forgot if i already wrote about all this, sorry. here they really don't understand what racism means in other countries either. actually there's a big problem where people claim something is racist when it isn't.
for example, people are too afraid to fly the swedish flag for fear of being called racist (as in, nazi-like). similarly, they can't actually tell someone to "learn swedish", you don't even have to know swedish to become a citizen. many would be too afraid to believe in old norse religion stuff or wear traditional clothing openly. yet they HAVE to be extremely accepting about, say, mosques, head-dresses and face-veils, and other such religious stuff from other countries that really "doesn't have any place in sweden". there's a lot of hidden resentment in this, as in a lot of swedes actually want to do these things and feel that it's unfair that every other country can do them but they can't.
i also hear a lot of things like "the schools are racist, the immigrant kids get a worse education". actually, a great many of the immigrant kids don't speak swedish at home and don't study swedish, and might not even use swedish outside of school and might have only foreigner friends, so they don't understand what's going on in class or they can't actually write an understandable essay. and in swedish society in general, english is prized even more than their own language, so ex. many foreigners actually end up getting better english than swedish skills.
among other things, the teacher feels like if they fail the student due to language problems, that would be racist. but if you were to single out the kids with bad swedish and put them in some special class, like how the US puts kids into ESL classes, that would also likely be seen as racist or at least as something that would make the integration problem worse... even though it's all nonsense. you cause trouble for "normal students" when you have no time to teach them thanks to having to constantly help the student who can't even understand the basics.
i remember a norwegian girl i knew for a while, forget where her mom came from but anyway by blood she was half-norwegian and half something else, with some kind of tan skin i guess. her mom even after like 30 years of living in norway still had really shit norwegian.... and this girl blamed it all on "her mom's very first norwegian teacher who was bad and racist and taught her badly". "my mom can't get jobs because of her bad norwegian teacher that she had 20 years ago" etc.
she claimed stuff like kids were really mean to her at school due to racism and all this stuff. except, this girl was a BRAT. the kind of girl who would constantly talk back to her parents and skip school and surprise, would fail school due to skipping too much then tried to pass it off as being "normal" that she was, say, two years behind (i'm pretty sure she was at least 1 year behind, i had two "friends" at this time who were behind and one was behind by 3 years so i really can't remember if it was the same girl or not).
she claimed that other countries weren't as bad as norway in this racism/whatever department, norway was the worst and she just wanted to move away blah blah, she ended up going to japan on exchange for a year (of course, paid for by her loving parents as far as i can guess)... i stopped talking to her before she left but i hope she got a taste of what it's really like to be an immigrant/picked on for that : l and i believe she did the typical thing where she claimed she was whatever her mom was except she didn't speak the language at all or had ever gone there, that kind of thing.
and if you're on tumblr for example, you get "oh you're white you have it so great". maybe i have it great... in a WHITE COUNTRY. if i go to japan i will be treated badly due to my body/skin. if i go to africa, same thing. likewise, if i am an immigrant, no matter which country i move to i will be treated badly because i'm not a native, it'll just be more or less clearly/directly shown to me depending on country. sigh.
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momijizukamori
too tired to reply much
Date: 2015-09-26 08:31 pm (UTC)for example, people are too afraid to fly the swedish flag for fear of being called racist (as in, nazi-like). similarly, they can't actually tell someone to "learn swedish", you don't even have to know swedish to become a citizen. many would be too afraid to believe in old norse religion stuff or wear traditional clothing openly. yet they HAVE to be extremely accepting about, say, mosques, head-dresses and face-veils, and other such religious stuff from other countries that really "doesn't have any place in sweden". there's a lot of hidden resentment in this, as in a lot of swedes actually want to do these things and feel that it's unfair that every other country can do them but they can't.
i also hear a lot of things like "the schools are racist, the immigrant kids get a worse education". actually, a great many of the immigrant kids don't speak swedish at home and don't study swedish, and might not even use swedish outside of school and might have only foreigner friends, so they don't understand what's going on in class or they can't actually write an understandable essay. and in swedish society in general, english is prized even more than their own language, so ex. many foreigners actually end up getting better english than swedish skills.
among other things, the teacher feels like if they fail the student due to language problems, that would be racist. but if you were to single out the kids with bad swedish and put them in some special class, like how the US puts kids into ESL classes, that would also likely be seen as racist or at least as something that would make the integration problem worse... even though it's all nonsense. you cause trouble for "normal students" when you have no time to teach them thanks to having to constantly help the student who can't even understand the basics.
i remember a norwegian girl i knew for a while, forget where her mom came from but anyway by blood she was half-norwegian and half something else, with some kind of tan skin i guess. her mom even after like 30 years of living in norway still had really shit norwegian.... and this girl blamed it all on "her mom's very first norwegian teacher who was bad and racist and taught her badly". "my mom can't get jobs because of her bad norwegian teacher that she had 20 years ago" etc.
she claimed stuff like kids were really mean to her at school due to racism and all this stuff. except, this girl was a BRAT. the kind of girl who would constantly talk back to her parents and skip school and surprise, would fail school due to skipping too much then tried to pass it off as being "normal" that she was, say, two years behind (i'm pretty sure she was at least 1 year behind, i had two "friends" at this time who were behind and one was behind by 3 years so i really can't remember if it was the same girl or not).
she claimed that other countries weren't as bad as norway in this racism/whatever department, norway was the worst and she just wanted to move away blah blah, she ended up going to japan on exchange for a year (of course, paid for by her loving parents as far as i can guess)... i stopped talking to her before she left but i hope she got a taste of what it's really like to be an immigrant/picked on for that : l and i believe she did the typical thing where she claimed she was whatever her mom was except she didn't speak the language at all or had ever gone there, that kind of thing.
and if you're on tumblr for example, you get "oh you're white you have it so great". maybe i have it great... in a WHITE COUNTRY. if i go to japan i will be treated badly due to my body/skin. if i go to africa, same thing. likewise, if i am an immigrant, no matter which country i move to i will be treated badly because i'm not a native, it'll just be more or less clearly/directly shown to me depending on country. sigh.