to mention that magic scapegoat word, “person of foreign background.” According to her, the police claim that 90% of the gang members are “people of foreign background.”
If you make such a claim, the host should back it up with facts. Moreover, how many so-called “people of migrant backgrounds” belong to gangs? 90%? 70%? 30%? 1%? 0.001%?
Most first- and second-generation Finns don’t belong to gangs and do something more useful with their time.
Why does Sannikka use #astudio to label and victimize all migrant youths?
Police officer Markku Heinikari has no answers about the roots of this problem and what to do about it. Mika Mehmet, the social worker who grew up in two cultures, mentioned that it had to do with belonging and a weak sense of identity.
What Mehmet said is correct but did not go far enough: What about the role of racism and the lack of adequate social services? How do talk shows like the one by #astudio contribute to the problem?
Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest-circulation daily, writes in an editorial about why the country needs labor migrants to secure economic growth and services offered by the welfare state. We are at a critical crossroads: It is the first time in history that more people die than there are newborns.
While the editorial invites debate on Finland’s serious demographic woes, it is misleading because it only highlights the usual talking points by leaving out new arguments offered by brown and black Finn migrant researchers.
The reaction of some Finns can turn violent against migrants and minorities, as we saw after the Turku stabbings in 2017 by a Moroccan asylum seeker. Source: Migrant Tales
The editorial bases its call for more labor migrants on the pension insurance group Varma CEO Risto Murto’s book, Puuttuvat puoli miljoonaa, The missing half a million.
Murto’s book does not reveal anything new about Finland’s demographic woes. Over one-fourth of about 8% of Finland’s foreign population in 2020 lives in Helsinki; in 2035, it will rise to over a third; the low employment levels of people who came to Finland as refugees.
While Murto does not explain why the employment level of Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis, and other people of color is low in Finland, he and Helsingin Sanomat leave out the fact that their employment level rises the longer they live in Finland.
For some odd reason, the Helsingin Sanomat editorial and Murto forget to mention that refugees in Finland comprise about 10% of all foreigners. As we know and have seen, Finland’s hostile environment against visible migrants spread by parties like the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), Christian Democrats, and others.
When they attack foreigners, such parties speak of this group as one group, “migrants.”
Finland has historically shunned immigrants, even if it is a country of emigrants. In the 1970s, when hundreds of thousands of Finns were moving to Sweden, the country decided against labor immigration to plug the economically active population deficit.
Several questions arise on how Finland could be a magnet for labor migrants. Less bureaucracy, family reunification, child education, Finnish- and Swedish-language lessons.
Of all of the factors Murto believes would attract labor migrants, the most important one is missing: a migrant and minority-friendly society that is inclusive.
The latter is easier said than done. Historically and politically today, Finland has shot itself in the demographic leg by allowing its suspicion of outsiders to overtake the better of them.
Any serious student of Finnish society should eventually grasp that institutional racism is one of the mothers of all social ills in the country. Institutional racism gives cover to racists and to the toxic white saviors who do irreparable harm to migrants and minorities.
You don’t need a lot of research to figure out the latter. Look at people who have the power to enforce and regulate it.
If the issue is institutional racism, why does Finlan do so little to challenge it? One of many examples of discrimination is the labor market. Why do we rarely read in the media about the authorities clamping down on this problem? It is, instead, a new study over an old one highlighting this problem.
The answer reveals a sad truth: there is no intention or political will to change matters. The situation is what it is because they are supposed to be that way.
US social thinker James Baldwin put it in the following words:
Without any intention of changing matters, rest assured that most projects with newcomers will miss the mark or fail outright. The integration authorities will feed newcomers the usual half-truths about Finnish social justice, which is highly selective.
Unfortunately, the latter will happen with some of the blessings of our culturally diverse communities.
Even so, I am confident the more Finland’s culturally diverse population grows, the more evident this social ill will be, and the need to change it permanently.
How far will right-wing parties like the Moderate Party of Sweden go to make a pact with their political devils? How much populism and empty nationalism led to the demise of UK Prime Minister Liz Truss? These are valid questions for Finland’s National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), which is making similar pacts with populism.
Kokoomus, like the Moderate Party of Sweden, and the rapid downfall of UK Prime Minister Truss must have raised some concerns. An election strategy is needed for April, but peppered with toxic populism and anti-immigration soundbites?
Finland faces a lot of challenges. For one, it needs labor migrants but this is difficult to realize on a grand scale because the Perussuomalaiset, Kokoomus, and other parties that attack and see migrants as a threat.
Politicians make fiery speeches against migrants – note they speak of all migrants – and then expect people to move here. Even for some who live here, the environment looks and feels hostile.
If we continue down the road of populism and exclusive nationalism, it’s clear that our future spells ruin.
