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{"id":9485,"date":"2015-07-07T11:12:03","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T18:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/?p=9485"},"modified":"2020-12-16T17:08:23","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T01:08:23","slug":"part-i-chinkhumor-and-swedens-race-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/2015\/07\/07\/part-i-chinkhumor-and-swedens-race-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Part I: #ChinkHumor and Sweden’s Race Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Check out <\/span>Part II:\u00a0An Interview with Lisa Wool-Rim Sj\u00f6blom<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

“Racial biology taught the general population to differentiate between the superior Aryan race and undesirable others, communication to the public at large through literature, films and cartoons directly.”
\n-Lisa Wool-Rim Sj\u00f6blom, Illustrator & Cartoonist<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last month, I found this article on the Internets<\/a> that talked about \u201cGook Humor\u201d\u2014or, more broadly, \u201cChink Humor\u201d\u2014in Sweden. The article was a response to a long-standing yellowface sketch (think Saturday Night Live) by a popular comedy collective called Killingg\u00e4nget, co-authored by illustrator and comic book artist extraordinaire Lisa Wool-Rim Sj\u00f6blom and Swedish race and whiteness scholar Tobias H\u00fcbinette\u2014both Korean adoptees.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Adoptivp\u00e4ron\"<\/a>
Adoptivp\u00e4ron, by Lisa Wool-Rim Sjolbom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I snapped awake from my drug-like addiction to Swedish noir and Ikea meatball combo plates and was like, what? Racism? In Sweden? Sweden, the homeland of racial biology and eugenics? The Aryan nation that forced the sterilization of thousands of Sami women; expressed delight at eating and mutilating the blackface cake rendition<\/a> of a woman\u2019s body; has some of the most vibrant ultranationalist<\/a> and neo-Nazi anti-Muslim movements in the world; supplied the iron shackles<\/a> and \u201cvoyage bar\u201d currency used to capture and trade enslaved Africans, and one of the White nations that divided up Africa during the Berlin conference.<\/p>\n

All sarcasm aside, the sketch was a perfect example of the ubiquity of Orientalism, which points to the ubiquity of White supremacy and its manifestation in popular media. The sketch is called “My Singing Korean Adoptive Pears.”\u00a0Part of the joke is that the informal word for \u201cparents\u201d is \u201cpears\u201d in Swedish, and the\u00a0“R”\u00a0in the title is replaced with “L”, also playing\u00a0with the stereotype that Koreans can’t pronounce “R” sounds properly.<\/p>\n

The lazy ass actors on this show don\u2019t even bother with high production value yellowface\u2014I\u2019m talking Cloud Atlas or Flash Gordon style\u2014and instead simply squint and stick their upper teeth out, speaking some whispery lisping gibberish that is supposed to be Korean-inflected Swedish.<\/p>\n

As someone who grew up in around Latinos and Asians and some Asian Latinos and Asian Caribbean folk, the diaspora is often on my mind. I reached out to Lisa Wool-Rim Sj\u00f6blom to connect and she graciously agreed to share her experiences and perspective of the Asian Swedish experience, as well as the current adoption trade in Sweden.<\/p>\n

\"\"
“Chink Bingo”, by Lisa Wool-Rim Sjolbom. Squares are actual comments made to the artist.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cRacism against Asians isn\u2019t really recognized as being racist at all, and even in the anti-racist movements it seems to remain invisible,\u201d Lisa wrote in an email to me. She talked to me about the hyper\/invisibility that is remarkably the same to what AAPI\u2019s experience in the U.S. She talked to me about the macro-structural impact of the adoption trade\u2014essentially a \u201ccolonial project\u201d that is, very plainly, the \u201cinvoluntary transferal of hundreds and thousands of non-Western children on a worldwide scale after formal decolonization as a clear reflection of a global colonial reality and racial hierarchy, and a grim reminder of the still existing astronomical power imbalance between the West and its former colonies,\u201d as described by Lisa\u2019s coauthor in another article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have long argued that the depoliticization and assimilation of AAPIs are themselves expressions of anti-Asian racism in the U.S. When one considers the forced assimilation of non-White transnational adoptees, in conjunction with Sweden\u2019s famous reputation as a haven of equality\u2014so much so that the government wants to literally erase race<\/a> from the public record\u2014it\u2019s no surprise that consciousness building is a huge part of the struggle against anti-Asian racism.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Swedish Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth (From Facebook).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lisa described the situation for the almost 60,000 predominantly non-White children<\/a> adopted in Sweden during the last half a century: \u201c[T]ransracial adoptees in particular are taught to identify as White and to not see themselves as being different\u2026. The national amnesia regarding eugenics, and Sweden’s colonial past, combined with a radical colorblindness and a deep-seated belief that we are somehow post-race, creates a culture of denial, and an environment where it is impossible to seriously address racism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amen to that, sister. Read the Lisa\u2019s full responses to my questions in Part II: An Interview with Lisa Wool-Rim Sj\u00f6blom<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n