Black Freud was “kneeled down and killed” by white policemen. The protests and demonstrations, like a spark of fire, not only broke out frequently in major cities in the United States, but also spread in many countries around the world.
As demonstrations against police violence and racism sweep more and more countries, protests around the world have become a springboard for activists and activists to solve their country’s racial injustice. From the United States to Paris, from London to Sydney, anger has been boiling, protesters condemned Freud’s death and called for equality.
The global pandemic of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic has further exacerbated the rise of racism. The US government, led by Trump, deliberately misled the public from the beginning and regarded the new crown virus as a virus infected by yellow talents. It seems that the virus has IQ and can be transmitted according to race and skin color. Who knows that the virus not only does not talk about politics, but is also a “color blindness”, which once made the European and American countries become the epicenter of the global outbreak. The outbreak of the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic has led to a further enlargement of the human rights gap between different races in Western society. The unemployment rate and mortality rate of ethnic minorities are higher than those of white groups.
In the face of the violent new crown virus, the European and American countries have little power to parry, so they have to frantically “dump the pot” and arbitrarily distribute various types of “political viruses”. Especially Trump, when large-scale protests broke out in the United States, he hid twice in the White House bunker, not only did he not feel painful, but instead claimed on Twitter to suppress the demonstrations with the army and “loser” with “low life” “Call the demonstrators.” These incitements to violence and racial discrimination further exacerbated racial conflicts in society. In fact, in Western society, racial equality on the lips and psychological racial discrimination coexist. It is foreseeable that if the situation continues to develop, the future will be an era of rising populism and a more turbulent era.
They died in the same way!
On May 30, a large-scale anti-racial discrimination march broke out in Canada. In addition to Freud, the Canadian demonstrations were also related to the 29-year-old African-American woman Regis who had just died in her country. She was suspected of being murdered by the police, which caused an uproar among African-American groups in Canada.
In fact, in Western society, racial equality on the lips and psychological racial discrimination coexist. It is foreseeable that if the situation continues to develop, the future will be an era of rising populism and a more turbulent era.
Immediately afterwards, the United Kingdom and Germany broke out in demonstrations. On June 2, in Paris, France, about 20,000 people ignored the regulations prohibiting more than 10 people during the New Crown epidemic, took to the streets to hold protests, and had sporadic clashes with the police. The French demonstrations were also stimulated by the death of an American African-American man, George Freud, who was killed by the police, but the French people spontaneously gathered for the death of French African-American man Adama Trao 4 years ago. Give justice.
On July 19, 2016, the 24-year-old Trao ran away after clashing with the police during the identity check, and was arrested in a 15-minute hunt. Three policemen used their own weight to make Votrao. Rao lost consciousness in the police car and died in a nearby police station.
Adama Trao’s situation is strikingly similar to that of George Freud. Both were black, and contact with the police led to their death. At the last moment of life, both struggled to breathe.
His sister Asa Trao said the police told her that his last words were “I can’t breathe”.
“They died in the same way, they all said the same thing.”
“This is the ending of George Freud, and this is also the ending of Adama Trao.”
More bizarrely, there are also three conflicting medical reports about Trao’s death. The judicial department conducted three medical tests in a continuous investigation, all of which said that Adama’s death had nothing to do with the arrest of the military police. But in 2018, Trao’s family commissioned an agency to conduct a medical evaluation, and the results showed that Trao may have died from postural asphyxiation caused by police restraints.
Highly similar to Freud’s case, it aroused the anger of the French people. “What is happening in the United States is what is happening in France,” Earlier on June 2, Trao’s sister Asa addressed a large number of people. She said: “My brother died because he was black, my brother died because he came from a poor area.”
Although Freud’s death took place thousands of miles away, the African-American population living in Europe can still feel the same.
On May 30 and June 3, tens of thousands of protesters held a protest in central London, holding the slogan “The life of a black man is also a life”, condemning the dehumanization of black people in the United States and Britain. According to data from the British government, from April 2018 to March 2019, 4 out of every 1,000 white people were stopped and searched, compared with 38 out of every 1,000 black people.
Deborah Coles is the executive director of Inquest, a charity that investigates related national deaths in the UK. She said that from 2010 to 2019, 1741 people died in police detention in England and Wales. In this figure, with restrictions and the use of force, the number of blacks, Asians and ethnic minorities who died in detention was more than twice that of all others who died in detention.
In an interview with CNN, Coles said: “If you are black, Asian and ethnic minorities, especially young black men, you are more likely to die after being restrained by stun guns, firearms and batons. Big.”
