Tag: The United States

Red Sociology: ASSIMILATION AS ASSASSINATION

Posted on by Migrant Tales

MT comment: Even if the blog entry below speaks of assimilation, or one-way integration of blacks in the United States, it’s pretty certain that these types of discussions will pick up in Finland as we become a more culturally diverse society. Who is being assimilated into Finnish society? Are blacks and visible minorities expected to assimilate while for white Europeans it’s a two-way process (integration)? 

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Much of what I have studied & come to understand through history is that the true definition of an American is to be a White male who owns a home.  This definition is crucial because it is based on how assimilation has ACTUALLY worked throughout history instead of how the larger society has told people how it works.  As a Black African woman, I fit no where in that definition  & my chances of being a “true” American are completely shot because those who define what it means to be “American” never intended for me to be able to access such a status.  Many people discuss how the process of assimilating into a specific culture requires the shedding of one’s own culture & history & then embracing the prickly culture of the target/dominant society.  The truth is assimilation in American society means that one must lose everything for the hopes of gaining a specific status, gaining approval from the dominant society; but for most Africans, this hope is never fulfilled, never met.

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What is assimilation for Black Africans in America?

For the African in America, in many ways assimilation tells us to be something that we can never become without first assassinating our true selves.  Assimilation is a process where a people of a minority group has shed their own culture & adapt to that of a dominant society.  This assimilation requires that you shed your culture, forget your history, & embrace the mindset of an entirely different people.  When African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement asked for integration, they most likely were NOT asking for White/Euro-Washing.  But, truth be told, that is exactly what we have today among Black Africans in America.  Many of the goals & definitions of Black Americans today are defined by how well Blacks adjust to the backwards American society.  Black Africans are told to forget their history, forget slavery happened; & when they do remember slavery, remember that it wasn’t that bad anyway & White people don’t like for people to talk about it.  This supposed assimilation & in many cases maladjustment is really a means of pacification.  It ensures that an individual is not dangerous or a threat to dominant White supremacy.  We all see what happens to Black Africans when they don’t know their history right?  They further the White supremist, imperialist, & capitalist agenda better than any White/Euro-American ever could.  Assimilation into American society & culture is marketed as “standards of success” to all peoples of color, all oppressed peoples.  Everyone is told that the bar is set at chronic individualism, social sociopathy, selfishness, White supremacy, capitalism, sexism, patriarchy, & ignorance.  People are strangling each other to try to meet these standards.  You may have heard many Black Africans claim that many of us are “just crabs in a bucket”.  It is true in a number of ways, many of us kill each other as we strive to achieve assimilation & adjustment to a society maladjusted to sociopathy.   Measuring the success of the oppressed peoples by how many of us have adjusted & assimilated to this sick American society is NOT success at all.  It is time for Black Africans to create their own means/measurements of success instead of accepting the White washed criteria that was handed to us.

35cxe1 Colorism & the Lily Complex as Part of the Assimilation Curriculum.

One of the leading mindsets among the assimilation initiative is “Colorism”.  Colorism is a mindset/belief that lighter-skinned sisters & brothers are better in EVERY way possible than their darker-skinned brothers & sisters.  Colorism is the result of racism.  Colorism is a symptom of racism that plagues the Black African community.  I mention colorism because through colorism & the lily complex, one can see how assimilation may be more of an “achievable” goal for those of the lighter complexion within the Black African community.  Now with that in mind, we can see how colorism works with racism to deem the lily complex as the only means for proper assimilation for those of the darker complexion.  The lily complex is when Black African women “whiten” their appearance in an aim to cover up their physical selves to assimilate & be accepted as attractive.  Colorism & the Lily complex are two versions of internalized oppression within the Black community, the end result when Black Africans buy into the negative perceptions & stereotypes of the dominant society.  The use/employment of the lily complex goes hand in hand with self-rejection.  It is part of the belief that one’s natural self is not good enough & not attractive enough.  Embracing colorism is the first step in embracing the inferiority complex then the lily complex is employed as a means of assimilation, a means of conforming.  As Shorter-Gooden & Jones state, “…African American women across the country feel pressure to alter their appearance as best they can, and many are wracked with feelings of inferiority. … It is possible to dye your brown tresses platinum and still love your Blackness.  For many women, such changes may simply be another means of self-expression.  And for others, shifting their appearance is just one of many conscious compromises they make to ensure that their White coworkers and peers feel comfortable with them and don’t make presumptions about their attitude or politics based on the way they dress, the way they style their hair, or other superficialities.  These women are aware that others may find Eurocentric characteristics more appealing and that being seen as attractive can help them integrate certain circles and access certain opportunities.  So they conform to survive, to get along, to achieve” (2008, p.178-9).  These maladjustments to the dominant society result in Black African women & men using bleaching products on their skin, dying their hair blonde, rejecting their history, rejecting their people, & Black African women being 5 times more likely to use beauty products than White/Euro-American women.

