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>If you're black ... you will endure frequent incidents of racism outside of work in Helsinki. I've never been, but I've always heard that Scandinavian countri

>If you're black ... you will endure frequent incidents of racism outside of work in Helsinki. I've never been, but I've always heard that Scandinavian countries are usually far better about such things. Gotta say, I'm a little disappointing to learn that I've heard wrong. Would you be willing to share some details?

gorbachev 9y ago
I'll mention three things both of which received quite a bit of attention in the local media. Two are directly related to race, one is directly related to immigration but really about race. About a year ago a Finnish mother of an 11-year-old son, who was adopted from South Africa when he was 6 months old, wrote about the experiences of her son. The son speaks perfect Finnish since he's been raised in Finland. He takes a school bus, but for some reason the school bus frequently doesn't stop for him, if he's at the stop by himself. He was in a national morning TV show telling about his experiences with children AND adults calling him names, exclude him socially and a woman living in the same building told him to leave his own playground. I'm not really surprised by what kids call each other, but adults calling an 11-year-old names is over the line. The second story is about quite a few stories about people of color using public transportation in Helsinki. That's apparently an environment where racists feel especially emboldened to "express" their viewpoints to minorities. One of the most egregious examples was of an middle-aged woman yelling at full volume at a teenage girl (half white, half black) to leave the bus accompanied by liberal use of the n-word. Finally the woman also threatened to send her dog at the girl. The girl asked the woman to be removed from the bus. The driver refused, so the girl left instead in fear of her well being. Again, an adult threatening a child just because the child was black. The third incident is the roughly three-month "demonstration" by neo nazis in front of the central train station in Helsinki. These Heroes of the Fatherland (bah!) decided that they'd demonstrate the current immigration practices by having an around-the-clock demonstration. That would've been probably ok, and the police really didn't intervene UNTIL several complaints about the neo nazis instigating fights or straight up assaulting passers by. Quite enlightening of the general attitude of some people in Finland is that the "camp", as it was called in the media, was visited by the Minister of the Interior of the Finnish Government. She is in charge of the police force in Finland. She was photographed giving the neo nazis a thumbs up. Somewhat related is an incident where a member of another neo nazi organization killed someone in the same area. During another demonstration and counter-demonstration, a 28-year-old Finnish man walked by the neo nazis and spat on the ground in front of them. While he was walking away, one of the neo nazis chased after him and kicked him in the chest causing the man to fall down and hit his head. He died a few days later. There's a very vocal and increasingly violent portion of the population in Finland who are racist and actively violent against people of color.
- gorbachev 9y ago
  These sort of things, btw, are a major factor of why I would not consider moving back to Finland any time soon. I have three small kids with my wife, who is not white. I am 100% sure my kids and her would not have a positive experience in Finland.
- drspacemonkey 9y ago
  I concur that children hurling racial insults is... "acceptable" isn't the right word. Children can be monsters. But holy crap, adults saying stuff like that is inexcusable. Doubly so when they say it to children. Overall, you paint a very troubling picture. Are these recent developments? By that I mean is this a situation that has gotten worse recently, or has it always been like this?
  - gorbachev 9y ago
    I haven't lived in Finland for 20 years, so I can't say for sure. Following the developments through the lense of the media, I would say it's gotten worse. Finland, for the longest time, was pretty insular and people's attitudes towards people of color were mostly just being curious. The neo nazis have certainly become more visible, and more active for various reasons. It's the usual stuff...downtrodden people trying to find things to blame for their situation ("them" is always a good scapegoat), unemployment is high, there are more refugees coming to Finland like every other European country. And then there's the one political party that is pretty brazenly taking advantage of the situation and advancing more or less pure racism as a policy. They scored big in the last parliamentary election cycle and actually manage to finagle themselves into the coalition that formed the Government. Their popularity has sunk lately to very low numbers, so they won't be anywhere near as vocal or influential after the next parliamentary elections. There's also a definitely new development where "entrepreneurial" racists have figured out how to organize and profit from the situation. There are a few "for-profit" agitators that mask themselves as "Voices for the Silent Majority" and "Free Speech Advocates of the Highest Order" while spewing hate speech, encouraging violence against everyone disagreeing with them (incl. journalists and critics, or people appearing in viral videos on the "opposing" side) on their own blogs, online magazines or Facebook. These are the people who in the past would've been stapling their manifestos on light poles and other "billboards", but with the Internet they suddenly have a national/global audience. The most visible of them was operating from Spain and was arrested in Andorra for inciting violence against muslim immigrants last week. His trial will be a circus. That being said, this is obviously not how the majority of people feel or act. It's just that it takes just one person in a bus full of people to ruin it...

