A recent column by Seida Sohrabi exposed, in my opinion, how people justify racism and social inequality. I and many others trust the law of this land while people like her have faith and trust institutional racism.
Sohrabi claims to have a master’s in political science; she is an elementary school teacher and gives talks about her views on how migrants should adapt to Finland.
If you read the column as well as her past opinions, I wonder if she understands how our Nordic society functions. She has probably read the Constitution, but like many populists, she does not take it seriously and relies more on society’s prejudices and institutional racism.
Moreover, if she has said before that schools should prohibit children from wearing the veil (hijab), does she prevent their use in her classes? Does she teach her pupils to hate their religion as she does?
Sohrabi, who is a close friend of Islamophobe pseudo authority on Islam, Atte Kaleva, is an example of how people with migrant backgrounds and minorities clamoring to create a space for themselves, will do and say anything to be accepted.
Sohrabi moved to Finland when she was six, which explains why she speaks Finnish without an accent. Is she a “foreigner” or a “Kurdish Finn?”
Just like a recent story on exploitation of migrants in the labor markets shows that many of these companies are run by migrants, many people with migrant backgrounds but who have lived most of their lives here house pretty Islamophobiv views of Muslims.
Sohrabi is not the only one in this questionable group. There are others like Morocco-born Junnes Lokka, Marco de Wit, who is of Dutch background, Miki Sileoni, whose father is Argentinean, and Gleb Simanov to name a few.
Black people who suck up to white USAmerica are called Uncle Toms. It’s a bit the same thing in Finland but in a different context. On the one side, they attack migrants and minorities who are struggling to create a space for themselves in their new or not-so-new homeland while on the other they cloy to white power.
The Urban Dictionary defines an Uncle Tom as, “a black man who will do anything to stay in good standing with the white man including betray his own people.”
It is unfortunate but true, in Finland we have migrants and minorities who will also do anything to stay in good standing to white Finns. Could we call these people “Tuomo-setä,” “setä Tuomo” or “mamu-setä?”
Moreover, I will continue to support and defend the laws of this land while others seek acceptance, encouragement, and refuge from institutional racism.