Assimilation As Assassination

Much of what is required for Black Africans to assimilate requires that they embrace dangerously poisonous mindsets.  They have to reject the self, reject their heritage, reject their people, & run towards the cold embrace of their oppressor. Embracing America’s rigid standards & hatred for everything Black & Brown have resulted in self-hate among the Black African communities in America.  America is not a melting pot, America is a bleaching pot.  The encouragement of Black Africans to forget their history, heritage, hate themselves & fade to Whiteness is in no way safe.  It does not result in a healthy society filled with people who do not see race, it results in a world dictated by White supremist standards & structuralism.

If you must hate & reject your natural self in order to assimilate (& keep in mind that the hopes for success & approval from White America is not guaranteed & its success rate is less than 0.0000009%), then it is NOT worth it.  Assimilation requires the assassination of the truth, the assassination of who YOU are.  Too many Black Africans are walking around thinking that the norm is a White standard & that it has always been that way. NO, White supremacy & racism do not need to have a monopoly on your hair, your body, your history, your community, your mindset, your people, your perceptions, YOU.  Assimilation is defeat.  Assimilation is assassination.

Read original story here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

Fifty years from Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Today marks the 50th anniversary when Martin Luther King Jr.(1929-68) gave his historic “I have a dream” speech. When he gave the speech in Washington on August 28,1963, I was eight years old. Even if I knew nothing  about MLK at the time never mind anything about his famous speech, his words would have a profound effect on me throughout my life.

His historic speech was not only meant for black Americans, but applies to any minority struggling for equality and justice irrespective of the country.

Much of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s starting from Rosa Parks and others before them like Frederick Douglass and nineteenth century abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and  John Brown, who paid with his life to end slavery.

There are also other ones who showed the way with their lives but never imagined we’d remember them today with so much affection and sadness: Treyvon Martin, George Stinney, and Emmet Till.

In many respects, the same message that MLK gave should be the strategy used by anti-racists groups in Finland and Europe. As he said: “Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”

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Today marks the 50th anniversary march on Washington and I have a dream speech. Source: Flickr.

The jury is still out if our Nordic way of life and values will help us to stand togethers on that solid rock of brotherhood.  Anders Breivik on 22/7, the rise of the Sweden Democrats and Perussuomalaiset in Finland suggest that attitudes have toughened in this region of Europe as well.

Europe not only has the burden of the legacy of slavery and colonialism hanging over it, it has appeared time and again to haunt us and ravage our continent with wars and mass devastation.

Ethnic discrimination is an aberration and one of the worst social ills that can inflict us. There is a cure according to MLK: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”  

Great speeches like the one MLK gave half a century ago and the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s are clear examples that the most oppressed minorities can have a dream of a better life and challenge intolerance.

There are many parts of his speech that move me. One passage in particular I especially like: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.”

Hear MLK’s full speech here.

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Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon of hope to millions of slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the colored America is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the colored American is still sadly crippled by the manacle of segregation and the chains of discrimination.

One hundred years later, the colored American lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the colored American is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our Nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed to the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.

We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is not time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.

Now it the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

Now it the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

Now is the time to make justice a reality to all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of its colored citizens. This sweltering summer of the colored people’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning. Those who hope that the colored Americans needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.

There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the colored citizen is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the colored person’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.

We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “for white only.”

We cannot be satisfied as long as a colored person in Mississippi cannot vote and a colored person in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

No, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of your trials and tribulations. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecutions and staggered by the winds of police brutality.

You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our modern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you, my friends, we have the difficulties of today and tomorrow.

I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day out in the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interpostion and nullification; that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be engulfed, every hill shall be exalted and every mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to climb up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father’s died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!”

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi and every mountainside.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Prepared by Gerald Murphy (The Cleveland Free-Net – aa300) Distributed by the Cybercasting Services Division of the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN).

Julian Abagond: Calling out racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Julian Abagond

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Calling out racism is where you point out that something is racist. It might not seem like a big deal, but it is an important part of fighting racism. It can even stop genocide, as crazy as that sounds.

Genocide: Genocides unfold in eight stages. Stopping it at any one stage, stops the genocide from going forward. The second to last stage before the mass killings is this:

Polarization: The first people killed in any genocide are not the pariahs themselves but those in the mainstream who speak up for them. The voices in the middle are silenced through threats, arrests or even killings. Now the message of hate goes unchallenged.

What applies to genocide applies to racism more generally. Racism grows and feeds off a culture of silence. The point of calling out racism is to break down that silence. It does not matter if you persuade anyone, it does not matter if you “win the argument”. It is very unlikely you will. What matters is that you were heard and planted that seed in people’s minds of, “Hey, maybe this is not right.”

