Racism in Finland

4 comments

1. Racism exists of course in Finland But I’m pretty sure that Finland is not a especially racist country, compared to any other nations. Of course world news affects at least temporarily attitudes towards other countries. It has certainly affected to attitudes towards russians and will most likely affect towards turkish people too.

2. I don’t think it will cause racism. I think pretty much everyone can see that Erdogan is a very incompetent leader that has ruined his countries economy and geopolitical reputation and is merely scrambling to gain some geopolitical leverage. It’s not Turkish people’s fault, the man is just silly.

   Edit: that article you linked only included western European countries… Most of eastern Europe is way more homogeneous than Finland when it comes to immigrants and multiple races living together so if you would include them Finland is likely to be ranked somewhere in the middle.

3. There is no special racism towards Turks in Finland. They only benefit from the xenophobia and universal racism that is happening in Finland.

4. As an Nepali immigrant i have to say that the racism is different from how it’s portrayed in media of other countries. I can’t really recall many situations where someone said racial slurs or otherwise said offensive things at me due to my race. It is things such as getting stares everywhere you go, people rolling eyes at you etc. Its things that aren’t visible unless you look for it and realise that it is quite widespread but more hidden in a way.

   That’s not to say that the more obvious kinda of racism doesn’t happen, I’ve had some people shout things like monkey etc at me and have heard worse things from friends/family/acquaintances. Things like being kicked, spat on, shoved etc.

   The most racist experience of mine was at the police station when I had to get my ID renewed. I use English as my primary language when I deal with people bc thats what im more comfortable with. For some reason the police officer was very “surprised” that I was a citizen when I didn’t speak finnish. She made comments like that multiple times and kinda brushed me off when I mentioned that I do infact speak Finnish but just prefer to use English since I studied in English for the past 6 years. She was still surprised by my nationality so I switched to speaking Finnish and it didn’t really help at all. Also she made sure that she reaally confirmed my Identity. Stuff like using face mapping stuff that they have to compare my old pic with my new pic (granted i do look somewhat different with a rounder face and having gained weight) She kept insisting that imma have problems with my id since my old id looks sooo different from my new one. That I would’ve be able to pick up my id from the Rkioski bc of that.

   I walked into the rkioski, got my id in 2 min max and left. It was one of the quickest rkioski trips of my life.

   Later on when I renewed my passport I didn’t have to go through any of the procedures that I did with that police officer. I went in, they confirmed my identity and then i went home.