Racism Archives - Page 67 of 208

A letter to Prime Minister Juha Sipilä

Posted on December 24, 2017 by Migrant Tales

Dear PM Sipilä,

I have resided in Finland since 2000 and feel this affords me the position to speak on this subject from personal experience.

My experience of immigration & ‘integration’ pre-dates the recent migrant crises and therefore my views are not greatly influenced or biased by such.

Prime Minister Juha Sipilä. Source: Parliament.

The recent results of a 2017 report by EU Agency for Fundamental Human Rights (FRA) has placed Finland as EU’s second most racially-discriminative EU nation. I have not contributed feedback to this survey, however, would welcome any opportunity to do so in future.

The FRA’s results have been publicly acknowledged by some of your peers; including public recognition from Kirsi Pimiä (non.discrimination ombudsman/yhdenvertaisuusvaltuutettu).

I would also like to take the opportunity to quote FRA Director (Professor) M O’Flaherty;

“With every act of discrimination and hate, we erode social cohesion and create inequalities that blight generations fuelling the alienation that may ultimately have devastating consequences.”

I and my family – including bi-lingual children – have been victims of such hate and discrimination. Discrimination that has been repeatedly enabled and excused by local public sector workers and has led directly to negative outcomes described above. Local officials are enabled & given too much power without regulation which they can abuse to bully and intimidate and their ‘clients’ are unable to obtain legal redress. I have experienced a culture where very serious false allegations have been permitted and effectively encouraged by social workers that appear to enjoy the psychological bullying. The victims are unable to seek redress as police are not allowed to investigate such cases and so the cycle is allowed to continue. This cycle has continued for several years and the people behind it have been systematically attempting to drive-out and destroy. This bullying – of several years duration – has been excused and dismissed by local authority executives to us in person as “maassa maan tavalla” – I take this as both a highly offensive insult (as it was intended) and as a racial slur; yet another example of the empowered punishing the powerless.

In my view, there is no longer any excuse or mitigation for Finnish Govt & leadership to either deny or downplay these issues any longer; such as was the 2015 Nordic Media press release.

I implore you Mr Sipilä and your professional colleagues/peers to take immediate actions that will lead to prevention of the potentially devastating consequences of racism, discrimination, injustice and social exclusion in Finland.

In my opinion, you must now engage with your critics and accept that negative feedback IS of positive value.

Finland’s Perussuomalaiset party and its disdain for #metoo and our institutions

Posted on December 19, 2017 by Migrant Tales

Racism and Islamophobia are nothing more than pigheaded ignorance.

What do you do if an Islamophobic MP called Teuvo Hakkarainen gets so drunk in parliament that he picks a fight with other MPs from the rival Blue Reform party by throwing bottles at their meeting? What about if that same MP, convicted for hate speech, grabs a fellow woman MP and forces her to kiss him?

All of this happened on Thursday.

What about if an aid for the PS got so drunk the same day at a Christmas party in parliament that he was carried out and taken to a hospital in an ambulance?

Teuvo Hakkarainen on his first day in parliament in 2011.

What about if the leader of the PS, Jussi Halla-aho, believes that exposing this type of inappropriate behavior is synonymous with “undermining trust” between politicians and the media?

Continue reading “Finland’s Perussuomalaiset party and its disdain for #metoo and our institutions”

Finland’s lost decade flirting with racism, fascism and the Perussuomalaiset party

Posted on December 17, 2017 by Migrant Tales

Sampo Terho, minister culture, sport and European affairs, was elected on Saturday to chair Blue Reform, a Lilliputian party that split from the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* after their plush ministerial jobs were on the line after Jussi Halla-aho was elected PS chairperson in June.

Even if the PS imploded into two factions, the Blue Reform party continues in government despite its roughly 1% backing in the latest polls.

Terho admitted Saturday that the new party’s aim is a long and challenging one. He said that the final goal is to become the biggest party in Finland.

The new chairman of Blue Reform can fantasize about the future. The PS’ opportunity came in the 2011 and 2015 parliamentary elections but was dashed by power struggles and infighting.

Finland has paid a high price to learn today that parties like the PS and Blue Reform are a deception because the only thing they like to do is offer simplistic solutions to complex issues, scapegoat and never offer effective solutions.

The lies and the fantasies coming out of Blue Reform appear never-ending. Terho said that his party helped salvage Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government and thereby ensured that the country’s anti-EU stance and anti-immigration policy would continue.

