4 ms·

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

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...
- drspacemonkey 9y ago
  >It's just that it takes just one person in a bus full of people to ruin it... I think you're understating the problem. It also takes a bus full of people, driver included, to do nothing about it while it's going on.

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...

drspacemonkey 9y ago
>It's just that it takes just one person in a bus full of people to ruin it... I think you're understating the problem. It also takes a bus full of people, driver included, to do nothing about it while it's going on.