Maria Rittis Ikola*
Imagine that white Finns like me weren’t able to speak over others in every medium available. Imagine a time when white people were not able to express their confusion and dismay over political correctness in prime spaces in Finnish newspapers, because nobody would let them. Imagine that racialised journalists didn’t have to confine their voices to blogs where they called out white writers on their othering writing but had newspaper columns and editorials to themselves. Imagine a time where white people did not call to Rev. Martin Luther King’s words on how people should be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, adding how isn’t it racist to talk back to white people, because nobody would do this because King was murdered because he spoke for Black people, and nobody in their right mind would claim we live in a society where racism doesn’t exist. Imagine that Finns wouldn’t cry out for how unjust the world is because reverse racism really doesn’t exist, but white fragility does. Actually, let me take out that “imagine”part, it’s too utopian anyway.
It’s too utopian to ask a white columnist in Helsingin Sanomat to not tokenize racialised writers and artists and make them mannequins of what has gone too far in political correctness. Too utopian to not link to Sonja Saarikoski’s column, so instead here is Sonya Lindfors’s recap of how she was asked to be interviewed and refused, the link is included of course ( https://m.facebook.com/sonya.
Continue reading “Maria Rittis Ikola: Imagine a world without white privilege”