Some strange things happening in our colour-conscious Sweden these days

Some people see racism everywhere.

For instance, there’s this hectic on-going debate, quarrel, dis-agreements mostly by Whitey the dominant force (not so many Darkies have yet jumped into the fray) about the name of a room at or near Konstfack, the premier Swedish Art Academy, and  the debate is about the political correctness or incorrectness and justification for a room being called “Vita Havet”/ “White sea” - that preferably it should be just “Sea”, that the White, representative of certain values – as in White man or Snow-white (the opposite of Black, like my ass) reeks of racism.

White, as in Yeshayahu / Isaiah 1:18: 

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” ( King James Version)

The whole ridiculous debate / war about the propriety/impropriety of a room at the Swedish Art Academy being baptised “White Sea” is being waged through the main Swedish newspapers, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, where spectacular political and sociological reasons are being advanced by both pro and con. Yesterday, I read the latest update on the contentious issue in Svenska Dagbladet and a longish article about the “White Sea” appeared in today’s Dagens Nyheter. 

As Joe Biden famously said, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black”

The next debate at the Colour Blind Art Academy will probably be about a room being named “Black Blood", "The Red Room", “Cremation “or “Cold Black Sea”, "The White Goddess", White Swans, White Lies

Other controversies pending: White Jesus / Black Jesus or just Jesus, Moses, David, Solomon saying,

“ I am black but comely, O daughters of Jerusalem!"

“This is about a card game!” That’s how Stephen Still introduces his Black Queen

The whole issue reminds me of Wole Soyinka’s poem “To My First White Hairs “ usually an early sign of the beginning of wisdom even for a Nobel Laureate “svartskalle” // Black Kalle and a special mark of distinction (the first white or grey hairs - on your head or in your pelvic region) especially in e.g. Yoruba culture which especially venerates elders) so it was quite a surprise when one of Nigeria’s enfant terrible, an otherwise likeable Igbo upstart, an iconoclast by the name of Chinweizu - Chinweizu Ibekwe ( a Nigerian equivalent of Torbjörn Tännsjö, if you are prepared to make slight cultural and colour adjustments that go with embracing and propagating some popular and not so popular lost causes) - in this instance Chinweizu Ibekwe took Soyinka to task - more or less called him out as an uncle tom/ house Negro - and the anti-colonial Ibekwe, as polemical as ever, was especially distressed, his ire insurmountable, his main burning question, “Why WHITE hairs ?”

I intend to return to this matter of "universal" art, although it doesn't really concern me that much; much more interesting was Israeli Ambassador Zvi Mazel taking a radical stance at another so called art exhibition here in Sweden: I really admire his human intervention, how he stepped into the hall and took the bull by the horns, dismantled the whole anti-Semitic/ anti-Zionist and anti -Israeli contraption with his bare hands.

To be continued after I have taken a good look at the whole public discussion so far...

 Malheureusement, I have woefully misrepresented and thereby trivialised the main issue for the contending parties about essentially why “The White Sea” should be changed to “The Sea”, at least, for the time being. “The Sea” as in Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”

Blind Faith : Sea of Joy 

Just as I remarked earlier, “There are some people who see racism everywhere” and although that doesn’t include me (I don't see racism everywhere but I understand that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere " and that the fact of the matter is that first and foremost it’s not a White vs Black thing; Secondly, it’s inaccurate to say that it’s basically about Racism at the centre stage or at the heart of the controversy about changing the name of the room from “The White Sea” to just “Sea” although there’s a recommendation from one side, to quote DN's Hugo Lindqvist "that working against structural racism should be “a permanent part of the democratic structure of Konstfack / The Swedish Art Academy’s committees, and that the university should employ a person with advanced knowledge of structural racism and how to work for "change and healing"

How to work for "change and healing". That serious.

  (I suspect that there would be more heated arguments about the proposition of changing the name to “The Black Sea” instead of just “The Sea”; that would probably meet with some violent or non-violent White Sea Resistance, and goodness knows the kind of dialectic that the proposition “The Sea of Many Colours” would or could be subjected to, if passionate about their cause they should storm the administration building, the way that the American hooligans stormed their Capitol...

And, thank goodness, there’s no offence taken by referring to TV as “the monkey box” and by extension what could be meant by “The Monkey Room” should not necessarily mean the room where the monkeys watch TV…

Yesterday’s DN article “Interna förslaget på Konstfack : Byt namn på “ Vita Havet “ till Havet //Internal proposal at Konstfack: Change the name "White Sea" to "Sea" gives a comprehensive picture of the dilemma and an intimate insight into what the palaver is all about …

I'm now warming to discussions about Swedish Race issues, even the most subtle aspects , middle of the road, if need be, no holds barred and to be continued after I have updated myself from the beginning to now, by listening to all sides of the spectrum and some of my more interesting friends of various hues and views and who are products of Konstfack and are probably the lomg-shuffering ones agitating for change and healing