this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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A young Black woman who was subjected to racist abuse after being selected to lead celebrations of a Swedish festival of light in Helsinki has received an apology from the Finnish prime minister.

According to the Swedish tradition, each year a young woman or girl is chosen to represent Saint Lucia by dressing in a costume of a white gown, red waistband and crown of candles as part of the official annual festivities in Finland at the Lutheran Cathedral on 13 December to mark the shortest day according to the Julian calendar.

About 5% of people in Finland, which until 1809 was part of Sweden, speak Swedish as their native language, which is one of two national languages in the Nordic country.

Daniela Owusu, 20, who is Finnish Ghanaian, received thousands of hate messages after on Friday becoming Finland’s first Black Lucia. The organisers have reported the abuse to police and the discrimination ombudsman and are considering taking legal action.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

It feels weird that they're talking about Swedish people when they mean Fennoswedes. It makes it sound like they've recent immigrants hah

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

I keep saying this: the only nations that aren't racist are the ones that don't have to deal with actual diversity.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 hours ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Japan is very racist.

I'm not saying every nation that doesn't have to deal with diversity isn't racist. I'm saying the only nations that "aren't racist" are the ones who don't have to deal with diversity.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

try being black in literally ANY Asian country.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 hours ago

Racist parties get most votes where there's no diversity. Other people aren't the reason racists do what they do

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I remember when Lola Odusoga was Finland’s first black Miss Finland in 1996 and there were some* racism back then (*but internet wasnt still huge). I think it calmed a bit when Lola did well in Miss Universe competition. She was 3rd. Since then Miss Finland has been won by Sara Chafak (half moroccan), Shirly Karvinen (half chinese) and Alina Voronkova (Russian and Ingrian Finn). Alina got lot of heat in the internet because many didnt like her Russian name. Last year St. Lucia maiden Finland was a Finn with Italian roots and with Italian name. No criticism. But somehow black skin and russian name activates these idiot rednecks.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

The only thing I think when I see black people is how awesome the hair of most them looks.

Racism is very high ranked in the list of dumb things.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Lucia being thought of as blonde haired actually plays into this debacle

[–] [email protected] 7 points 13 hours ago

love the stupid racist who saw this and said "oh that's a downvote"

[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 day ago (1 children)

She did get to play her part!

It's sad that she had to go through that. I hope this doesn't put them off other POC participants in the future.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

They should just have black women in the role from now on. Maybe have black men do it too for fun.

A few decades of black people in the role exclusively should cause all the racists to stroke out and die.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

I think everyone would just stop paying attention to the thing

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 day ago

Yeah, you gotta make sure a genuine fair-skinned and blonde Swedish girl plays that Sicilian saint.

[–] [email protected] 99 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That poor kid.

Dafuq is wrong with people?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 21 hours ago

They are stupid. Racism is just so dumb. Literally, bigots are just unintelligent.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

I have seen that in our society it's acceptable to treat people as if their race is inferior. Threaten them. Scare them.

Because... No one says anything to these people. No one holds them accountable, and there's no consequences for their actions.

Until there is a consequence for racism and threatening others... This will be norm and will only get worse.

At least this is what I see here in a red state. (USA)

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I had no idea that Finland was a racist place. But I suppose there are racists everywhere…

[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Finnish guy here. The whole nation has been thrown in the middle of racist debate in the past year. One of the ruling political parties is a far right populist party who have strifed to normalize racism while they're in power. There are actual nazi affiliated people there. It's a fucking shitshow where they lie to coax normal people into rage against immigrants and it seems to be working with those poor suckers. It hasn't been a good year, far from it, but at least common everyday racism has been outed and is condemned by the majority.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Honestly, Finland has had a weird relationship with immigration for at least a decade. I think all the countries with large sovereign wealth funds are in a pretty weird place when it comes to immigration... and if immigration gets demonized racism flourishes.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How racist a place is perceived as is directly proportional to how many minorities actually live there. It's easy for racists to be in denial about their bigotry when there are so few minorities that they're treated as a curiosity rather than a demographic.

For example, you probably think Oregon is less racist than Georgia, right? Well, guess which one was founded as a whites-only ethnostate.

Similarly, Finns considering black people in the abstract probably think they aren't racist, but when confronted with being concretely affecting by one, well, you see the result.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Georgia was also founded as a white supremacist ethnostate. All of them in the contiguous 48 states were.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

Oregon took it to a whole new level though, to the point of banning PoC entirely.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 23 hours ago

The entire USA was founded as a white supremacist state. Whites were supreme by at least 2/5ths...

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago

Finnish guy here, as well. I went to school in the 90s and the subtext was always that the local Lucia would be a blonde girl. We'd have one for our school, the town, and the country.

The mythical Lucia was burned at a stake, and I guess those flames both translated to the crown of candles that she wears as well as blonde hair. The mythical Lucia most likely looked pretty Hispanic.

I think the current Lucia wears the crown well, and the response has been that the charity organising it has received several times the donations it usually gets. I think we'll need to wait another generation to get rid of the racist pushback.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago

I've got bad news about every country on Earth.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Northern Europe is super racist again black people and Asians….

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Finland was Sweden, damn. Didn't know that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Part of Sweden for hundreds of years but Finns were always lower class citizens to them. Sweden also used lot of Finns in their wars. For example the legendary cavalry unit ”Hakkapeliitta”.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

"Sweden will fight to their last Finn" is a joke I've heard a bunch of times

[–] [email protected] 3 points 21 hours ago

Helsingin sanomat

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Racism?

In Europe?

Youre telling me the continent founded along xenophobic lines is racist?!?!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Nationalism did bring freedom from oppression to some peoples and caused horrific stuff in other cases.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

If you think racism is Europe exclusive I have some bad news for you buddy

[–] [email protected] 11 points 21 hours ago

Is that what i said?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 22 hours ago

That's not what they said. C'mon lil' champ, use your reading comprehension — you can do it!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You’ll experience racism if you are considered a minority in the country you’re in; it’s how it is. However, you should continue to live your life. Live where you want to live.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago

Are you speaking from personal experience? Because this is really easy to say from the outside.