'Racist' cake sparks new Brussels rebuke
Published: 19 Apr 12 13:45 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/40356/20120419/
A Brussels-based anti-racism group has condemned Swedish culture minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth for cutting a "racist" cake at a Stockholm art museum, demanding the government issue a formal public apology.
- Minister apologizes over 'racist' cake cutting (19 Apr 12)
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- Minister in 'racist circumcision outrage' (17 Apr 12)
"If no action is taken, the Swedish Government will clearly be sending the message that racist prejudices are socially and legally acceptable."
The letter, released on Thursday, is the latest protest against Adelsohn Liljeroth for her involvement with an art installation by artist Makode Linde at Stockholm's Moderna Museet in which she cut into a cake depicting a naked black woman.
According to ENAR, the cake was a "stereotypical racist representation of a black woman" which is indicative of an increase in "Afrophobia" in Sweden.
The group also cited in 2011 incident at Lund University in which a group of students dressed up as African slaves for a costume party in what ENAR called "racist representations of the transatlantic slave trade".
"ENAR’s 2010-11 Shadow Report on racism in Sweden also highlights an increase in Afrophobia in Sweden, including discrimination, harassment and hate crimes committed against people of African descent," Onyeji warned.
The group urged the Swedish government to "at least make a public apology" for Adelsohn Liljeroth's participation in what it called a "racist event" and to increase investment in anti-racist activities at the local and national level.
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ENAR however stopped short of calling for the culture minister's dismissal, a demand first made by the National Afro-Swedish Association (Afrosvenskarnas riksförbund) immediately following the April 15th incident.
While Adelsohn Liljeroth has expressed her regret over the incident and met with representatives from the association on Wednesday night, the Afro-Swedish Association remains firm in its call for her to step down.
Meanwhile, artist Makode Linde, who is was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and west-African father, has said that his installation has been misinterpreted, arguing neither he nor the minister are racists.
"That we live in a racist society and that I'm treated differently because of my skin colour is something I realized early in my life," he wrote in an opinion article in the Aftonbladet newspaper.
"It's only when hidden racism is made visible that it can destroyed. That's what my work as an artist tries to highlight."
David Landes
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Where's their condemnation and demands for apologies over that?
No surprise there.
Now they're all up over a cake which has no basis in fact for claims of racism.
The artist is 1/2 black, so just who in the hell was his so called racism directed against?
The worst human rights abuses against Black Libyans are currently being committed and morons like the National Afro-Swedish Association are crying foul over a cake, a CAKE!!!
Dont be ridiculous. This was wrong in the same way as the minister, pushing a Jewish gingerbread man into a oven, would be to highlight persecution of Jews. Ridiculous I tell you.
Please read our blogs: www.racistreport.org -- Global movement against Racism!!
With your help we can uncover the true impact of racism on humanity. If you have been subjected to any form of descrimination because of your skin colour, race, culture or ethnicity please share your story with the World and get help.
Quote: www.racistreport.org --- Fight Against Racism!!
What you should notice is that this act relates femal genital mutilation with skin color. That is racism (since it is generalizing that blacks have the habit of femal genital mutilation). Go to a Stockholm street and tell a black women that she does it. I think that is offensive.
intelligent people are capable of condeming what is happening in Libya plus the racism in Sweden . At least the thugs in Libya have not claimed to be civilized "superior people "who fight for women`s rights by reducing their situation into a silly bloody cake.
@Spuds MAcKenzie , if it was just a CAKE , why don`t you relax and wait for genital mulitators go away ?
But again , if you have not heard the outrage against thepractice of genital mutilation , this subject is obviuosly above you.
Please read our blogs: www.racistreport.org -- Global movement against Racism!!
With your help we can uncover the true impact of racism on humanity. If you have been subjected to any form of descrimination because of your skin colour, race, culture or ethnicity please share your story with the World and get help.
Quote: www.racistreport.org --- Fight Against Racism!!
So in conclusion, a stupid idea badly executed. Female genital mutilation is a horrible act. That does not mean it is a good idea to try to raise awareness on this issue via a stupid act. Unless you are one of the conspiracy theorists.
If you are invited to cut "down there" into a cake shaped like an African woman - where the head is a real person that screams with every cut - would it not be a great idea to demur/claim gluten intolerance etc than to stand their as a white woman laughing while simulating female circumcision!! Just to stop the media circus
According to the creator - who I heard interviewed on the radio - the Minister was a part of the "art"
Although the artist also claimed it was a figure derived from the blackface/black and white minstrels which I believed did have racist overtones
The European Network Against Racism is yet to condemn the mutilation of hundreds of millions of African children. If no action is taken, it and its supporters here, will clearly be sending the message that genital mutilation is socially and legally acceptable. Many of the posters here screeching racism without condemning FGM, actually do find the mutilation of children acceptable.
