THE STORY WAS UPDATED
Of all the newspapers that write about migrants and cultural diversity, tabloid Iltalehti published Sanna Ukkola’s column on how “antiracism is the new racism.”
With a headline like that, we could also put together provocative headlines like how “feminism is modern misogyny,” “anti-fascism is the new fascism,” and “how promoting same-sex marriage is the new homophobia.”
Nonsensical, right?
Ukkola, who is a white Finn with an alt-right view of things, is married to far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* editor Matias Turkkila, who belongs to Finland’s Islamophobic network, according to the European Islamophobic Report 2020.
She, of all people, is coaching us about the evils of antiracism.
Dr. Leonardo Custódio offered a good tweet concerning Ukkola’s conclusions.
Ukkola goes further in the column and cites four “people with migrant backgrounds” to back her preposterous claim.
Convenience? Just because her sources aren’t white doesn’t mean that they are “experts” on racism.
Of all the four that Ukkola cites, Arman Alizad quotes conservative apologist and critic of the Black Lives Matter movement, Robert Woodson, “antiracism has become the new racism.”
Throughout the years, Alizad has vacillated on racism in Finland. In early 2011, he criticized and made fun of foreigners on Tuomas Enbuske’s show who were social welfare recipients and victims of racism.
Binga Tupamäki is a National Coalition Party city councilor of Helsinki. She claims that “a lot” of people see anti-racism as a bad way of dealing with societal problems. She adds: “One reason, for example, is to bring out the ‘races.’ Personally, I would like to remove the talk of ‘races’ when there are no such things in humanity.”
Tupamäki’s observation is a good example of colorblind racism, which is nothing more than a convenient way to brush the problem of ethnicity or race under the carpet.
Do I have to say anything about Kamal Jafi and Seida Sohrabi?
Both of the above persons make a name for themselves by parroting the most toxic views about migrants that are the foundation for bigotry and racism in this country.
Antiracism is a good concept if any to tackle inequalities in society. NGOs like the European Network Against Racism have done a lot of work on this front.
The pushback from certain sectors of society against antiracism proves that our activism has had an impact and will continue to do so.
We are accompanied by many exemplary activists like James Baldwin, Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Rosa Emilia Clay, and a long, long list of others.