Elizabeth Eckford was one of the first nine black students to go to Little Rock Central High School in the American South. That school was a racist hell for her – because the 90% who were not giving her hell would not stand up to the 10% who were. She could not even enter the school till the president of the nation grew a pair and stood up to the governor of the state.

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The American civil rights movement succeeded when people stopped being cowed by fear of standing up to racists.

White people calling out racism: One of the best thing white people can do at the personal level to fight racism is to call it out when they see it. If not to the racist person’s face, then to family and friends. If not to family and friends, then at least inside their own head. Anything is better than nothing.

In America calling out racism matters more when it comes from whites. That is because of the Rules of Racial Standing – that thing where white people think others whites are way more objective and neutral about racism than blacks. The Tim Wise Effect.

Black people calling out racism: White Americans discount what blacks say, it is part of their cultural conditioning, but they still hear it. They hear what they say and, just as important, what they do not say. If something racist goes down and blacks say nothing, whites will assume that it is “okay” or “not so bad”. Especially since many whites assume blacks are “oversensitive”.

That is part of why I post on, say, Quvenzhané Wallis, but not Don Imus or the racist outcry over the Cheerios ad – because those two were roundly condemned even by white people.

Warning: Calling out racism does require judgement and sometimes courage. This post is not about that.

Read original story here.

 This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

Racism Review: Interracial Cheerios – What We’re Still Ignoring

Posted on by Migrant Tales

MT Comment: What would happen if such a commercial were aired in Finland and in other parts of Europe? 

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A recap for those of you who haven’t been following the cereal saga. On May 28 General Mills aired a YouTube Cheerios ad featuring a Black father, White mother and their young biracial daughter.

The 30-second clip was immediately bombarded with racist remarks referencing Nazis, “troglodytes” and “racial genocide.” It got so many negative reactions the comment section was taken down a day later. It is now impossible to verify any of the racist vitriol that was submitted there. But that wasn’t the end of it anyway. Commenters on the cereal’s Facebook page said they found the commercial “disgusting” and it made them “want to vomit.” One viewer expressed shock that a Black father would stay with this family writing the mother was, “More like single parent in the making. Black dad will dip out soon.” Simultaneously a Reddit stream on the ad turned into a debate about the accuracy or likelihood of the mixed-race family comprising a Black man and White woman, rather than a Black woman and White man. The negative responses drew explosive and infuriated attention across the Internet and then media. The result was an overwhelming and massive outpouring of support. America rushed to defend the bi-racial family en masse. Now, if you Google “Cheerios ad,” there will be no end to the pages and pages of results you find. Indeed as I write, the commercial has received close to 3.5 million views. The comments section is still disabled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYofm5d5Xdw

A couple weeks later, the saga seems to be coming to a close. Americans are still a little shaken but ultimately appeased by the final tally (i.e. the dramatic outnumbering of positive to negative responses). To date however the discussion never really included an examination of some critical points that could have propelled us forward. And so we may continue to tread water. First, we have been greatly influenced here by a history we like to forget and neglect. We have long feared interracial unions particularly between Black men and White women because they presumably pose the greatest “threat” to White male control. Remember, 18th and 19th century opposition to race mixing aimed to protect White male interests in an era of colonial expansion. While Black women’s lives were tragically treated as inconsequential, male freedom to choose a White partner made access to White women a barometer of power. For instance, when White men, who held the highest position of privilege, crossed the racial border in having consentual and nonconsentual relationships with Black women, they were seldom penalized. But Black men who crossed, or who were even suspected of crossing the racial divide by having relations with White women, were severely beaten or killed. These social politics rooted themselves in stereotypes that still profoundly affect us:

Black men are thought to lust after white women; white men are thought to be envious of black male sexuality; black women are supposed to be more sexually satisfying than white women; and white women are dehumanized as trophies in competition between men…The system of racial apartheid and oppression that defined the early years of this country’s racial history remains in force today. Racial and sexual stereotypes are still very powerful, and double standards still abound. White men were ever vigilant about black men’s sexual access to white women – and they still are.1

Second, I think it’s worth asking which character really had us up in arms. The mother, the father, or the CHILD?? I suggest it was the body/appearance/phenotype of a young multiracial child who centrally sparked this race controversy. Her character represented living proof of sex between a Black man and White woman, fanning an age-old fear of Black male virility and the dismantling of White supremacy. The Cheerios child also embodied a commitment to longevity on the part of her parents. This was not a tale of dangerous romance swept up on wild winds, but the story of a steadfast family living their every day life. The message being, we’re not going anywhere; a direct challenge and deconstruction of what has long been the dominant American family prototype (i.e. White heterosexual parents and their White children, a dog and house with white picket fence).