“Finland has a more sensible immigration policy [now] where the economic burden of granting residence permits on humanitarian grounds, uncontrolled immigration and security risks are checked,” he said, adding that one of the government’s accomplishments, thanks to Blue Reform, is putting an end to “asylum tourism.”

Fact check: It is questionable whether there was any economic burden of Finland for granting residence permits on humanitarian grounds. The Finnish Immigration Service’s numbers speak for themselves: 2016 (50 cases); 2015 (6); 2014 (4); 2013 (11); 2012 (112); 2011 (143); and 2010 (654).

Exaggerating and feeding fake news to the public is nothing new by politicians like Terho, who loathes cultural diversity. He also wants through the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity (Suomalaisuuden liitto) for Finland to remain white and ensure our history is thoroughly whitewashed.

Continue reading “Finland’s lost decade flirting with racism, fascism and the Perussuomalaiset party”

Exposing white Finnish privilege #45: Do blondes have more fun?

Posted on December 12, 2017 by Migrant Tales

In the 1960s, there was a brand that dyed your hair blonde and asked if blondes have more fun?

Considering all the sexual harassment charges going on these days that have exposed a pressing social issue, being blonde could be hell for a woman.

Sexist Lady Clairol alleges that blondes have more fun.

In Finland in 2017, blonde, blue-eyed women are used in ads to personify racial purity. One Islamophobe, who indulges in racism and bigotry, Laura Huhtasaari, embodies white Finland to the point of ad nauseam.

Why is she obnoxious?

Apart from her racism, whiteness for Huhtasaari is all about power and privilege. Her image and persona constantly remind us which ethnic group calls the shots in this country.

The ideal blonde in Finland appears in a Finnair ad.

Continue reading “Exposing white Finnish privilege #45: Do blondes have more fun?”

EU-MIDIS II: White Europe’s tacit approval and silence of ethnic discrimination

Posted on December 11, 2017 by Migrant Tales

Should we be surprised by a new EU-MIDIS II report that concludes that discrimination of people of Sub-Sharan African origin suffered the most discrimination in Luxembourg and Finland (50% and 45%, respectively)? Matters aren’t that rosy elsewhere either. People with North African backgrounds endured the most discrimination in the Netherlands (49%), and the Roma reported the most discrimination in countries like Greece and Portugal (48% and 47%, respectively).

Contrarily, the report revealed that the lowest rates of discrimination by respondents were people of Russian origin living in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (7%, 6%, and 4%, respectively).

Finland has published in the past quite a few comprehensive studies about different ethnic and national groups like the Somalis. The EU-MIDIS II findings, however, are by no means a surprise.

Read the full report here.

Touko Aalto, the chairperson of the Greens, is the only politician in Finland who commented on the EU-MIDIS II report.

“Today there’s been news about the latest EU report, which claims that is is one of the most prejudiced countries in Europe,” Aalto wrote on his Facebook wall. “The non-discrimination ombudsman [Kirsi Pimiä] commented that the [EU-MIDIS II] report is a clear indication that there is a lot of racism in Finland.”

Even if we know that racism is a social ill that affects a lot of migrants and minorities, especially from Sub-Saharan Africa, the big question is what is the government going to do, if anything? At this moment, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government has had a dismal record on racism.

Continue reading “EU-MIDIS II: White Europe’s tacit approval and silence of ethnic discrimination”

QUOTE OF THE DAY: A good one about cultural appropriation

Posted on December 10, 2017 by Migrant Tales

“That blackness on your face it will come off, won’t it? You wipe that blackness off, and they’ll treat you like a man. We black, in a white man’s country, it ain’t nothing we can do about it. If you don’t understand that you don’t understand nothing.”

John Marriott in Black like me (1964)*

* This movie, Black like me, was based on a true story about a white man who changed the color of his skin with drugs to write about how difficult the lives of blacks were in the Southern United States. While the leading actor, James Whitmore, plays the “black” reporter, the makeup isn’t too convincing. Is the movie guilty of cultural appropriation?

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Ignite #metooracism campaign

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Migrant Tales

It’s encouraging to see how people in power are coming down in flames for sexual harassment. Wouldn’t it be great if we could apply sexual harassment to racist harassment and spark a similar movement? Silence and inaction are the reasons why sexual harassment happens with near-impunity. It’s the same story why racism continues to occur on such a massive scale.

The Harvey Weinsteins and Donald Trumps of the sexual harassment are the Marine Le Pens, Geert Wilders and Viktor Orbans of racism. In Finland, they come with the names of Timo Soini, Jussi Halla-aho, and Laura Huhtasaari.

