After many years of writing about racism and discrimination in Migrant Tales, I am always disappointed by Finland’s and Europe’s blind spot of racism. A good example of the latter was a feature by Yle of far-right youths whose only contribution, in my opinion, in the story was their suspicion and loathing of migrants and minorities.
It is sad that the media continues not to see its blind spot of racism but perpetuates and spreads hatred and stereotypes about migrants.
Even if such a toxic narrative may bring you fame and power as a politician, even a ministerial position, it is a perilous path that can lead us to the slippery slope of the pyramid of hate.
The Holocaust and other genocides offer red-flag warnings.
Historian Stefan Lehnstaedt hit the nail on the head about our blind spot of racism through his analysis of the Holocaust.
“[What] I find so terrifying about the Holocaust is that it actually worked with normal people,” he said. “That is a whole society looks the other way or even thinks it’s good because everyone benefits from it – nobody has a problem with it. That is actually the true lesson of the Holocaust for me.”
Moral inversion is another term that sheds light on society’s blind spot of racism. It is a sociological phenomena in which a society’s understanding of right and wrong had traded places with each other.
The Finnish government of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo talks about a paradigm shift in migration and economic policy. Instead of being paradigm shifts, they are the processes of moral inversion.
The way to strike a hammer blow to our blind spot is to dismantle institutional racism and to fight back tooth and nail against those social ills that inflict our society.