What’s perhaps even more important to note here however is the way a multiracial body again became a platform for race deconstruction while its voice and experience went largely unnoticed and unacknowledged. And how we continue to avoid having race conversations with mixed children and perhaps most children in general. Much of the Cheerios debate has been dichotomous and adultcentric, focusing on interracial partnership/marriage and the Black/White divide. But we need to ask ourselves, how does the divide translate for the mixed race child? Does she herself feel divided when she sees she is poised precariously on a tight rope in “the middle”? These are the children of the future and they are being asked to represent race redefinition without the privilege of weighing in. Case in point, when MSNBC interviewed the child actress, Grace Colbert, and her real-life parents, her Black father was asked most of the race questions. His daughter meanwhile bore silent witness while sitting attentively at his side. And when Grace’s White mother, sitting on her other side, was asked if the backlash had “pushed sensitive conversations at home” with the kids, mom answered, “Not really. Um our kids are very open. And you know they – I inquired about, to my daughter, about it and she actually just thought the attention was because she had a great smile. So. She really had no idea.” This answer was given within obvious close hearing range of Grace’s fully capable ears. Grace just wordlessly continued to flash her great smile. But we are left to wonder – what was she really thinking?…

~ Sharon Chang blogs at MultiAsianFamilies

Note 1. See Root, Maria P. P. Love’s Revolution: Interracial Marriage. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. Print.

Read original blog entry here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

Whiteness and white privilege speak European languages

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As we hold our collective breaths and await to know the identity of the bombings in Boston Monday, too many don’t see a suspect but a whole ethnicity or religious group. Tim Wise put it very well in an opinion piece where he makes some distributing revelations about the power of whiteness.

If we understand in Finland, the Nordic Region and Europe that white privilege in the United States means the same thing here, we can begin to understand the social ills that have inflicted us as well.

Being “white” in Europe means that you are a member and identify with the dominant ethnic group of a country. You can speak Italian, be a white Romanian, Estonian-speaking Estonian, or an Englishman or a white Englishwoman to enjoy white privilege over other groups that are visible minorities.

Wise affirms that the Boston bombings are another lesson about ethnicity, whiteness, and specifically of white privilege.

He writes: “White privilege is knowing that even if the Boston Marathon bomber  turns out to be white, his or her identity will not result in white folks generally being singled out for suspicion by law enforcement, or the TSA, or the FBI…And if he turns out [the killer] to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won’t bomb Belfast. And if he’s an Italian American Catholic we won’t bomb the Vatican.”

Anders Breivik, who killed in cold blood 77 victims on July 22, 2011, is a good example of white privilege in the Nordic and Europe. Despite his horrific act, nobody in this part of the world thinks that all white people are mass murderers.

On the contrary. Whites privilege and time make us forget such horrors. Wasn’t Breivik a deranged lone wolf?

We should start to speak more about white privilege.

Not talking about it  shows another feat by white privilege: Playing down the issue.

Racism Review: Mixed Race, Pretty Face

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It was once thought multiracial children were destined to be confused, inwardly conflicted and maladjusted. “Think of the children”, used to be the warning used to discourage interracial couples from marrying. Mixed-race children often faced discrimination and prejudice. Experts worried that these children would suffer from poor self-esteem and lack of identity (Fields, Julianna. Multiracial Families: The Changing Face of Modern Families. Broomall, PA: Mason Crest, 2010.)

The “tragic mulatto” archetype was featured prominently in American culture (Show Boat, 1951).

Usually female, she embodied dislocation, incompatibility and confusion. Similarly we often saw the heartrending, Native American/White “half-blood” (Dances With Wolves, 1990) and in Yellow Peril fiction, the interracial love affair that ends tragically (Sayonara, 1951). (Nakashima, Cynthia L. “Servants of Culture: The Symbolic Role of Mixed-Race Asians in American Discourse,” Pp.35-57 in The Sum of Our Parts: Mixed Heritage Asian Americans.  Ed. Teresa Williams-León and Cynthia L. Nakashima. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. ).

Things have certainly changed.

In 1993, TIME Magazine published a special issue on multiculturalism in America. The now well-known cover featured an ethnically ambiguous woman over the caption “The New Face of America: How Immigrants Are Shaping the World’s First Multicultural Society”. Their model however was not a real person. Her image was computer generated by merging men and women from various racial and ethnic backgrounds. The editors felt she was a preview of what was likely to emerge in tomorrow’s America (). She was bold, beautiful, and significant enough to capture a prominent magazine cover. I remember being a young multiracial woman in Los Angeles when this issue was released (at a time when there weren’t near as many multiracial people). I was mesmerized. Perhaps I swelled with some pride and dignity knowing I was a part of the “future”.

Well that future seems to have arrived. According to the 2010 Census, those identifying with multiple races grew by 32% over the decade, for a total of 9 million while single-race identifiers grew by just 9.2%. A February 2012 Pew Research report showed the number of intermarriages has more than doubled since 1980. It credited growing public acceptance of mixed-race relationships as one reason for the rise.

