Racism Archives - Page 106 of 208

Defining white Finnish privilege #19: My rape statistics about your group

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales has followed migrant rape statistic stories for some time. You should always treat them with tweezers when two matters appear:

The news story only cites percentages, not numbers
The percentages are used to label all migrants, especially some groups.

Most of the stories written about migrant rape cases in Finland fit these two characteristics to a tee. Why? Because the percentages have more umph and permit us to eat our cake and keep our prejudices of others.

The Enbuske & Linnanahde talk show is one of many shoddy and racist examples of how the Finnish media labels whole groups in this country thanks to their interpretation of crime statistics.

Now you see the ad below…

This ad, which asked “why Somalis rape” was removed after people started sending emails to the talk show. There were 38 Somalis who were convicted of rape between 2009 and 2013. In 2013 there were over 15,789 Somalis living in Finland who were not Finnish citizens or who spoke Somali as their native language.*

…now you don’t.

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Why do migrants have too little say over their matters in Finland?

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Migrant Tales

The Finnish ministry of education allocated 1.3 million euros in 2015 compared with 1.2 million euros the previous year to support migrants in sports, according to YLE. Despite such sums of money migrants and their children still face obstacles like discrimination and racism in sports.

Discrimination today in Finnish sports appears as exclusion, name-calling, insults, even violence in some cases.

Despite the challenges, sports can play a big role in helping a migrant make new friends and adapt to his or her new homeland.

Read full story here.

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The question that everyone forgot to ask: Are the Tapanila sexual assault suspects Finns?

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Migrant Tales

The Tapanila gang sexual assault case last week revealed a lot of ugly things about our society like our lack of willingness to help people in distress, and racism. The debate has raged on with the media and social media leading the charge.

The violent reaction we have seen on social media to what happened isn’t surprising since the aim of the crime in Tapanila appears to be to strengthen our prejudices of other groups and bolster our sense of “us” at the cost of “them.”

An extremely important question that the case has revealed is who is considered a Finn by this society and who is not. In Finland we consider a person a Finn if he or she has Finnish citizenship. Why are we, or specifically the police, calling these five suspects people “with foreign backgrounds” if some of them are Finns?

Is the police using a code word that means “you have Finnish citizenship but you’re not a real Finn?”

In the statement above, the police claimed that the suspects were “five persons with foreign backgrounds” even if the majority were born and grew up in Finland. Is a person with “foreign or immigrant background” anyone we don’t like and do we use the term to reveal that we are a pretty exclusive white society?

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Using the term “immigrant background” in a bigoted country

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Migrant Tales

In a country like Finland, where even politicians can make political careers with their bigotry, what impact does the label “immigrant background” have in reinforcing intolerance and prejudices?

This question is an important one because, like racism, the label rarely if ever affects white Finns.

The tragic rape of a woman this week by a group of teenagers in the northern Helsinki neighborhood of Tapanila is a case in point.

Even if the police apprehended the five suspects and they were in custody, they labeled them in a statement as having “immigrant backgrounds.” The police said that the ethnic label used in the statement was necessary since they needed more eyewitnesses.

Helsingin Sanomat used the term “immigrant background” in a first take of a story. In a column the daily explained why it took out the ethnic label in a newer take but admitted that it could have been left in the story since the police were trying to get more eyewitnesses.

Even if the daily posed some good questions about the problem in using such a label and if it is ethical under the circumstances that all of the suspects were apprehended, Helsingin Sanomat contradicted itself in another story where it highlighted in a headline that it later changed from “every third sentenced [for rape] was a foreigner” to “Tapanila gang rape suspects have been jailed.”

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Tapanila sexual assault in Finland sends a disturbing signal about our society

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Something terrible happened on Monday night after 9pm at the Tapanila train station of northern Helsinki. A group of 15-18-year-olds were reportedly harassing a young woman on a train, who was later sexually assaulted by the same suspects outside the station, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

No respectable news organization or police force with integrity should be interested in spreading racial stereotypes or fueling racial hatred. It’s not considered ethical in journalism to mention the suspect’s ethnicity if the person is under police custody.

