Sanna Ukkola is a YLE journalist who has stuck her foot in her mouth a number of times. Hosting Pressiklubi on Friday was a clear example when she put on an Amerindian feather hairpiece and showed a clip of Pekka ja Pätkä blackfaces to the audience.
While she excused herself for wearing the hairpiece, the whole talk show was a fiasco and an embarrassment to YLE. Is cultural appropriation ok? We don’t know because the talk show didn’t take a clear stand on the issue.
Two of the guests, Matti Virtanen, a Talouselämä journalist, and conservative National Coalition Party councilman, Tere Sammallahti, added more injury to pain with their comments about cultural appropriation. The other guest was Left Alliance chairwoman Li Anderson, who disagreed with almost everything that the two other guests said.
Virtanen claimed that it was ok for Miss Helsinki candidates to wear the hairpiece because it was a copy and therefore didn’t insult anyone.
Yes, right, Virtanen. You have privilege and power to make such a point but not the moral authority because you are white.
Meet the candidates who are vying to be crowned Miss Helsinki. Source: Tämä päivä.
If Virtanen and Ukkola stuck their foots in their mouths, Sammallahti ended up with a Frankenstein shoe in his.
See original tweet by Outi Länsman here.
“Now that I have a 1.5-year-old boy child at home,” he said, “I hope he won’t have to grow up in a work where he’s made to feel guilty for being born white and, probably, heterosexual.”
Sammallahti is a prime example of a white Finn who doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that what he fears for his boy is what some minorities face every day of their lives. They are degraded and constantly reminded that they are outsiders.
Finnish white privilege #38
When you are white, you can air a television talk show and debate whether cultural appropriation is ok. All of your guests are white and they, apart from Anderson, can have a quaint discussion about cultural appropriation.
They have the power and the privilege to do and say as they please. Even insult minorities with their statements if they wish.
Like Outi Länsman tweeted with a picture of Ukkola wearing an Amerindian feather headpiece: “This is Finnish journalism. The year is 2017.”
See also:
- Defining white Finnish privilege #1: I have it and you don’t
- Defining white Finnish privilege #2: Third culture children versus “pupil with immigrant background”
- Defining white Finnish privilege #3 No history, no doctrine, no heroes and no martyrs
- Defining white Finnish privilege #4 Holding the short end of the stick
- Defining white Finnish privilege #5 It’s ok to be a racist
- Defining white Finnish privilege #6 Not having a voice and the media
- Defining white Finnish privilege #7 A definitive guide
- Defining white Finnish privilege #8 Underrated and less intelligent
- Defining white Finnish privilege #9 Mohammad Ali’s insight
- Defining white Finnish privilege #10 I can victimize and make up any story I like about migrants because I’m white
- Defining white Finnish privilege #11: Case Teuvo Hakkarainen
- Defining white Finnish privilege #12: Case Tom Packalén
- Defining white Finnish privilege #13: Case Matti Putkonen
- Defining white Finnish privilege #14: Losing sight of the real issue
- Defining white Finnish privilege #15: Case Halla-ago on the PS
- Defining white Finnish privilege #16: Rosa Emilia Clay and my history versus yours
- Defining white Finnish privilege #17: The Perussuomalaiset and our civil rights
- Defining white Finnish privilege #18: Labeling others according to your prejudice
- Defining white Finnish privilege #19: My rape statistics about your group
- Defining white Finnish privilege #20: Labeling Others to strengthen “us” and “them.”
- Defining white Finnish privilege #21: Who can be a Finn?
- Defining white Finnish privilege #22: From racist, fascist to politician without memory
- Defining white Finnish privilege #23: Greater police powers to monitor migrants and minorities
- Defining white Finnish privilege #24: Becoming a heartless accomplice in wars and people’s suffering
- Defining white Finnish privilege #25: This land is my land, this isn’t your land
- Defining white Finnish privilege #26: Are you an ethnic Finn?
- Defining white Finnish privilege #27: White versus Other media
- Defining white Finnish privilege #28: Are you an ethnic Finn (Part 2)?
- Defining white Finnish privilege #29: Your family is worth less than mine
- White Finnish privilege #30: Whitewashing and racializing the news
- White Finnish privilege #31: The Soldiers of Odin and the Finnish media
- White Finnish privilege #32: The white Finnish police and “them”
- White Finnish privilege #33: Appropriating our narrative to maintain the status quo, amass more power and privilege
- White Finnish privilege #34: Building a political career on privilege and nativist nationalism
- White Finnish privilege #35: Case Sampo Terho and the ministry of (dis)culture
- White Finnish privilege #36: Hate speech and censorship
- White Finnish privilege #37: The master of near-everything