Nowadays it’s all about “Multiracial Chic”. Being mixed is the coolest thing you can be. Take for example the 2006 Psychology Today article “Mixed Race, Pretty Face?” detailing a study which suggested part Asians are considered more beautiful than their monoracial counterparts.  Such pieces lauding the beauty of mixed race peoples abound. And this wide admiration is clearly visible in pop culture. Multiracial models are taking over advertising, plastered across billboards and magazines. Mixed race actors and pop stars are on the rise.

 

So what does this racial shift mean for our “global” future? Interestingly, the bodies of multiracial peoples (rather than their experiences) are now often being cited as proof that we have become a “postracial” society where racism is frowned upon and ethnic diversity is celebrated. Multiracial people supposedly breakdown racial boundaries just by their mere existence. Their ambiguous appearance alone is enough to destabilize and ultimately eradicate white privilege and the racial hierarchy. Others are beginning to contest this claim. Some predict that growing numbers of mixed race Americans will lead to a new racial hierarchy based on pigment, like those characterizing most Latin American countries. What may look like the “end of race” as more people of color gain political, social, and cultural visibility actually veils a redistribution of power. And multiracial people themselves are perhaps getting caught in the crosshairs, blurring the boundaries between whiteness and nonwhiteness even as they receive certain privileges that historically have been conferred upon those with white bodies (Park, Jane. “Virtual Race: The Racially Ambiguous ActionHero in The Matrix and Pitch Black”. Mixed Race Hollywood.  Ed. Mary Beltrán and Camilla Fojas. New York and London: New York University Press, 2008. 182-202. Print.).

It begs the question. How will the children of today feel about their multiraciality as they come of age in this new America? Will they be the enlightened world leaders of a model “postracial” society? Or will they find themselves entrenched in a new, confusing racial hierarchy with redefined standards. One in which some of them are privileged and others are not?

~ Sharon Chang’s blog is MultiAsian Families

Read original blog entry here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

Of Birds and Feathers: The PS, the Sweden Democrats, and Their American Bedfellows

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Barachiel 

“Birds of a feather flock together.”

I don’t know how or if this saying applies to personal relationships, but it is true in the world of politics. And though they undoubtedly hate to admit it, the populist parties of the Nordics and Europe are not exempt. The PS’ problematic relationship with Suomen Sisu is proof enough of this. But even though we are well aware of the ties between populist parties like the PS and racist groups like Suomen Sisu, what about the ties to intolerant people and groups abroad?

There are many. With enough unsavory people to sufficiently embarrass the populist parties.

While the links between the populists and their American fans may not always be reciprocal, they nevertheless shine a light on the ultimate mindset of the populists. If parties like the PS and their immediate neighbor organization, the Sweden Democrats, really weren’t racist and xenophobic, I doubt they’d get attention from the people listed below, among countless others.

This indeed would be a case of birds of a feather flocking together. Or more fittingly, moths mingling with butterflies around the bug-zapper of intolerance.

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Theodore Beale, a.k.a. Vox Day

Theodore Beale, better known by his pseudonym Vox Day, is a blogger and columnist for the extreme-right U.S. website WorldNetDaily. Like most of the contributors on that site, Vox Day propagates all manner of anti-Obama and anti-government conspiracy theories, as well as attacks on minorities. This is what Vox Day said about Finland and the PS on WorldNetDaily in 2011:

Being a more pragmatic nation than most, the Finnish people are the first to openly reject the idea that sending millions of Euros to other European countries and importing large quantities of foreigners is beneficial to the nation of Finland. Unlike Americans, the Finns recognize that a foreigner who comes to Finland is not a Finn. He is merely a foreigner in Finland, and his interests have little in common with those of the Finnish people.

Vox Day
“The End of Europe”
WorldNetDaily
May 9, 2011

Meanwhile, on his regular blog, Vox Day criticized The Wall Street Journal for editing a letter-to-the-editor by PS boss Timo Soini. Invoking conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Vox Day expressed support for Soini occupying the Oval Office:

Since the election of Mr. Soetoro [Obama] has demonstrated that absolutely no documentation is required of an American presidential candidate, why not nominate Mr. Soini for the presidency? He’s a damn sight better than anyone else the Republicans are likely to choose, he isn’t too old, and as the leader of a popular, electorally successful party, he can’t possibly be called unelectable.

Vox Day
“The Wall Street Journal Scrubs The True Finns”
VoxPopuli.BlogSpot.com
May 11, 2011

Even for an extreme site like WorldNetDaily, Vox Day’s attacks immigration are unabashedly racist. In late 2012, Vox Day wrote WorldNetDaily piece in which he called for a whites-only secessionist movement, lamenting “the U.S. bifactional ruling party’s hatred and contempt for white Americans who still hold to traditional values” and “the infestation of even the smallest American heartland towns by African, Asian and Aztec cultures.”