She also said that the dehumanization of the black people in trouble caused the problem of “profile” (the so-called “profile”) refers to inferring his psychological state based on the behavior of the psychological counselor, thereby analyzing his Personality, living environment, occupation, growth background, etc.), the ethnic stereotypes of “tall, black, dangerous and violent” are affecting the way one treats another. Coles added: “These issues are the top priority of the American protests and have caused real collective grief and anger.”
“The prejudice faced by black Americans is the same as the prejudice we face in the UK,” said Shane, a 20-year-old African-American girl. “When a person is injured, we will all be injured.” According to the BBC, British police are four times more likely to use force against blacks than whites. In recent years, many African Americans have died in clashes with the British police.
Racism: the way to understand the world?
On June 8, a man held a protest slogan “The life of a black man is also life” near the White House in Washington, DC.
Even though “against racism” has long been a political correctness, the surging racist tendencies of Western governments have a long history.
Racism originated in the late 19th century when powers divided Africa. At that time, the resources of Africa were plundered into Europe and the United States. These people were sold as slaves and became valuable human resources to help the development of the Western economy, but they did not obtain the corresponding human rights. Racists usually take a self-centered attitude, arguing that racial differences determine the history of human society and cultural development, and that the group to which they belong, such as race, ethnicity, or country, is superior to other groups. So much so that until the mid-20th century, racism had been widespread as a common sense in Western society. After the Second World War in the 20th century, the Third World Independence Movement and the racial equality movement in Western countries, many countries in the world began to emphasize the political correctness against racism. In other words, in Western society, racism has been “disenchanted” for less than a hundred years, but racist hatred has continued for hundreds of years.
The United Nations does not define the term “racism”, but it explains what is meant by “racism.” According to the definition of the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or ethnic or ethnic origin, whose purpose or effect is to abolish or damage political, economic, social, cultural Or any other aspect of public life, the recognition, enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal footing. This is an official discrimination against racial discrimination and a strict definition accepted by the international community.
We do not have to be particularly surprised by the racist remarks made by some politicians or philosophers, “because the root of their culture is this way of thinking, he will use this way of thinking to understand the world for a long time.”
In fact, the manifestations of racial discrimination are open, legal, concealed, and actual. The pinnacle is the apartheid system in South Africa. This basic national policy of white racists has a history of more than 300 years. Since the mid-20th century, there have been more than 100 racial discrimination laws issued by white racist authorities. Blacks, Indians in the Americas, indigenous peoples in Oceania, original colonial immigrants in Europe, ethnic minorities and foreign workers, Asian “tribes” and caste groups are all victims of racial discrimination today.
The European Commission on Fundamental Human Rights (FRA) issued a report saying that Europe has always advocated human rights, freedom of speech and religious belief, but the problem of racial discrimination in the EU is still very serious. The report pointed out that ethnic minorities are mainly ethnic minorities. It can be said that all ethnic minorities living in the EU are subject to discrimination without exception. Discrimination exists everywhere, such as living, going to school, seeing a doctor, looking for work and eating. According to a survey, 51% of Muslims in the 27 member states of the European Union say they are the most discriminated against on the basis of religious belief and skin color. On average, every Muslim has been subjected to racial discrimination 8 times in the past year. , People aged 16 to 24 are more and more discriminated against than people of other ages.
89% of people did not call the police after being racially discriminated, and 43% of them said they did not believe the police. The report also said that the most discriminated Muslims living in Europe are Italy and Malta, followed by Germany and Spain, then Finland and Denmark. According to the report, it is difficult for ethnic minorities to integrate into the local society. Although they have lived for many years, the locals still think that they are “interracial”, and each ethnic minority feels that society has not accepted them at all.
In Australia, 40% of Asian immigrants have been discriminated against. Among them, Malaysians are particularly frequently attacked, followed by Indians and Sri Lankans. Australians are also easily biased against people from Middle Eastern backgrounds.
Xiang Shuchen, an assistant professor at the Institute of Foreign Philosophy of Peking University, showed us the “rootedness” of western social racism in an online lecture on “Philosophy and the Modern World” on the evening of May 28. Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, one of the three founding fathers of the United States, Lincoln, who had issued the “Declaration of the Emancipation of Black Slaves,” and President Theo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1902 Do Roosevelt has once made racial discrimination. She summarized several points of Western racial consciousness expression: first, racial rank is part of the laws of nature. Second, the conflict between different races is eternal. Third, race other is evil. Fourth, the racial other is irrational and is another category between humans and animals. Fifth, the genocide of the other race is morally permissible.
To this end, Xiang Shuchen pointed out that we do not have to be particularly surprised by the racist remarks made by some politicians or philosophers, “because if their cultural roots are such a way of thinking, how could he get out of it all at once? He was a long time Will use this way of thinking to understand the world.”