What do these people possibly have to tell us about racism that might be useful?
Wow, you called me a moron, well you've certainly put me in my place with your elementary school frisbee playing! (Not).
God forbid someone can actually mention real issues on here!
Oriana Fallaci was right - ths is the end of Europe. If a cake offends us more than female circumcision itself, this is the end.
Actions speak louder than words. If you're going to put people of a different race in cages simply for the fact they are of a different race (like they are doing in Libya) than that indicates to me that you view yourself as "superior"
Well said!
@bcterry
Dont be ridiculous. This was wrong in the same way as the minister, pushing a Jewish gingerbread man into a oven, would be to highlight persecution of Jews. Ridiculous I tell you. "
Sorry, that's a "ridiculous" statement of equivalence,
The comparison is not even remotely close.
You see at the end of the day the old adage of, " Birds of a feather flock together" is 100% TRUE. People PREFER the company of people who ARE LIKE THEMSELVES. This driving force is the very reason why you have, the world over, different cultures, different languages, different countries, ect.
There is nothing wrong with wanting your children to marry within the tribe, for you to want to live amongst your own kind, so forth and so on.
Multi-culturism is just as much a failure as communism because it goes against basic instincts. If this wasn't true people would not have to be forced into participation.
If all humans were truely equal Sub-Saharan Africa would be equal to Western Europe and world history would be full of the accomplishments, throughout the centuries, of Sub-Saharan writers, scientists, explorers, ect.
Your comment is 100% true except for the very last paragraph, I only wish you hadn't written that last paragraph because now you're going to be called a racist by a tirade of commentators, enjoy!
The cake cutting, with the screaming is pretty racist.
It is having to accept MULTICULTURALISM.
Who immigrated to the land of black people in search of land and treasure?
Who colonized and massacre innocent men and women in Africa?
Who occupied the land of Red Indians (America) and are now known as so-called American?
Shame on all the women who cuts the genital part of a woman in shape of a cake!!!!!!
They are not civilized rather they are pathetic!
Female nature is tend to be kind and timid not cruel and inhumane!
Superficial, uneducated, sick, bizarre and twisted ideology of warriors women!
Let the peace in world and let the people live, stop these bullshits!!!!!!
With your help we can uncover the true impact of racism on humanity. If you have been subjected to any form of descrimination because of your skin colour, race, culture or ethnicity please share your story with the World and get help.
Quote: www.racistreport.org --- Fight Against Racism!!
The cake is tasteless and ugly such as female genital mutilation itself. It reminds me of Gollywoog which wa sindeed a racist image. But....
The cake was designed by a BLACK man.
Now a question for you: If I bake a cake shaped as a caricature of a white woman with beeeg boobs to protest against plastic surgery (which is not half as cruel as depriving women of their clitoris against their will) and ask a black politician to take a cut is it racism?
I don't think so.
The minister was trying to take part in something to raise awareness of the FGM problem. Sadly, none of the anti-racist organisations protesting has ever done anything to raise awareness of FGM. Speaks for itself.
Female genital mutilation is prevalent in 27 of the 46 WHO regions in Africa. Over 100 million girls/women have undergone genital mutilation. Most live in Africa. Some live in the Middle East, in Asia, or in immigrant communities in Canada, US, European countries, etc.
Female genital mutilation = slice off, pierce, prick, stretch, burn young girls' clitorises, labia, and/or stitch up their vaginal openings, etc.
Google picture search "Female Genital Mutilation".
Re 26, In all fairness, aside from racism, MACHETES and GANG RAPE and EXORCISMS and FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION and HONOR BEATINGS / KILLINGS and SHARIA LAW are other reasons that Swedes and non-Swedes do not live side-by-side. :(
How exactly is what the Arabs, British, French, Belgians, Dutch and Italians did in Africa and what the British, French, Spanish and Portuguese did in the Americas relevant to Liljeroth and the "racist cake?"
What next? Your probably going to mention what Idi Amin did to the people of South Asian origin in Uganda or what the Mughals did to the Hindus in India, or what Pol Pot did to his own people, how all of this is relevant to this article is anyone's guess.
I honestly wouldn't expect anything else form this country.
It may be naive of me to think that I wouldn't be on the receiving end of racist treatment (due to my canadian, white skinned, blue eyed, brown haired self) but it has been really hard to live here. I have encountered so much cruelty towards me, my husband and our other "out-sider" friends. I couldn't imagine the torment that other non-swedish races encounter when they move here.
Before I moved to Sweden- I had a stereotype in my head. "blond haired, blue eyed, friendly, happy people". I was in for a shock when I got here. Even with learned basic Swedish- I was discriminated against on a frequent basis. Swedes may be nice to each other, but to non-swedes... i have never felt so hated before just because I wasn't born here.