Vox Day, it should be noted, is an expat living in Italy.

Elsewhere, Vox Day has called for “traditional Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture” to be reclaimed through ethnic cleansing, and has reasoned that: “If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.”

VDARE.com

VDARE.com – named after Virginia Dare, the first reputed white settler to be born in the North American colonies – is a non-profit anti-immigration website that has been officially listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Founded by Peter Brimelow, former editor of the ultraconservative periodical National Review, VDARE.com posts all manner of propaganda pieces by anti-Semites, white nationalists, and race-baiting pseudo-scientists.

VDARE.com – through an irregular columnist named Rafael Koski, a Ph. D student from northern Europe – has taken to writing laudatory, rabble-rousing pieces about the PS…

The True Finns have been taking votes from left, right and center, by exposing the incompetence and arrogance of the ruling elite. True Finns have gained a lot of votes from the Social Democratic Party, which has abandoned its traditional focus on fighting for the economic improvement of workers and adopted the crazy-left focus fighting against reality. (cf. U.S. Democrats.) The other two parties, the centre-right Center Party (rural population) and National Coalition (city bourgeoisie), are Europhiles and have been losing their nationalist voters to the True Finns.

Rafael Koski
“Death Of Nation State Exaggerated: Immigration-Skeptic True Finn Party Roiling Finnish Politics”
VDARE.com
April 14, 2011

And the SD, too…

Swedish media elites and the Establishment parties made fools of themselves by calling the Sweden Democrats a Nazi party trying to get away with Goebbels-style propaganda . . . The party got a publicity victory by showing that it is being treated unfairly by the Establishment parties and their media supporters. The reaction against the Sweden Democrats overshadowed all other election themes and ensured that protest votes would end up to the Sweden Democrats.

Rafael Koski
“The Sweden Democrats—Alone Against Establishment Extremists”
VDARE.com
September 10, 2010

Who else does VDARE.com take stock in besides Koski? There is Kevin MacDonald, a college professor who says that Jews are genetically predisposed to undermine whites by pushing for non-white immigration; John Derbyshire, a disgraced National Review columnist who claims that “white supremacy…is one of the better arrangements history has come up with”; and Jared Taylor, a white nationalist who founded the “racial-realist” webzine American Renaissance.

What other topics does VDARE.com cover? Apart from attack pieces on what it calls the “Treason Lobby” – VDARE.com’s term for human rights groups who defend immigrants, such as the ACLU – the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented articles entitled “Freedom vs. Diversity”, “Abolishing America”, “Anarcho—Tyranny: Where Multiculturalism Leads”; and “Why Immigrants Kill.”

Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN)

Known for its national television program The 700 Club, hosted by far-right televangelist Pat Robertson, CBN airs “news” stories which seemingly confirm Robertson’s contention that “Satanic” Muslim immigrants are out to conquer the world. Two CBN “reporters” – “terror analyst” Erick Stakelbeck and foreign correspondent Dale Hurd – have emerged as significant U.S. mouthpieces for European “counter-jihadist” parties, including the SD.

A March 2009 report by Hurd that aired on The 700 Club presented the SD as legitimate critics of Sweden’s immigrant community, with no mention of the party’s historical roots in neo-Nazism. Hurd took the party’s word for it that it wasn’t racist; dismissed criticism of the party as manufactured smears from Sweden’s “liberal media”; and cast two members, Kent Ekeroth and Erik Almqvist, in a martyr-ific light, along with the party in general…

KENT EKEROTH (Sweden Democrats international advisor): “I filmed the police chief [at a counter-demonstration of Islamic extremists in Malmö] and asked him why are they [sic] not reacting to [violence], why are they not doing anything. And he–he simply answered, ‘It’s their right according to the Swedish constitution to be there.’ We apparently did not have that same right because we were forced out of there, so…”

DALE HURD (voice-over): “Swede Ted Ekeroth [sic] helped film the Arab-left counter-demonstrations. He saw Arabs throwing rocks at a ninety-year-old Holocaust survivor.”

KENT EKEROTH: “Hopefully, you can show some of the clips from our demonstration for Israel, which is always peaceful and always with a message of peace. And theirs is always the quite opposite — death, hate, and killing of Jews.”

[…]

DALE HURD (voice-over): “But the Swedish Democrats [sic], who stand up for traditional Christian values and limits on immigration, have been stigmatized by the Swedish media as ‘fascist’ and ‘bigoted.'”

ERIK ALMQVUIST: “The media has tried to portray us as extremists, racists — we’re almost inhuman.”

DALE HURD (voice-over): “Erik Almqvuist, national youth leader for the Swedish Democrats, faces regular death threats and was almost killed recently in a left-wing knife attack.”

ERIK ALMQVUIST: “The multicultural system in Sweden has polarized this society. We have ethnic polarization. We have also political polarization.”

