Black Lives Matter in Sweden
Black Lives Matter has swept the world in the past weeks. The spark was the brutal murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the video that was spread around the world of his last minutes on earth. Of course an assault of a black man by a police officer is nothing new, and anyone who can remember 1991 will never forget the first great viral video of a police assault on a man of colour:
Rodney King was clearly not in a position to offer resistance to these police. But when the trial did happen regarding their assault, there were all found not guilty. The riots that followed engulfed South Central Los Angeles for 3 days.
The authorities mobilised the largest domestic military operation since the 1960s, with nearly 20,000 police, National Guard troops, federal military troops, FBI, Border Patrol, and others on the streets. By the time it ended, the 1992 LA Rebellion had become the largest urban rebellion in U.S. history. Some 63 people had been killed, 10 by law enforcement — nearly 80 percent Black and Latino. Some 12,000 people were arrested.
It may seem obvious, but the inequalities between different ethnic groups in society are not just present in how law enforcement treat people of color differently. It is a lottery for your life when intercepted by a cop in many places around the world if you are not white. But this is just the tip of the white hooded iceberg.
I have been working in community culture since 2017 and teaching English to kids with English in their background for the same amount of time in the capital of Sweden, Stockholm. I travel a lot between 10 to 12 schools to teach, and I work with culture in an area of the city that has a concentration of youth from varied ethnic backgrounds. I also live in such a neighbourhood. All in all I see enormous differences between those of privileged ethnic background and those not — and the latter are inevitably youth of colour. I have been thinking a lot about this in regards to #BlackLivesMatter
On the evening of December 15, 2018, a small riot broke out at the subway station in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby. The video shows how security guards and police can handle conflict with young people of colour in connection with suspected fare evasion.
In Sweden, like elsewhere, treatment by police, and other authority figures is often conducted from the perspective of assumed guilt when it comes to black youth. I have heard of incidents and witnessed them countless times including threats, intimidation as well as intrusive and violent behaviour by police and security guards against black youth. Experts say ethnic profiling in the subway and other places in Sweden is widespread. But this is just the tip of the iceberg in my opinion when it comes to #BlackLivesMatter.
If we consider the average life expectancy for the end points of the metro Red Line in Stockholm differ by 18 years, with the north being a white ethnically Swedish background community and the south being an ethnically diverse community. The difference in life expectancy between a low-skilled adult in Vårby and a highly educated person in Danderyd is 18 years (2014 information). A lot more on Vårby can be read here (in Swedish)
According to a recent report by Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet or Brå for short), among suspects for crime in Sweden “there is a larger proportion of young people in the group of native-born with two foreign-born parents, compared with domestic-born with two domestic-born parents, and the proportion of suspects of crime is generally greater among young people than among older people.” Racial and generational profiling are major tools for police in Sweden and the bias towards POC is obvious.
Just one of many examples from my own experience comes from last year, riding my bike home from work, through Liljeholmen. I saw two security guards dragging a slightly built, small-sized girl who looked like she was in her early teens through a car park and then push her up against a wall. Another girl was standing watching. I watched it too as they searched her. emptied her bag and when through her pockets and felt insider her bra (the female guard). They then dragged the girl around the corner. I started riding after them but suddenly the guards returned without the girls. I changed direction and turned the corner from the road.
I met them and spoke to the girls. Apparently the girl that was restrained and searched had been smoking with friends in the large open courtyard of the nearby shopping center when the guards started telling them to leave the area. Some of them left but she refused. That is when the guards grabbed her by the wrists and physically restrained her while leading her out of the area…….then they searched her. The girl said she was ok but was going to register an official complaint. Her friend had taken photos of the physical force used by the guards (better than the one I took). I agreed she should do this.
The girl that was being assaulted by the guards was of Afro-Swedish appearance…and 14 years old.
The conditions and demands created by ethnic segregation are harsh and cruel. I spend my days teaching children from a variety of backgrounds in small groups in Stockholm. What unites them is they speak English in the home. As a result of the colonial history that defines so much of the English language, I have students with backgrounds in Nigeria, Kenya, Jamaica as well as the USA, the UK and Australia. But these backgrounds are not what determines who these young people are in the education system. Poverty, opportunity, access, location and social settings are all working on these children from when they are born. Their ethnicity is just the link in the chain that holds it all together. But I see disadvantage based on nothing the child has done, or can do, other than they are not born into the privilege enjoyed by their white / Scandinavian / norther European contemporaries. I believe this feeds directly into #BlackLivesMatter. Racism is systemic, it works through all institutional systems, from Health, to Education as well as Law and Economy. The lack of educational opportunity /motivation based on ethnicity will kill these children earlier than others.
The Red Line needs to be crossed. #BlackLivesMatter