I am luckily moving in the next couple weeks and am extremely grateful to be. My thoughts and opinions of Sweden are not positive. I hope one day they are more accepting of "out-siders" but until then... the horrendous racist acts will continue. Its really sad.
This is an act that has brought rebuke from all corners of the world. This foolish act only happen in sweden and our children should not be made to think it is normal. RESPECT OTHERS VALUE. By the way u cannot deport me to anywhere except sweden.
Well that is interesting, I'm "white Canadian" too and from living, studying and working in Sweden I have never experienced any racism from ethnic Swedes towards me, in fact I've actually encountered more racism directed towards myself in Canada (from some Indo-Canadian coworkers) than in Sweden.
Let me try to break it down for you: 1) The cake face, neck, breasts were depicted in the most racially insulting form possible. 2) The hilarity expressed during the cutting of the cake-genitals was diametrically opposed to (if the purpose of the event was to decry sexual mutilation) what should have been a somber moment. 3) If the issue was about genital mutilation of women, the color and form of the woman would have been racially neutral.
I understand that Swedes don't understand the outrage. I'll not comment on why I think that is. In any case, this cake-mutilating-woman must be booted from government.
I don't think so. It's not all women who are mutilated in this way but exclusively BLACK WOMEN.
Listen to the victims such as Fatima Siad and others. And try and find one single white woman among them. Don't fool yourself. Genital mutilation has a colour and it is not white and not grey. It is endemic to certain area such as sharia law is endemic to another are. European women have their problems but FGM is not one of them. It came from Africa.
The impression one gets is that it's not as if she was suddenly confronted with the cake that she was supposed to cut - and without additional reflection, she went straight ahead and did the cutting...
So you think that this outrage is something? Well, thinking about comparative outrage, re- all the hullabaloo that "circumcision of young boys for religious and non-medical reasons ought to be banned in Sweden",
Let Makode Aj Linde or Lars Vilks make an effigy or bake a cake that looks like Moshe Finkelstein and unlike a legitimized mohel let Adelsohn Liljeroth "symbolically" start restoring his foreskin or some other kind of unordained experiment with his foreskin there at the Modern Museum and she would live to behold some fallout the likes of which she has not seen before. I have a fair idea what Zvi Mazel himself could do on the spot, if he just happened to be there....
Someone is going to say, " It's not the same thing!"
Actually I apologize for calling you an idiot. It's just that your assumption that "I'm not Canadian" struck a personal nerve with me since my mother's family has been in Canada for several generations and my great-grandmother was an Ojibwa. I was also upset that you mistakenly thought "Indo-Canadian" referred to Canada's indigenous people and you thought I was insulting Canada's indigenous (First Nations) population. Something I would NEVER do!
I am of Jewish descent and to me you can bake one cake of every single circumcised Jewsih man/boy on this planet. I seriously do not give a f**k.
More so, I recognise it is the circumcision that is a problem, not the cake.
Nevertheless, yes, it is not the same. Sewing labia together so that menstrual blood cannot flood out and causes infections, discomfort and sickness is not the same as removing a piece of loose skin. I do agree however any circumcision is unnecessary.
However, clitoris is what makes penis in male foetuses. Therefore, the removal of clitoris equals the removal of the whole penis.
"ENAR's 2010-11 Shadow Report on racism in Sweden also highlights an increase in Afrophobia in Sweden, including discrimination, harassment and hate crimes committed against people of African descent,"
In this case, Africans are targeted as they were targeted in past, in order you to understand you need to go through the African Colonial Period! Anyways, if you believe all men and women born equal then no one has right to humiliate or insult any race or gender! I don't understand the double standard why people are supporting/defending an act which promotes hatred and eventually generates criminality by segregation!
Learn to love and live happily! Thank you to be a good citizen!
On cakes, I prefer dark chocolate to white chocolate and oh yes, on the living female, the intact clitoris and labia to the butchered one.
But maybe I am just culturally insensitive and too "Swiss" for the progressives on this blog who see racism under every rock, I mean cake.
*yawning*
Racists, racists, racists... zzzzzz...
We need thousands of years to solve either problem.
http://irvinhomem.blogspot.se/2012/04/limits-of-art-reflections-on-makode-aj.html
Fix the problems in the local back yard before crossing over to the African one to attempt to fix their problems. Understand and embrace other people's cultures. Don't be a in ignorant bigot. Educate yourself before you claim that you know them well enough to provide a critique.
Call me an "ignorant bigot", but i would never "embrace" this cultural misogynistic sadism.
What's next, we should "understand and embrace" cultural honor killing?
Get and keep a job, respect education and learning, respect and follow laws, stop the silly primitive practices of islame or whatever is your religion.
And, since whites of the caucasian race are the world's minority race, consider everything done by whites as simply a self-initiated affirmative action taken by, for, and on behalf of the world's minority race.
