Ahmed Berhan: Farewell everyday racism – now it gets worse

I wasn’t really prepared for you to leave. For something within me knew or felt that what would come after you would make your days feel like a delight. I prepare for the Moonwalk that will be made in your absence. I fumble on your forehead and leave a rose on your chest. Thank you for the years you have given me laughter and headache, rest in peace everyday racism, darker times waiting around the corner.

The era where it was talked about microaggressions, cultural appropriation or who can take on whose hair, is behind us. Which would be wonderful if it wasn’t for us to take big steps back. For we, who are affected by it, saw it coming at a distance. Have a vague memory from about 2013–2015, when Björn Söder was in a panel program at SVT and said something like: « You try to make me look like the odd one, someone who stands out. But I represent the norm and the future. »

He was aiming that the whole of Europe and the Western world was in progress to make the right move that his party represented. The whole studio laughed at him, I laughed at the studio and the last laugh got Björn.

In « Ifs » ​​we are all on the same page, for 28 minutes the program makes us all for Swedes

I was contacted to write this text and almost immediately it started to scrape in me. Not because the request was unreasonable in any way, I was asked to write about a topic that I am well versed in, something that I talk very much about on stage and in other contexts. Cultural clashes, but no uncomfortable truths about everyday life for a minority. Preferably easy and with the twinkle in the eye. Like the time I was going to buy clothes and the nice girl at the checkout started speaking English with me and panicked when she realized that I was speaking Swedish and tried to save the situation by saying that she thought I was a German tourist. Her anti -racist ambition became the most racist in the entire conversation.

Take « IFS. Immigrants for Swedes » as an example, I often get asked about what is the secret behind the success of the program I lead. It is because we are all on the same page, for 28 minutes the program makes us all for Swedes. This is how we manage to have so high ceilings but still maintain the heat. Unfortunately, not everyone understands what it takes. The section where politicians compete was about not to get rid of. The idea came after a party leader’s press secretary heard to say that the party leader wanted to compete. Great fun I thought, until we got an email that the party leader did not want to compete against other politicians but wanted to compete against ordinary citizens. It was not the requirement that disturbed me but the motivation for the requirement. She did not want to compete against other politicians in who is the most « woke ».

So these are the people I will rely on defending our democratic values

It is the level of ignorance we live with, that a party leader believes that it competes in « Wokeness » because they happen to be generally educated about the many cultures and traditions that exist in our country. It’s like searching for « half past eight with me » but refusing to cook because you don’t intend to compete in « women’s ear ». So these are the people I will rely on defend our democratic values.

What was it Who felt so wrong with this DN mission? I could fill this text with old standing material, make it easy for me, send in and continue with my day. The problem is that none of it is appropriate for the situation we are in right now. Free fall is very fun when you are at Gröna Lund, less charming when it is even contemporary.

I am increasingly thinking about a comment by African American comedian DL Hugley: « Only white people are shocked and horrified. » As a minority, you have already seen the worst of humanity, it is not really surprising you. Whether it’s an orange plot that crashes the entire world market, just because he can. Or the Middle East’s only democracy that is revealed by executing in true Mexican Cartel landing a whole bunch of ambulance personnel and burying them in a mass grave with the ambulances.

I thought to myself, if Trump gets what he wants, neither you nor your kids will be left in the United States, but absolutely, worry about the rainbow mafia

I’m not going to lie, get stuff gives me as much entertainment as this anti-wokeness trend. My favorite interview from the American election was with a Muslim Trump supporter, who explained that Trump will stop the homosexuals from taking over schools. Who would think that a Grotesco sketch would have such an impact across the Atlantic! I thought to myself, if Trump gets what he wants, neither you nor your children will remain in the US, but absolutely, you worry about the rainbow mafia.

It’s a form Of comedy that only reality can create when we now see how the United States is turning back the clock to a less charming part of its history, ironically by deleting its history. You scream for freedom of speech while censoring universities, literature and diversity and gender equality initiatives. I can already predict that Donald Trump will be the first Western leader to use child soldiers. I write this and now so you don’t have to be shocked and horrified when it then happens.

This is perhaps what is the sign that we have come into the worst of times, that none of us will be shocked or horrified anymore. Just yes, I saw a journalist burning up on social media today. The hope of a better world where that news could create headlines and reactions is replaced with an stunning apathy, where I instead realize that I have to start like more buttocks on Instagram to change my algorithms.

If tragedy is a good foundation for humor, then we can at least comfort ourselves that we are currently sitting on a gold mine

So now we sit here at the memory for a woke-era that some of us will miss and some of us will be happy that it is over. We sit here trying to rattle a future, which none of us know what it looks like. Even those who have helped and paved the way are scared and worried. People like the pod and comedian Joe Rogan are shocked and horrified at how the president he helped to power behaves. It is probably my little final squeeze, that everyone who did not stand up for everyone, now can eat one and the same poop sandwich. Wipe your tears because no one is here to hear you cry. But if tragedy as said is a good foundation for humor, then we can at least comfort ourselves that we are currently sitting on a gold mine.

I do not want to leave you with my dystopian feelings, because this is a cultural page so let me do it with a cultural experience. A poem from one of Sweden’s best poets, Meron Mangasha.

The second language.

Mitt and yours are not the same

You got the letters from your mom

Mine was not a mother tongue, but was coined by those who were outside.

My language was what breathed between the letters.

Feel best people and hopefully one day we all speak the same language, but until then. Take care of you and each other.

Read more:
« Ahmed Berhan: I try to decode society and find my place in it »