A Swedish Multicultural Brat

JONAS HASSEN KHEMIRI, a celebrated novelist and playwright in Sweden, has written a denunciation of white Swedish society, translated here for The New York Times, in response to reports of racial profiling by police. The piece is called “Sweden’s Closet Racists,” and could have been written by any nonwhite American college student gamely fulfilling an essay assignment to describe his history of brutal subjugation.
Khemiri speaks on behalf of “[w]e Swedes who do not fit the outdated blond, blue-eyed stereotype of what a true Swede should look like.” The offspring of an Arab/Swedish marriage, he says dark-skinned immigrants are subjected to “low-intensity oppression.” What is this oppression? We find a list of familiar trivial complaints. Though it appears Khemiri has been lavished with attention by Swedish society for his writings, he has in fact been repeatedly disrespected. He has suffered the inconvenience of being scrutinized by police and security guards and the unpleasant experiences of being chased by skinheads. No mention that this extra scrutiny is related to the crime rate of Sweden’s nonwhites. No mention of the whites who have been chased, mugged and raped.