There, now don't you all feel much better knowing what you majority races need to do in order to live with the world's minority race?
if the cake was white, there would be no story here.
I think I'm going to become "International" and just hate everybody....seems this is the way to go as I cant be labeled racist if everyone gives me the sh*ts!
Hehe, I despise all kinds of humans so clearly I am not a racist. ;)
one it was art, two it is a cake and three it was making a point. (that doing anything else would have lost the message)
the artist and minister did well and the morons I hope have amplified their good work.
remember it is about FGM not a black cake !
@ Da goat the Minister has apologized for the harmless "art" . She must be a moron , yes ?
It is just an excuse to start whinging and whining over nothing as usual. Get a sense of reality for goodness sake.
My black friends laughed at it and saw nothing wrong with it at all. So who exactly is so outraged over this and why?
Does anybody with a proper brain think that by demeaning black women Lijeron has helped the victims FGM , really ?
I get your point - I was also separated from my foreskin when I was eight days old.
But it's not your personal reaction or mine that's so important here - if indeed - symbolically speaking ( let's say some Iranian cartoonist ) or even a less humorous person baked the cake of some Jewish-looking guy and got Lena to perform the bris milah at the Modern Museum as a symbolical act of opposition to what they might think is a savage custom i.e. the Covenant which is honoured by Jewish Male circumcision - I think that the collective sense of outrage among the Jews in Sweden and beyond would be far worse than what mayor Reepalu has had to contend with so far....
Take a look at the cake ----I suppose that it would also be kosher for you to eat it and that would be neither here nor there.
It's expected that the same people who would be outraged about the Jewish thing could also show some sensitivity about what members of the only race there is in town cries foul....
Until such black communities and nations recognize that the problem is the behavior of members of such communities and nations, they will never solve the problem of these behaviors, because a problem can't be solved until one is honest about what's the cause of the problem.
Sweden has the right to speak out against this horrible horrible practice. I personally don't care whether anyone thinks it's racist or not, the message needs to get out there. FGM is far worse than one stupid cake could ever be.
This is what it is all about. The aim of the thing was quite the opposite, an action to protect African women against genital mutilation.
But the cake, or "the piece of art", was bad chosen because we all know that the world is full of people who are just looking for a chance to feel offended. The reaction should consequently have been anticipated.
There are "anti-racists" who banned the word 'black', "because everybody knows that they are colored". I have many friends who are black, some of them like that word and other prefer other words. What happened to "Black is Beautiful"?
In most cases there is no need for a word at all, but sometimes it is significant to a topic. Other people may dislike the word "colored" (who 'colored' them, and what color did they have before?).
But yes, I have seen a lot of real racism in Sweden. Many blacks dislike Swedes because they believe their color is the reason for all of their bad luck.
Or immigrants from some cultures, for which it is unthinkable that their daughter marries a Swede. She must marry somebody from her own group, even risking to be killed if she doesn't.
Then you have a group of traditional Swedes, who engage in racist activities, shouting slogans and so on. Those are easy to recognize and 'normal' people dislike them.
Boys are not circumcised in Swedish tradition, in fact it's considered child abuse traditionally. Girls getting cut up down-there is about 100X worse, to swedish people. This is a culture clash. Yes, Sweden does have their own culture, so why be surprised when immigrants come here with offensive cultural practices such as FGM, and swedish people don't like it? Swedish people have the right to put a stop to this horrible practice.
Your analogy lacks on so many levels I really do not know how to spell it out for you.
Suicide is a choice. FGM performed on schoolgirls is not. If a grown up woman wants to have HER vagina mutilated, I don't care. But if it's her daughter's vagina then I do care very much because there is no consent and no informed choice involved.
Suicide is a choice as highlighted by Seneca. Some prefer to end their life rather than live in mysery. As long as it is their life they end not someone else's, this is none of my business. And none of your business.
Your analogy is simply stupid. Sorry,
@Victoria Amerikansk , don`t we all wish the world was flat ?
Unfortunately , realitity is that nobody is perfect .As you notice , Sweden produces a few @ strixyes that are as empty headed as that mother who thinks that cutting her daughter is as harmless as choosing to committ suicide
Horrible as the act of genetial mutilation is , it not up to Sweden to stop it . If this thing is ever going to be eliminated , one must resist the temptation to insult those societies that still consider FGM as part of their traditions / customs. But since you seem to be familiar with this issue , I take it that you that you are aware of the efforts that have been made so far to educate socities that practice FGM .
I repeat : making images that insult black people is no way to stop FGM .
As any "Amerikansk" ought to know , carrying around bloody images of dead babies - by anti.abortionists -has not stopped Americans from carrying out abortions.
But , strixy might reason (??!! ) that american mothers have the right to eliminate children they are not prepared to look after .