The 700 Club
Christian Broadcasting Network
March 12, 2009

With the benefit of hindsight, I’m sure I am not the only one chortling as Ekeroth and Almqvist insist – those two specifically – that the SD are neither violent or racist.

Both men became infamous after a video – shot a year after the 700 Club interview – showed them engaging in racist and thuggish behavior, resulting in the “iron pipe scandal.” Not only did that scandal expose Ekeroth and Almqvist as hypocrites, but also exposed as Hurd as an ideologue-posing-a-journalist who openly refused to look into the SD’s agenda. Hurd certainly didn’t cover the iron pipe scandal when it broke.

Hurd seems supportive of racists from both sides of the pond. His 700 Club reports include sympathetic stories on the violent English Defence League and the white nationalist “Identitarians” of France. Hurd’s public Facebook page shows pictures of him interviewing Jean and Marine Le Pen; as well as posing with ultraconservative writer George Gilder, who once called African and Native American cultures “destructive cultures”, “tragic failures” and “virtual social suicide.”

With supporters like these, how could the PS, the SD, and other anti-Islam parties present themselves as comfortably mainstream? Again, I doubt that rabid scribes like Vox Day and propagandists like VDARE.com and CBN would pay so much attention to these parties if they weren’t bigoted.

Making torture and hate acceptable

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Even if the media in the United States speaks of torture as something recent, the truth is that it has been going on for a very long time. These type of barbaric interrogation techniques were widely used in the last century in regions like Latin America. The CIA and the United States trained and promoted torture and state-sponsored terrorism in places like the School of the Americas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4eLYXJIZfg

Torture is not only a part of my history, but the legacy of millions of Latin Americans, Africans and Asians who are gripped today by drug wars, violence and poverty.  Matters have got so bad in the underdeveloped world that people are ready to risk their lives to migrate and work for slave wages.

One has to connect the historical dots when looking at undocumented migrants and immigration in general. It’s the same story taking place over and over again: we colonize, enslave, pillage, support dictatorships; we reap the greatest profit by promoting poverty and underdevelopment in these regions.

If you devastate a country’s democratic institutions and make a mockery of human rights, how can you on top of it ask people to live in the destruction you created?

It is surprising, if not incredible, that politicians in Europe still stigmatize migrants and refugees as “welfare shoppers.” Apart from exposing their greed, these types of politicians are making a clear statement: You have no right to opportunity and a better life.

The George W. Bush era (2000-08) not only brought to light the ugly face of USAmerica when it comes to torture and meddling in other countries’ affairs, it has inspired some critics to claim that Hollywood is now condoning it.

I personally have not seen the movie but if one surfs the web, one will find arguments for and against it.

Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian cultural critic, wrote about Kathryn Bigelow’s film, Zero Dark Thirty,  on The Guardian:

”One doesn’t need to be a moralist, or naive about the urgencies of fighting terrorist attacks, to think that torturing a human being is in itself something so profoundly shattering that to depict it neutrally – ie to neutralise this shattering dimension – is already a kind of endorsement.”

Kuvankaappaus 2013-1-26 kello 8.30.39

Even Republican US Senator John McCain, a Vietnam POW who was tortured, has condemned the film.

”The story is torture does not work, it is hateful, it is harmful, incredibly harmful to the United States of America. And to somehow make people believe that it was responsible for the elimination of Osama Bin Laden is in my view unacceptable.”

In the same way some try to sell torture as acceptable is the same reasoning being used to convince us that social exclusion and exploitation of immigrants and visible minority group is fine.

Greedy businesses, and politicians at the service of the latter, reveal to us why matters will get worse before they improve.

Racism, prejudice, discrimination and social exclusion is all about defending the privilege of certain groups at the cost of others.

Undocumented immigrants are welcomed to Europe because it’s profitable in the short-term.

In the long-term, however, such contradictions and values will end up destroying us in the same way we destroyed other countries.

 

Migrant Tales (July 8, 2012): The absurdity of the reverse-racism argument in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Every now and then you’ll hear a visitor on Migrant Tales claim: What about [reverse] racism against [white] Finns!? Racism is a complex problem but one matter singles it out: It is an effective tool to socially exclude, control and exploit other groups in society from vital resources such as jobs and economic wealth. 

The fact that white Finns are the standard of everything in Finland is enough proof that they wield real power. White Finns don’t have to understand racism because they simply don’t have to. It’s not an issue because they are the standard of this society, the norm. Everyone else has a prefix attached to them like immigrant, immigrant descendant, black, Roma etc.

Valkoinen valta-4
This graffiti that reads “White Power” in Finnish was on a special elementary school’s wall in Mikkeli, Finland, for months before it was removed.

In May 2011, the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party renounced all forms of racism, even positive discrimination, or affirmative action.

