From being repeatedly asked for ID to feeling threatened by harmful rhetoric, politicians say lack of diversity is undermining work of EU
As a newly minted member of the European parliament in 2019, Alice Kuhnke swiftly learned to keep her ID badge handy. Sometimes the request to see it would come just moments after she had swiped it to enter a building, other times she would be stopped hours later as she made her way to meetings.
Six months into the job, she mentioned the stringent security measures over coffee with a few colleagues. “They said ‘Are you serious? I’ve never been stopped.’”
Kuhnke, a Black MEP from Sweden, put the same question to her Black colleagues. The answer confirmed what she had suspected: “Some of them had been stopped.”
It was one of her first hints of what it meant to work in a European parliament that is profoundly out of step with the demographic reality of Europe. While racialised minorities make up an estimated 10% of the EU’s population, MEPs from these groups accounted for just 4.3% of the total lawmakers in the last mandate, according to analysis by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR).
I think that it’s been long enough for them to own it for themselves now.
Otherwise we could just keep on saying that we got it from our ancestors and not strive to change.
Americans absolutely have to own it, and many of us try to. America has consistently made awful decisions regarding race.
The point is more that white Europeans are not special, and much of the perceived enlightenment from Europe is either top-down messaging from socially unassailable elites, or from societies that are homogenous enough that the economically insecure don’t (yet) blame their struggles on the tiny number of visible minorities in their community.
Americans who “whatabout” any criticism from an imperfect messenger are probably not acting in good faith, but the inverse is worth considering as well.
Isn’t that what they all do?
OK, how about I put it another way - you are as vile as each other.
You happy now?
And yet sadly compared to most of the world they’re some of the least racist.
People I like do bad things because of the situation.
People I do not like do bad things because they are bad people.
Once I understood this all the endless tearing down and who can shit the best on a country/people/religion/ethnicity/whathaveyou on social media made sense.
I really have no affinity for either group but I do find it odd how quick Europeans are to point at American racism while ignoring or denying the existence of their own racist tendencies.
No. If I do not like either group then your point is invalid.
Maybe try: America’s racists are as vile as Europe’s racists are as vile as Asia’s racists are as vile as Africa’s racists are as vile as Oceania’s racists are as vile as… Antarctica’s?