Racist outcry in Finnish women's basketball "assault" case

A violent incident during a women's basketball game between players of Tapiolan Honka and Torpan Pojat thrust Finnish women's basketball and online racism to the limelight. Racist abuse - online or offline - must be condemned in the strongest possible terms whenever it prevails --- irrespective of what flares it.

Tapiolan Honka's American forward, Shanel Harrison, brought a basketball match on 8 March 2014 to a dramatic halt when she hit an opponent, Niina Laaksonen, in the face.

A video of the incident was, according to Ilta-Sanomat, uploaded to YouTube by the director of Finnish basketball association, but it was later removed by the basketball boss due to uncontrollable racist comments targeting the African American. However, the dramatic video had already been copied and uploaded by other internet users. Racist comments keep pouring in.

Tapiolan Honka fired the American the next day as a result of the incident --  without any official investigation into the matter or a decision by the basketball association. Finnish police launched an investigation into the matter on suspicion of assault.

Some internet users attempted to justify the despicable racist comments by blaming Harrison for "unsportsmanlike" behavior.

In my view, Shanel Harrison's action - provoked or unprovoked - was unsportsmanslike and should be condemned and sanctioned. In the same vein, racist comments that followed were uncalled for and should equally be condemned. Under no circumstance should such comments be justified. The unfortunate incident that Saturday had nothing to do with race. It is therefore racist and unintelligent to target the African American player for racist abuse.

Violence, although unacceptable, is not uncommon in sports. Ice hockey players, for example, are commonly violent on ice and get sent off -- but no one links their violence to race or racially abuse them, perhaps because ice hockey players are mostly white.

Tapiolan Honka acted swiftly and showed zero-tolerance for violence. It is my wish that the team responds in a similar fashion to all [future] cases of violence. Failure to do so would mean unequal treatment of Shanel Harrison.

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Finland's scandalous record on violence against women

Finland generally does well in comparison to other countries in many areas, including the prevalence of corruption and quality of education. The country was even ranked best country to live in by Newsweek magazine in 2010. But when it comes to violence against women, one of the most salient issues of our time, Finland performs very poorly when compared with other countries in the European Union (EU).

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) presented results of the biggest ever violence against women survey in the EU at a conference in Brussels on 5 March 2014. According to FRA, the survey titled Violence against women: an EU-wide survey was based on face-to-face interviews with 42,000 women in the EU's 28 member states. The survey asked questions about women's experiences of physical, sexual and psychological violence (including domestic violence), childhood victimization, sexual harassment and stalking, including abuse through the internet.

The FRA survey revealed that Finland is the second most violent country for women in the EU. According to the survey 47 percent of women (almost half of the women surveyed) in Finland have experienced physical or sexual violence at some point after they turned 15 years old.

In my view, the hard-to-ignore finding of the survey is disturbing but not surprising. Numerous cases of violence against women have been reported in Finland over the years. Many of the cases result in death. "Family murders" (or "perhemurhat" in Finnish) are common and many women have lost their lives are as result of the social ill. Last year, two cases resulting in the death of women were reported between June and September.

Finland should take urgent steps to put an end to violence that affects almost half of the country's women. This can be done by, in my opinion, providing more "safe houses" for women in abusive relationships and responding to reports of violence immediately --- without waiting for cases to escalate or worsen. According to an editorial (in Finnish) on Iltalehti, Finland is supposed to have 500 spaces in safe houses but there're only a little over 100 -- mostly in the south of the country. A long term solution which could be pursued is sensitization school campaigns for young boys. Boys should understand early enough the implications of violence against women.

More importantly women should report cases of violence to the police or any other authority for assistance. What shocked me most in the survey is that a staggering 67 percent of women violated by their partners did not contact the police or any other organization.

Personally, I advocate tougher action against men who violate women. Perpetrators of violence against women should bear the full weight of the law. A mere slap on the wrist of a violent man is, in my view, grossly insufficient. Finland and other EU countries like Denmark (which has the highest prevalence of violence against women according to the FRA survey) should develop a hard line, zero-tolerance sentencing policy for violence against women.

 

 Ps: I share the view that real men don't hit (or violate) women. Violence against women is a sign of weakness not strength.

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Blatant racism on street in Los Angeles (VIDEO)

Although some try to deny it, people of African descent and other racial and ethnic minorities face blatant discrimination and double standards in day-to-day life in the United States and around the (western) world. So-called people of color face suspicion, arrests, detention, prosecution, imprisonment and in some cases the death sentence because of the color of their skin. A compelling video experiment supports this assertion.

There is a video circulating online of two men (one white and one black) trying to break into a parked car in broad day light in Los Angeles. According to the Huffington Post, Jason Roberts, host of a YouTube channel called Simple Misfits conducted a video experiment as a result of "unacceptable double standard" he once witnessed.

In the experiment, Roberts set up a camera and attempted (for 30 minutes) to break into a parked car. He set off the car's alarms, but onlookers were not alarmed by the purported robbery in progress. No one tried to stop him or call the police. A police patrol car even drove by. But when a black actor took his turn to break into the same car parked in the same space, LAPD officers showed up on the scene in no time and arrested the black actor.



I submit the video titled "Black Guy Breaks Into A Car" as "exhibit A" in a long-standing indictment against society for blatant racism that hunts and destroys countless people of color around the world. In my view, the response of the experiment, although not surprising, is testament to the plight of people of African descent in the United States and in many countries around the world. Racism is a widespread cankerworm that has fed on - and continues to feed on even the most "civilized" societies.

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King said amongst other things:

"When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this secret obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.' But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt."

It is a shame that American society, including its judicial system, law enforcement and a chunk of ordinary citizens continue to default on the "promissory note" invoked by Dr. Martin Luther King.

I share the view that Dr. King's "promissory note" remains in default insofar as people of color are concerned -- 50 years after the March on Washington. America has made some progress but social injustice and widespread racism, including racism in the US legal system continue to destroy the fabric of society by denying people of color the right to equal treatment.

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