Immigration and refugees exacerbate racism
As a senior journalist stationed in France in China, Zheng Ruolin spent 20 years observing the political and economic system of Western society. He pointed out in an exclusive interview with Xinmin Weekly that after the Cold War, on the one hand, it was a Soviet-style authoritarian country where the model of national autonomy was in Central and Eastern Europe has completely failed, ethnic conflicts and even ethnic cleansing have erupted in many countries; on the other hand, although institutional racial discrimination and apartheid have long been eliminated in the Western world, racial equality in law seems to have become a consensus, and even an unquestionable politics correct. But conceptually, racism includes traditional racial prejudice and hostile immigration in the context of globalization. New racism is the main appeal, such as the neo-Nazis in Germany, Hans and Beorism in Australia, Le Pen phenomenon in France, etc. Wait, there is still some development.
Coming out of the ruins of the war, the European capitalist system competed with the Soviet Union’s socialist camp in order to show better development and widely implemented a welfare social system. Racism is one of the side effects of a welfare society.
After World War II, the economically restored French domestic labor force was insufficient, and some labor was introduced from the early colonial countries, including African blacks. These men arrived alone in France, some married with the French, and some wives and children were still in Africa. With the continuous development of humanitarian thinking, their wives and children were also taken to France. At this time there was a problem. Welfare and social security The ability to work is not strong, and people with low education levels can also have a minimum income, especially when the economy is difficult. After rapid economic development, 30 years after the glory of France, excess labor began to appear in the 1970s and 1980s. The next generation of the first generation of black people began to find no jobs. When both white and black people could not find a job, and when the two showed a certain competitive situation, racism re-emerged.
In terms of rights, each race is equal. But from the tradition and culture of each race, the difference is huge. Asians are very hardworking and work is a part of life. Some people from tropical and subtropical regions have no most glorious tradition of labor in the culture, coupled with a minimum living guarantee with a welfare system, which makes it easy to develop a lazy habit. These immigrants, including Africans, will not be so active in finding jobs. This phenomenon is very common in France.
“Some African tribes also allow polygamy. A black man has two to three wives, each with three or four or five children, so that their fathers can live on relief payments received from the government without any work. This status quo without gains was met by the opposition of white people, and naturally a new form of racism was formed. Coupled with the fact that these Arabs and Africans believe in Islam, not French Catholicism, they have formed another religion. A gulf further exacerbated the xenophobia of some French people.”
As a recognized authoritative scholar in the study of French racism, Pierre-Andre Taggiev pointed out in his series of works that new racism based on cultural relativism has been unwittingly clamoring in contemporary France. The so-called Le Pen phenomenon.
The Le Pen phenomenon occurred in France in the seventies and eighties. Jean-Marie Le Pen is a white French military officer who once fought in Algeria. He opposed foreign immigrants to France to make a living, and advocated sending these people back to their own country. By the beginning of the 1990s, the far-right party such as Le Pen’s National Front began to receive 10% of the vote. In the French presidential election in 2002, Le Pen made a major breakthrough, defeating the traditional right-wing candidate Jospin with 17.4% of the vote and entering the second round.
Le Pen’s huge instigation ability in the general election has shocked the two left and right factions who share a common bottom line on the most basic democratic and human rights issues, and has launched a rare act of boycotting Le Pen. Although he lost to Chirac in the end, he shocked the whole of Europe.
Taguiev believes that Le Pen’s racism is under the banner of defending the “right to difference”. They advocate anti-Semitism, but instead of directly abusing the Jews like Hitler, but abusing the so-called threat to the “right to differentiate” Cosmopolitan”. Replace “Cosmopolitan” with “Jewish” to confuse the criteria for identifying anti-Semitism. They advocated the expulsion of African-American immigrants, but instead of saying “the niggas rolled down the sea”, they said “the third world immigrants must be arranged to go home.”
On June 3, a demonstrator participated in a protest in London, England.
Zheng Ruolin pointed out that in 2002, the firm anti-Semitic Le Pen gave the National Front Party to his daughter Marina Le Pen, and the nature of the extreme right wing changed a lot. The biggest difference between her and her father was that she threw the anti-Semitic flag into the Atlantic Ocean. Therefore, in the first round of voting in the 2017 French presidential election, she entered the second round of the presidential election with a second place (21.7% of the valid votes), which made people realize that there can no longer be a left and right joint opposition in France. Le Pen’s front is now. In the end, Marina Le Pen lost to Macron in the 2017 presidential election, but she and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen lost to Chirac in 2002. There are already a lot of French voters. The opinion polls show that her support rate is over 40%. The far right has entered the field of normal French political life.