Let’s change that now

#metooracism

Emboldened by Judd, Rose McGowan and a host of other prominent accusers, women everywhere have begun to speak out about the inappropriate, abusive and in some cases illegal behavior they’ve faced. Read the full story here.

Wouter Van Bellingen: Black Pete is an aberration that will become history

Posted on December 6, 2017 by Migrant Tales

Wouter Van Bellingen, 45, is a Flemish human rights’ activist who has fought for racial justice in Belgium. One of the issues that he has challenged is the racist legacy of Black Pete (or Zwarte Piet). Apart from issues like cultural appropriation and disrespect for minorities like blacks, the United Nations declared in 2015 that Black Pete was a “vestige of slavery.”

Elected in 2007 as the deputy mayor of Sint-Niklaas, Van Bellingen became the first black deputy mayor of Belgium. Presently is the director of Integration Pact (Integratiepact), an association that promotes integration and inclusion of migrants and minorities in Belgium.

Every year Flemish- and Dutch-speakers celebrate Black Pete from the end of October to December 6.

Van Bellingen remembers as a child and adolescent growing up in Flanders that Black Pete was “mental torture” for him and other black children. Blacks are the most discriminated group in Belgium and at the lower end of the poverty scale. Black Pete reinforces stereotypes about blacks like belittling their intelligence, according to him.

“Since my classmates knew me they didn’t mess with me at school,” said Van Bellingen. “They [white children and adults before] would come up to total strangers and touch your skin and ask if it was going to stain them. It is not a joke. Some believed that our black skin stained theirs.”

Van Bellingen said that when he was a child, he avoided going to stores because total strangers would stop him on the street and yell, “Look Black Pete!”

“I went to see an MP last week, and her daughter, who was of mixed race asked if she could scrub her dark skin and become white,” he said.

Despite the racism that Black Pete brings out in white people who pay homage to this offensive character to blacks and minorities, Van Bellingen says that matters are improving.

“Matters are getting better in Belgium,” he added. “If you looked at the shops five years ago, you could find Black Pete everywhere. I believe it will eventually vanish.”

Van Bellingen said that his children will still have to suffer “the mental torture” he went through, but by the time he has grandchildren, Black Pete character will become history.

“The majority of the people who live in Antwerp have immigrant backgrounds,” he continued. “The majority disapprove of this practice. It will first disappear in Flanders and then in the Netherlands.”

Wouter Van Bellingen, who became Belgium’s first black deputy major in 2007, has campaigned fearlessly against Black Pete/Zwart Piet. Photo by Enrique Tessieri.

Growing up with Black Pete got worse for Van Bellingen as he got older.

Continue reading “Wouter Van Bellingen: Black Pete is an aberration that will become history”

Great to hear that attitudes towards migrants are improving in Finland. Let’s not, however, generalize and cry victory yet

Posted on December 4, 2017 by Migrant Tales

Why are attitudes becoming more favorable towards migrants in Finland? Helsingin Sanomat turns to Lena Näre, a sociologist, to provide some insight on why attitudes towards migrants have become more desirable.

Some results below of the poll published by Helsingin Sanomat Sunday.

Should Finland take more migrants? Yes (kyllä), don’t know (ei osaa sanoa), and no (ei). The table above shows that before the financial crisis of 2008, 55% stated that they’d want more migrants to come to Finland. Due to the recovery of the economy, among other reasons, attitudes are becoming more favorable.

Continue reading “Great to hear that attitudes towards migrants are improving in Finland. Let’s not, however, generalize and cry victory yet”

Finland finally gets some teeth and bans the neo-Nazi PVL

Posted on November 30, 2017 by Migrant Tales

In a historic decision on Thursday, the Pirkanmaa District Court banned the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (Pohjoismainen vastarintaliike, PVL) with links to far-right groups in the Nordic region, according to YLE in English. PVL is a racist hate group that aims to do away with Nordic democracy and replace it with national socialism.

The district court based its decision to ban the neo-Nazi PVL because it “flagrantly violated the principles of good practice.”

Writes YLE in English: “The court ruled that it was a violent group that exhorted followers and members to violent acts. The court said that the group was not entitled to freedom of speech protections as its actions violated the human rights of others.”

One of the latest cases of violence by the PVL is its member Jesse Torniainen, sentenced to two years in prison for aggravated assault.

Tag: Racism