It is surprising that when the PS made their preposterous statement, few if any media in this country understood how racist and grotesque it was and how it revealed a serious case of  colorblind racism (let’s pretend we’re equal because ethnic background does not matter, when in fact it does).

Colorblind racism works in Finland in an implicit and explicit manner. Its aim is the same:  ethnic background is not the issue. If it is an issue, it’s your  ethnic background.

  • ·         We have such a wonderful society that we are way past racism so get over it (explicit colorblind racism);
  • ·         It’s your culture, your parents or you that is hindering adaption to our society. In this case I recognize your ethnic background but only to shift blame and wash my hands of the problem (implicit colorblind racism).

 Accusing a visible minority, or immigrant of being racist against white Finns, is a good example of implicit colorblind racism.  Since racism isn’t a problem in our society, it can’t be my problem. It’s your problem.

Some successful immigrants or visible minorities who have succeeded in Finland may reinforce the same colorblind racist argument as white Finns. They may claim:  ”I’m not white but I adapted to the white Finns’ world. That is why I am successful. You too can be.”

Those immigrants who have racism issues usually come from countries where such a social ill is the standard. It’s easy for them to accept the white Finn as a standard because they too were the norm in their former home country.  As a result, some embrace the idea of becoming a Tuomo-setä, or Uncle Tom, because they are encouraged to and rewarded by white Finnish society for such behavior.

If you are ever confronted by a person who uses the reverse-racism argument, ask him or her how is the prejudice of a minority as devastating as that of the majority?

White Finns should stop whining about reverse racism because it isn’t an issue. It’s only one of many loaded arguments used by them to justify their racism.

This post was originally published on Migrant Tales on July 8, 2012.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

Racism Review (United States): Racism in 2012 – Year End Review

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Jessie

As 2012 draws to a close, I pulled together some of the biggest news in racism for the year.

Election Politics – Of course, much of the year we were focused on the racism in election politics.

White Male Shooters  – In some of the saddest news of the year, 2012 was bracketed by white male shooters unleashing violence on innocent strangers.

  • In January, Jared Lee Loughner opened fire on a crowd at an Arizona political rally, killing 6 and injuring 14.
  • In August, white supremacist Wade M. Page walked into a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, where he shot and killed 7 people.
  • In December, Adam Lanza killed 26 people, including 20 children at an elementary school in Connecticut. With this most recent shooting, some in the mainstream press began to identify white men as a group that “should be profiled,” a point that Joe Feagin has been making for many years.

Racial Profiling – Racial profiling was in the news a great deal this year, and was implicated in at least one death.

  • The senseless killing of teenager Trayvon Martin seemed to be case of racial profiling taken to a violent extreme when volunteer neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman perceived the unarmed Martin as a “threat” and shot him.
  • Racial Profiling is not only an issue in the U.S., it is also characteristic of policing in France as well.
  • In the city where I live, racial profiling combines with racial disparities in marijuana arrests and results in over 400,000 Black and Latino young men needlessly caught up in the criminal justice system each year.

Law & Economy  – Institutions, such as the law and the economy, are fundamental to the perpetuation of racism.

Athletics – There were some new stars in athletics who faced racism.

  • Gabrielle Douglas won a gold medal in gymnastics at the Olympics, yet faced a huge wave of criticism about her hairstyle, which many saw rooted in racism.
  • Jeremy Lin played in the NBA after a less-than-stellar college basketball career, and sparked “Linsanity” from enthusiastic fans; others made racist jokes at his expense.
  • There remain significant racial barriers to becoming a coach in the NFL, as Michael R notes here.

Passages – We lost some people who played a role in racial politics.

  • Rodney King, focus of a shocking video of police brutality, and when officers were acquitted in that beating, he famously tried to quell rioting by asking “Can’t we all just get along?” – died.  He was 47.
  • Russell Means, a leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), and an Ogala Sioux Indian, died.  He was 72.

Personal Essays – We were delighted to post a couple of really moving personal essays from guest bloggers.

Hate & Violence – Overt racist hate and violence continued in 2012.

Technology – Despite claims that Internet technology would usher in a new era in which “there is no race,” racism continues to be built into our technologies.

 

Culture – Sometimes, when I consider the progress that’s been achieved around racism, I think some of the most important progress is achieved in culture, both popular culture and more rarefied high culture.

Viral Videos – The year 2012 was a good one for viral videos about racism.

  • Stuff White Girls Say took off and made a point about the racism of white women.
  • Similarly, Randy Newman skewered white people in his spoof of his old song “Short People.”
  • Somewhat unintentionally, the highly crafted marketing video “Kony 2012? ended up being about racism as well in its facile portrayal of ‘evil’ in Africa in need of ‘white saviors.’

Documentaries – I continue to believe that documentaries can be a crucial tool in the effort to bring about racial justice.

May 2013 bring more racial justice!

Read original blog entry here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.