Today I had a real nice talk about racism/discrimination coming from Danes/Swedes/Dutch people. Both in their own countries and in the UK where they live in small isolated colonies. This was with Marta a Polish girl who told me that she thought of Danish people as being racist. I swear I didn’t start this conversation.
We then talked about making a platform for cultural studies in Dalston to talk about these issues including the gentrification that Northern Europeans especially is part of making in this area.
People who are from migrant backgrounds already coming from i.e. DK, Holland, Sweden, Germany try to escape monoculturalism and racism, but here they meet the same ‘white’ Northern Europeans, that doesn’t have a clue about the world, nor do they change from having lived in a multicultural environment. For them coloured people are the ones serving them at Tesco, the ones they are taking the bus together with (they are ‘just there to bring colour’ to their bus journey so they can tell about it when they go back to Denmark. That the bus they took in Brixton was a bus where they were the only white person…hahaaaaa..that was so exciting and crazy for her, she told me on Friday (where I attended a dinner event in a gallery here in m,y very own neighbourhood Dalston..And we were around 14-15 people there and besides me there were around 8 or 9 other Danes.I was shocked and didn’t like their Danish colony excluding others, and especially me of course, when they shockingly understood that I was Danish..but howww..what about the hair??.) I was polite and smiled yeah that’s amazing. She made me become racist just to please her Danishness. But its my fault for not telling her off for the racist that she is. But she wouldn’t understand..and am I ready to be one more layer of different at that moment where we are both together in something?!! Im wearing my white mask says Fanon, and I really am at that point.
I don’t want to meet any more Danes that are racist towards me or others, especially not in ‘my hood’!! One should think that they would learn from living here, but they don’t.t hey only learn how to orientalize the ones that live here, they did never expect me to be here!! Otherwise we had both stayed in DK.
New entry, same subject (30.may) Direct unspoken/spoken/unarticulated racial attacks:
The more “shoreditched” (Shoreditch is the “smart” Danish/Swedish and German ghetto of Rich Northern Europeans wearing beanie-hats and trying to wear a moustache that looks more fake than anything else!) East London becomes, the more racist it appears. Wednesday 29/5-2013 at ‘Fika’ cafe and restaurant which was newly opening when I moved to London back in autumn 2008. I didnt go there for many years, but yesterday as I was tutoring an English girl in Danish, I chose to go to this “scandi” place ‘Fika’ to make our the settings of our sessions more authentic. Here as we came in (aka first attempt) I said ‘hej’ and spoke in Danish with my pupil the to waiters totally ignored us. We chose a table and I went up to order, presuming they hadnt understood my Danish the first time we spoke I tried ordering in Danish (2nd attempt). The girl behind the counter once more pretended not to understand my Danish, she didnt not imply with gestures or comments that she wasnt able to speak scandinavian. She didnt even bother. She instead forced me with her silence to speak to her in English. (By the way her accent smelled from Swedishness and hate was coming out of her eyes as she refused to respond in Swedish!!) This wasnt very nice or even service-minded. I went back to our table a bit sad and annoyed. Trying to explain the situation a bit loudly to my student so that the employees in ‘Fika’ could hear that I was well aware of what they were trying to do (to me.I hate when I become personal. I just really cant help it when ‘scandi-racism’ provoke my ‘poor’ naive and automatized migrant psychology). The girl behind the counter was continuing her Swedish dialogues with her colleagues after I returned to my seat, just as she had changed from Swedish to English when I appeared by the counter to order. Pretending she couldnt understand “immigrant-perfect-Danish-neighbour-language. Having perfect Danish always either startles people or makes them hate you even more for “being almost like them (read:colonizer).
Even writing down all these layers in details, which appeared within a tutoring of an hour and 5 minutes, one can only recall the explanations on Homi Bhabha’s written ouvre. Of course an immigrant’s writings can seem difficult and uncomprehensible to monocultural people, as they do not experience these unspoken layers of discrimination. But I think racist people deliberately act out their deeds knowing very well what they are doing.
And the Swedish girl even saw our Danish exercise books and overheard our dialogues in Danish, while serving and still she responded by putting up the volume of the music, so we almost couldnt hear each other during our teaching sessions despite the fact that we were the only ones in the cafe!! I found that the more she ignored me the more I needed her to accept me for being Danish. I am a “native speaker of Danish”, as I have recently described myself in a job application for a position as a Danish mother tongue teacher. I was even scared, when writing that I was Danish with Turkish background. I thought they would never respond to my application, but they called me an I was invited for an interview:) Who knew?For the first time I feel accepted as a Dane, I just had to leave the country and apply for a job inside the real world of bilinguals, namely; International schools!! This application process has actually taught me that I am a ‘native speaker of Danish’, and even my parents couldnt go being for real Turkish, as they came to Denmark in such a young age.
Maybe the Swedish girl was very biased after the recent riots among ethnic minority groups in Sweden??Maybe she is just plain racist as she was not allowed to be racist in Sweden? Because here she is not a real part of the English culture who generally knows how to navigate in a multicultural setting, because the Swedes were oppressed by their laws in regards to being outspoken about racism. Instead an increase in neo-nazism seems to have developed. I always enjoyed going to Malmo, as there the sales persons in the shops did not imply that I was a thief..Then my Danish-Swedish dentist told me the true faces of the Swedes. Namely how double standardish the Swedes were. While smiling to your face, they would only tell their hatred towards your ethnic origin when they got home between their four walls. This was indeed scary to hear about. It burst my tiny bubble of freedom from the migrant psychology that I suffer from.