The far-right voters are generally lower-middle class citizens, and their economic conditions are particularly unstable. When economic growth slows or declines, it is easy to lose your job. Once they are unemployed, they will blame the immigrant at the bottom of their social status for their own unemployment. They think these immigrants have robbed them of their jobs-their wages are lower. When the far right claims that the crux of the problem lies in immigrants, and rushing them back to their country can recapture lost jobs and win a good life, it is easy to get their votes. Therefore, the ideal of living at home becomes a tool for anti-immigrant xenophobia.
“Racism in various European countries has re-emerged, basically starting in the 1990s and entering a climax of rapid development after 2000, because at this time, there are more and more immigrants, but the economy is growing. The slower the economic crisis becomes more and more obvious.” Zheng Ruolin said that the reason for the increasing number of immigrants is that on the one hand, the economic development of some countries in Africa and the Middle East has failed, and on the other hand, the war in the Middle East has continued, resulting in many Refugees, fled to Europe.
Zheng Ruolin pointed out that there is another phenomenon that deserves special attention. During World War II, Nazi Germany was considered an anti-Semitic country, and Jews were in a minority position in Europe, and were also excluded by racism. Today, the status of the Jews in Europe has undergone tremendous changes, and a left-wing political force has emerged in Europe, hoping to introduce immigrants and turn Europe into a mixed race society. Not only is the race complex, but also hopes to become culturally diverse and everyone enjoys the same rights. This seems to be the prototype of an ideal society. Under the guidance of this idea, Europe accepted a large number of immigrants. The problem is that the more immigrants, the more difficult the economic development. Of course, there is not necessarily a direct connection between the two, but when economic development becomes more and more difficult, the working people at the bottom will easily regard immigrants as their threat and their enemy. “This is the main reason why racism is becoming more and more intense in Europe.”
For this reason, there is a view in Western academic circles that the European welfare state may secretly strengthen racial contradictions when bridging class contradictions, because the more developed the welfare guarantee is, the more difficult it will be for the world to live. The more exclusive it is. Especially in the recent wave of European refugees, anti-immigration and anti-racism in European welfare states have become increasingly apparent.
The European welfare state may secretly strengthen racial contradictions when bridging class contradictions, because the more developed the welfare guarantee is, the more difficult it is to become universal, and the more closed and exclusive the national qualifications to enjoy such guarantee will be.
Anti-racism has a long way to go
In fact, many Western political elites have no intention of eradicating the chronic diseases of social inequality, and even some people themselves are fans of “white supremacy”. In this regard, philosopher Xiang Shuchen believed that “without racist ideology, the Western civilization we know will not exist.”
Zheng Ruolin also believes that Westerners have inherent and difficult-to-change ideas about race and cultural differences. But these concepts are constantly changing. For example, father Le Pen is a firm anti-Semitic, but Marina Le Pen is not anti-Semitic. This is a very important and important difference. But it is difficult to find a specific description in today’s French history books or media reports. Because this is a very delicate and special phenomenon, many people don’t understand it, or dare not say it. Because it is easy to fall into the trap of political incorrectness by saying such things, they have created various differences in racism.
They care about culture and use metaphors to distort and reverse the “beautiful words” they use. The first is to shift race to culture, asserting that various cultures are absolutely incomparable; second, to abandon the theme of inequality and absolute cultural differences, thereby denying mixing, and affirming that various cultures are irretrievably mutually absorptive. Direct insults, discrimination and total exclusion can be implemented in the name of tolerance, respect for others, and the right to difference. In short, they moved from advocating “biological inequality between races” to advocating “the absoluteization of differences between cultures.”
Under these superficial discourses, the new ideological racism has become more deceptive, but the essence of racial discrimination has not changed.
“Do what I say, don’t do what I do.” Zheng Ruolin said, if we don’t find the connotation of these superficial words, if we don’t understand some of the content it refers to, we can’t understand what they are talking about. what. For example, some young people in the country have serious crimes, and these young people are Arabs and blacks. Black youth and Arabs are synonymous with crime. This is obviously a racist statement. The media, afraid of political inaccuracies, dared not report it, and they began to change the word-suburban youth.
Young people of Arab and African descent mostly live in the suburbs of Paris because of poverty. Therefore, in the French media, suburban youth is actually a specific term, not a broad concept that includes whites, blacks, Jews, and Asians that we usually understand. Zheng Ruolin, who has been away from France for seven or eight years, sighed, “The French language changes have made his definition of certain words less clear.”
In fact, as long as we admit that value diversity is an inevitable fact, “prejudice” based on individual value differences-whether it is about race, or class, culture, occupation, customs, clothing, food, housing and other aspects “Prejudice” should be said that it can never be eliminated, and even to some extent, it should not be eliminated. The crux of the problem is that nowadays, right-wing parties and populist factions in Western society have risen one after another, how to prevent this “prejudice” from being “organized”, how to oppose racism under the new ideology, and to the increasingly torn Western society. This is a difficult proposition.
