Exposing white Finnish privilege #63: Silence and acting dumb are the swords of institutional racism

by , under Enrique Tessieri

There is one matter that makes my blood boil when there is a clear case of racist behavior, but the person hearing it, who can be your boss, remains silent, hoping that the uncomfortable situation passes over and returns to “normal.”

“Back to normal” in this case means that nothing has changed and challenged. Matters will remain as they are. Get over it.

A good example of how strong institutional racism is in Finland is a Council for Mass Media (JSN) ruling against Järviradio for playing (April 6) a racist song by Irwin Godman called “Sand n-word and n-word clown.”

The song, which is shamelessly racist and offensive to brown and black people in Finland, was released in 1989. It has been seen on YouTube three million times.

One wonders why these types of songs are played on Youtube.

To add more salt to injury, the Järviradio commentator played the song on the request from a listener who said, “The Perussuomalaiset* are taking back Finland.”

Another coating of populist racism.

White Finnish privilege #63

If the radio commentator should have known better that Goodman’s song is racist and inappropriate, which the JSN ruling reinforced, the editor of Järviradio, Markku Mäenpää, appears clueless.

Mäenpää said that he has no opinion about the song or the lyrics.

The only reason why Mäenpää does not have an opinion about Goodman’s racist song is that he does not think the lyrics are racist and offensive even after 30 years when the song was released.

Mäenpää’s statement is a shameful example of how institutional racism and prejudices find protection and see another day in Finland.

Goodman’s songs are racist, and his opinions about migrants only reinforce that he was multiculturally challenged.

One of his “hit” songs was “Marcello Magaroni.”

See also:

The far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

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