gorbachev 9y ago

I'll mention three things both of which received quite a bit of attention in the local media. Two are directly related to race, one is directly related to immigration but really about race. About a year ago a Finnish mother of an 11-year-old son, who was adopted from South Africa when he was 6 months old, wrote about the experiences of her son. The son speaks perfect Finnish since he's been raised in Finland. He takes a school bus, but for some reason the school bus frequently doesn't stop for him, if he's at the stop by himself. He was in a national morning TV show telling about his experiences with children AND adults calling him names, exclude him socially and a woman living in the same building told him to leave his own playground. I'm not really surprised by what kids call each other, but adults calling an 11-year-old names is over the line. The second story is about quite a few stories about people of color using public transportation in Helsinki. That's apparently an environment where racists feel especially emboldened to "express" their viewpoints to minorities. One of the most egregious examples was of an middle-aged woman yelling at full volume at a teenage girl (half white, half black) to leave the bus accompanied by liberal use of the n-word. Finally the woman also threatened to send her dog at the girl. The girl asked the woman to be removed from the bus. The driver refused, so the girl left instead in fear of her well being. Again, an adult threatening a child just because the child was black. The third incident is the roughly three-month "demonstration" by neo nazis in front of the central train station in Helsinki. These Heroes of the Fatherland (bah!) decided that they'd demonstrate the current immigration practices by having an around-the-clock demonstration. That would've been probably ok, and the police really didn't intervene UNTIL several complaints about the neo nazis instigating fights or straight up assaulting passers by. Quite enlightening of the general attitude of some people in Finland is that the "camp", as it was called in the media, was visited by the Minister of the Interior of the Finnish Government. She is in charge of the police force in Finland. She was photographed giving the neo nazis a thumbs up. Somewhat related is an incident where a member of another neo nazi organization killed someone in the same area. During another demonstration and counter-demonstration, a 28-year-old Finnish man walked by the neo nazis and spat on the ground in front of them. While he was walking away, one of the neo nazis chased after him and kicked him in the chest causing the man to fall down and hit his head. He died a few days later. There's a very vocal and increasingly violent portion of the population in Finland who are racist and actively violent against people of color.

gorbachev 9y ago
These sort of things, btw, are a major factor of why I would not consider moving back to Finland any time soon. I have three small kids with my wife, who is not white. I am 100% sure my kids and her would not have a positive experience in Finland.
drspacemonkey 9y ago
I concur that children hurling racial insults is... "acceptable" isn't the right word. Children can be monsters. But holy crap, adults saying stuff like that is inexcusable. Doubly so when they say it to children. Overall, you paint a very troubling picture. Are these recent developments? By that I mean is this a situation that has gotten worse recently, or has it always been like this?
- gorbachev 9y ago
  I haven't lived in Finland for 20 years, so I can't say for sure. Following the developments through the lense of the media, I would say it's gotten worse. Finland, for the longest time, was pretty insular and people's attitudes towards people of color were mostly just being curious. The neo nazis have certainly become more visible, and more active for various reasons. It's the usual stuff...downtrodden people trying to find things to blame for their situation ("them" is always a good scapegoat), unemployment is high, there are more refugees coming to Finland like every other European country. And then there's the one political party that is pretty brazenly taking advantage of the situation and advancing more or less pure racism as a policy. They scored big in the last parliamentary election cycle and actually manage to finagle themselves into the coalition that formed the Government. Their popularity has sunk lately to very low numbers, so they won't be anywhere near as vocal or influential after the next parliamentary elections. There's also a definitely new development where "entrepreneurial" racists have figured out how to organize and profit from the situation. There are a few "for-profit" agitators that mask themselves as "Voices for the Silent Majority" and "Free Speech Advocates of the Highest Order" while spewing hate speech, encouraging violence against everyone disagreeing with them (incl. journalists and critics, or people appearing in viral videos on the "opposing" side) on their own blogs, online magazines or Facebook. These are the people who in the past would've been stapling their manifestos on light poles and other "billboards", but with the Internet they suddenly have a national/global audience. The most visible of them was operating from Spain and was arrested in Andorra for inciting violence against muslim immigrants last week. His trial will be a circus. That being said, this is obviously not how the majority of people feel or act. It's just that it takes just one person in a bus full of people to ruin it...