Rise above it. Love yourself.

To my Swedish peeps:

I am still fired up because this whole affair boggles my mind so profoundly that I cannot stop thinking about it. You will have to deal with my rants for a little bit longer... :)


What do you think would have happened if a young person committed suicide because of daily racist taunts in Sweden? Do you think there would have been any charges filed against his/her perpetrators? 

Do you think the perpetrators would be able to get away with claiming: I didn't know it wasn't OK to call someone names. I didn't mean anything bad when I said "chink", "China-man", when I asked "are you from China" every day, when I beat you, and humiliated you. I just thought it was OK to call someone "slant eyes", since the Asians really do have slanted eyes. But I am not a racist, I am just stating the obvious, aren't I?

Would they have gotten away with such excuses? And if so, what can be done to change the policies in Sweden? How do we get rid of the kind of environment that ALLOWS such behavior?

Precisely his happened to a young US soldier named Danny Chen from New York City, in October in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Private Chen was 19 years old when he allegedly committed suicide in a Watch Tower on his base after a full day of physical abuse and otherwise daily racial taunts from his fellow soldiers and superiors. You can view an explanatory news segment from 'Democracy Now!' here about the continuing pressure the Chen family puts on the investigation. My heart bleeds for Private Chen and his family. 

The other day I read an article by Kristina Lindquist in Expressen. She urges Sweden to call racism by it's proper name, namely racism. No more excuses, no more explanations, no more playing dumb. 

Kristinas article lead me to  Asian-Swedish writer Patrik Lundbergs article from last year "Ni sliter själen ur mig" (You tear my soul out of me), in which he tells of the weekly racial taunts, slurs and mishaps he has to endure. Reading Mr. Lundberg's writing cut into my heart.

How do we educate people about Sweden's past as one of the foremost countries in RACE BIOLOGY, including the opening of the world's first state sponsored Race Biological Institute (listen to P3 radio podcast here) in the early 1900's? How to we tell people that EUGENICS (improving the genetic composition of a population) was big in Sweden, and that Sweden was flirting with the Nazis' ideas on "racial hygene" before the WWII. 

We cannot be allowed to hide behind such lame statements like: We are not racists because we don't have the same history as the United States, we didn't have slavery, my ancestors didn't do anything or oppress anybody, why am I to blame for the slavery and oppression of other people in other countries... etc. Look at your history, know your history. I know mine.

Well, because I am ALL that I am because I am mixed-race Asian (Swedish-Korean), you are also ALL that you are because you are White, which means you are a representative of a race that has historically claimed supremacy and world domination over all other peoples, cultures and races time and time again. That means that your history of White Supremacy, oppression, occupation and colonization of a large portion of the world's population, Euro-centricism, genocide of peoples, cultures and languages other than the dominant one etc., is yours to bear. 

I have my own history which I carry. Now you carry yours. 

Suck it up. Deal with it. Learn from it. Become a better person. Rise above. Love yourself. 

But whatever you do: don't blame everyone else for not being able to live your old ways. Don't tell me: what about when they call me "svenne", when I feel like a minority in my own country, when I get called short, fat, thin, tall, ugly, blind...?

Are you kidding me?

Don't give excuses, don't act like a colonialist, don't think like one. Just live a better, kinder, more thoughtful and loving existence with your fellow human beings. I will do the same. That's all. We must love better. 

Love better.

JUST LOVE.

LOVE.