Read full story here.

Identifying somebody by ethnicity can be problematic as well. Even if the suspects had been apprehended, the police mentioned in a statement that those under custody were of “foreign background.”

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Racism and time

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Racism is harmful because it robs you of one of your most important things in life: time.

In the same way that Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-70) asked in a poem where sighs, tears and love go,* do we know where time goes after it’s used up?

Since humans are social animals, attack and prey on others in a pack, how would we collectively rob others of a priceless commodity such as time? How would we deprive such a group of the same rights and privileges we enjoy?

Would racism and discrimination be formidable weapons in this task?

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European racism is like a Cadillac but has the ability to appear and vanish

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Racism is like a Cadillac, they bring out a new model every year.

Malcolm X (1925-65)

The story of the three Chelsea fans who are suspected of turning away a black person from entering a train on the Paris subway station of Richelieu-Drovat highlights the many “Cadillacs” and shades of racism in today’s Europe as well as its ability to appear and vanish.

One of the suspects in the Paris metro affair is Richard Barklie, 50, when a black man, Souleymane Sylla, was shoved from entering a carriage. While this was happening, supporters were heard chanting: “We’re racist, we’re racist and that’s the way we like it.”

Barklie claims that the black man was shoved away because the carriage was full and had nothing to do with racism.

Read full story here.

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UPDATE (Mar. 6): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

Mar. 6

Olli Immonen rajoittaisi somaleiden maahanmuuttoa (Verkkouutiset)

What’s wrong with this story? We all know what Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Olli Immonen’s xenophobic views are about migration and especially about Muslims. No news here. It wasn’t too long ago when Finnish officials avoided using the term “refugee” for Soviet citizens that were fleeing the USSR since the term wasn’t liked by its giant eastern neighbor. Similarly, there were so few migrants in Finland in the 1980s that such people weren’t even called migrants but aliens. In the Verkkouutiset story the term asylum is only mentioned once even if Somalis are considered refugees fleeing a civil war that has ravaged the country since the early 1990s. Not only does Verkkouutiset accept Immonen’s terminology but sides with it by default. The Verkkouutiset story is a good example of how the Finnish media plays down the humanitarian suffering of groups like Somalis by simply regurgitating an Islamophobes claims that “migration [not refugees fleeing war] from that country” must be halted.

Continue reading “UPDATE (Mar. 6): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism”

Migrants are not a burden to Finland

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Migrant Tales

The letter to the editor below could be perfectly well applied to Finland. In Finland, migrants and minorities are tired of being called a burden by opportunistic politicians that want to gain with xenophobic sound bites voter attention.

Sensible Europeans know better and more of their voices are needed in the face of this hostile attack against migrants and minorities.

One good recent example of the near-constant attacks against the migrant and minority community is the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party program on immigration policy. On top of this, the PS chairman, Timo Soini, wondered in an interview with YLE in English why so few migrants move to Finland.

Silence shouldn’t be our language when challenging all forms of intolerance.

Continue reading “Migrants are not a burden to Finland”

Politicians who fuel and support opportunistically segregation in Finland

Posted on March 5, 2015December 30, 2024 by Migrant Tales

Tanja Hartonen-Pulkka is a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* candidate in April’s parliamentary elections. Last year she was noticed by Migrant Tales for all the wrong reasons. Hartonen-Pulkka lives in Mäntyharju, a small town in Eastern Finland with a population of 6,200 people that has a handful of foreign residents. She claimed in fall that at the present rate, white Finns will become a minority in this country.

Hartonen-Pulkka’s anti-immigration rhetoric hasn’t ended even if she got her fingers burned in August. In a campaign poster she hands you the usual anti-immigration rhetoric that is hostile to migrants and minorities living in Finland:

We must limit immigration. We have to get a handle on social welfare immigration and the cost of immigration has to be lowered. We must first create jobs in order that Finns have work before we can think about increasing the number of skilled migrants [to Finland].

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