Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.12.2012, Blaðsíða 10

Arit John is a UCLA
graduate and a for-
mer Grapevine intern
Mountaineers of Iceland • Skútuvogur 12E • 104 Reykjavík • Iceland
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10
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2012
power lines and stranded sheep
in north Iceland last September.
Haraldur took issue with the
remarks, and made a point during
his broadcast the following night
to show the weather maps that had
been broadcast days before the
storms. Ögmundur later apologised
and said that he just meant that
the Met Office had not contacted
the Civil Protection and Emergency
Management authorities. Lesson
learned: don’t cross the weather-
man.
Iceland is not looking to change its name. Again:
Iceland is not looking to change
its name. Someone had better
tell USA Today, which posted an
inaccurate article implying that the
Icelandic govern-
ment was looking
to “rebrand”
itself with a
new name. The
misunderstand-
ing is based on
a contest launched
by Promote Iceland,
which asked tourists to come up
with a new name for Iceland as a
fun experiment to think of what the
country means to them. Unfortu-
nately, several other media outlets
have since repeated the misun-
derstanding, citing USA Today as
a source.
In more upbeat news, a wom-an with mismatched feet—the
right foot a size 38 and the left foot
a size 40—came up with the clever
idea of finding her “mirror image”
to go shoe shopping with. The
hope was that she and her elusive
mirror image could both save some
money, instead of
having to buy two
pairs at a time.
Her story was
featured on the
front page of the
newspaper Frét-
tablaðið, and the
response was so overwhelming that
she established a Facebook group
for people with mismatched feet.
Incidentally, 38 people have joined
the group so far.
— Continued —
I never intended to actually write
this piece. It started off as a joke, in
a bar, after a bizarre incident with
an extremely drunk Icelander.
My group—a Brit, an Australian and
two Americans—was sitting in the cor-
ner, minding our own business, when
an elderly Icelandic man stumbled over
to say hello, curious about our accents.
“We’re American,” I said, not eager to
get into specifics.
“Ah,” he said, the mystery solved.
“You know, all Americans are descen-
dant of Europe.”
I didn’t want to get into the waves
of immigration, voluntary or not, that
made America one of the most diverse,
least European places on Earth. But, I
had to say something.
Not a descendant of Europe
“Actually, my parents are from Africa,”
I said.
I’d gotten his attention. He turned
to me, pointed a pale, stubby finger at
my face and said, “My sister married a
black man, darker than you.”
The four of us were a bit shocked
by his rudeness and tried not to burst
out laughing and in the ten minutes that
followed he told us about his half black,
gay, Christian, cross dressing, cult join-
ing, suicidal nephew. And the whole
thing might have just been filed away
under interesting bar stories to tell my
friends, except that one of my friends
asked me if I thought what the man had
said was racist.
No, I didn’t think so. He was drunk
after all, and he didn’t mean anything
by it. I wasn’t hurt by it. But it reminded
me of a similar drunken, not-meant-
to-offend-me scenario at a certain bar
for Iceland’s “Jersey Shore” wannabes,
when a random guy tried to take a pic-
ture with me.
“Have you never seen a black per-
son before?” I asked.
“I’ve never been in a picture with
a black person,” he replied. Well now,
somewhere on Facebook is a photo
of the two of us, me looking slightly
annoyed and him looking drunk, but
pleased with himself. While I’m happy to
help people cross items off their bucket
list, it left a bad taste in my mouth. But
again, he didn’t mean anything about it
(he even apologised later) and he was
drunk. Plus, there are about a dozen
other reasons I should never have set
foot in that bar anyway.
Not the only one wary of racism
Also, I was enjoying my time in Iceland
and hadn’t worried about racism in the
country since my preliminary “Are Ice-
landers racist?” Google search. If you’re
Icelandic, check it out, you might be
surprised by the results. The responses
ranged from “Icelandic people are very
friendly and open” to “no more than
any other country” to “I can understand
why Icelanders wouldn’t want black
people ruining their genetic superior-
ity.” As I read blog post after blog post,
it occurred to me that I was far from
the only black person who was worried
about how I’d be treated in Iceland.
Think about it: I come from the
same country as the KKK, “separate
but equal,” and the entire state of Ala-
bama, and I was worried about visiting
Iceland.
Now that I’m back home, I’ll be one
of those blog writers. Someone will
Google “Are Icelanders accepting of
black people” and this article will pop
up. And my answer is... it depends.
If you’re just visiting for a layover,
then yes, unless you mind being teased
about not knowing what a kilometre is.
If you’re an African refugee trying to
gain citizenship, probably not.
Not an exotic animal at the zoo
If you’re visiting for a few months, then
it depends. Those moments got on my
nerves because I suddenly felt like an
“other.” Like I was different and exotic.
Is darkness an indication of something?
And is it okay to take pictures of people
the way you might take pictures of an
animal at the zoo?
That, I think, is why people get up-
set about things like the Tong Monitor
commercial. It turns being Asian into
a costume, a thing, an other (in this
case not even a good costume—Pétur
Jóhann Sigfússon’s pulled back eyes
didn’t make him look Asian; they made
him look cross-eyed). I agree, it’s not as
bad as whatever the opposite of casual
racism is (regular racism? serious rac-
ism? go die in a gutter you dirty some-
thing, something racism?) but why is
it okay for something to be a little bit
racist and make people feel a little bit
uncomfortable?
When you come to a homogenous
place like Iceland, you worry about rac-
ism because you just want to feel ac-
cepted. You don’t want to worry about
dealing with racism because it taints
your opinion of the whole culture. And
for so many people Iceland is like a safe
haven, both metaphorically and literally.
For me, my three months in the coun-
try were beautiful, and I hope the good
moments will stay with me for the rest
of my life. I don’t want to think back on
that guy in the one bar I won’t name.
For the most part, Icelanders are
good people. Kind, surprisingly trust-
ing, generous and accepting. Fifty
years ago my trip to Iceland would have
made the front page of Fréttablaðið.
Now no one even cares, except for that
guy with the camera. But it wasn’t just
those incidents.
Not okay to think
black face is okay
There was another bizarre incident,
in a bar, with an extremely drunk Ice-
lander. It was the weekend before Hal-
loween, and I was out with more or less
the same group of friends. I went as a
medieval peasant, another girl went as
a pumpkin, the same American as be-
fore went as the Easter Bunny and the
drunken Icelander went as a black per-
son. I wasn’t angry, or at least I wasn’t
as angry as some people might be.
Without even talking to him, I knew he
didn’t understand that blackface is an
enduring legacy of minstrel characters
and the negative black stereotypes
they portray. So, I went up to him and
shouted over the music that his cos-
tume, specifically black face, was of-
fensive.
“Why is it offensive?” he asked.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t sober
enough to sit him down and explain
why. He wouldn’t have remembered,
anyway. But that was the moment that
this column went from a joke in a bar to
a need to explain that there’s no excuse
for that kind of ignorance. People get
tired of explaining over and over again
why the same mistakes are wrong.
Are Icelanders Racist? Not really, but some
embarrassing stuff goes on
Iceland | Racism
“
When you come to a
homogenous place like
Iceland, you worry about
racism because you just
want to feel accepted.„
NEWS IN BRIEF
NEWS IN ICELAND
NOVEMBER
Alísa Kalyanova
The below photo is taken at a café on Laugarvegur called
Svarta Kaffið ("The Black Coffee")