From being repeatedly asked for ID to feeling threatened by harmful rhetoric, politicians say lack of diversity is undermining work of EU
As a newly minted member of the European parliament in 2019, Alice Kuhnke swiftly learned to keep her ID badge handy. Sometimes the request to see it would come just moments after she had swiped it to enter a building, other times she would be stopped hours later as she made her way to meetings.
Six months into the job, she mentioned the stringent security measures over coffee with a few colleagues. “They said ‘Are you serious? I’ve never been stopped.’”
Kuhnke, a Black MEP from Sweden, put the same question to her Black colleagues. The answer confirmed what she had suspected: “Some of them had been stopped.”
It was one of her first hints of what it meant to work in a European parliament that is profoundly out of step with the demographic reality of Europe. While racialised minorities make up an estimated 10% of the EU’s population, MEPs from these groups accounted for just 4.3% of the total lawmakers in the last mandate, according to analysis by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR).
This is the best summary I could come up with:
While racialised minorities make up an estimated 10% of the EU’s population, MEPs from these groups accounted for just 4.3% of the total lawmakers in the last mandate, according to analysis by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR).
What is probably happening, according to a recent study based on interviews with 140 MEPs and staffers, is “normalised whiteness” in the parliament is helping perpetuate racism, leaving those who seek to confront discrimination feeling as though they are “shouting to a brick wall”, in the words of one interviewee.
While he described his overall experience as an MEP as positive, Chahim was left rattled last year as suspicions swirled over allegations that Morocco and Qatar had bribed EU politicians and staffers to promote their interests.
Herzberger-Fofana, Germany’s first MEP of African origin, said she was brutally pushed against a wall by four officers, who ordered the septuagenarian to stand with her hands up and legs spread as they searched her bag.
Kuhnke said the lack of diversity would take on even greater importance as EU lawmakers turned their attention to crucial issues such as the regulation of artificial intelligence, pointing to the growing body of work that has laid bare the biases and racism that exist within AI tools.
Caro Maya cited the “serious risk” political parties were taking if they refused to include communities such as Roma – Europe’s largest ethnic minority – on their electoral lists.
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Racism? In Europe?
Next you’re going to tell me far-right political parties are on the rise there.
Are there any countries where right wing parties aren’t on the rise?
Failed neoliberal policies and mismanagement (or lack thereof) of globalisation made people more inward-looking and nativist.
But as far as I can tell, Latin America is having a “pink wave”, which made the right stop on their tracks there.
The UK. The Tories are fucked and Reform UK isn’t really likely to get beyond minor party status.
Well the next UK election seems to swing the other way.
Tories are about to bite the biggest one imagineable in the UK, and the AfD has definitely gotten into some serious shit after that Nazi conference came out
How many are just changing to labour?
People are pissed off brother! /s It is a concerning trend, but I think social media and the need for inflammatory news headlines have driven a lot of these ideas into the open. I think racism, xenophobia, and blind nationalism has always been everywhere and we have given a way for some of the more racist/crazy/extreme people to speak out. It just shows us how much we still have to grow as a society.
A healthy reminder of the state of affairs for all the Europeans who like to point fingers at white Americans. They got it from y’all.
It’s that why the US kept slavery after the rest abolished it?
Replacing slaves with “indentured servants” sourced from places blighted by poverty and starvation caused by European meddling does not give Europeans the moral high ground.
Sorry, missed that this was a question of the moral high ground.
I’m any case neither has it. Only one person attained the moral high ground and only through intense training
I’m guessing you missed the whole colonial era and what happened in far off places at the hands of Europeans, well into the 20th century (and arguably still in the case of France). But you go off.
Not really no? It is similar, but not slavery. A fair point to a good point to a dull point.
I don’t think you have any idea how insidious colonialism is, or more specifically European style colonialism. You speak of slavery which is the theft of labor, colonialism is the theft of labor AND resources on a grand scale whilst lying to the world about benevolence.
What? Slavery is absolutely not only the theft of labour? I do have any idea about how insidious colonialism is, and especially European.
The EU parliament (where this article takes place) is based in Belgium and France… right?
Are the Haitians still paying the French for their slave debt or do they still have another century?
Didn’t one of the Belgian kings do a bunch of slavery (I think the euphemism used is “forced labor”) in the Congo up until the 1960s? Like some real vile shit like chopping off hands of people who weren’t productive enough?
Yes?
Lol who “owned Palestine” until 1948???
Nice try but you guys kept slavery long after the USA got rid of it.
Please elaborate how that is connected?
I think that it’s been long enough for them to own it for themselves now.
Otherwise we could just keep on saying that we got it from our ancestors and not strive to change.
Americans absolutely have to own it, and many of us try to. America has consistently made awful decisions regarding race.
The point is more that white Europeans are not special, and much of the perceived enlightenment from Europe is either top-down messaging from socially unassailable elites, or from societies that are homogenous enough that the economically insecure don’t (yet) blame their struggles on the tiny number of visible minorities in their community.
Americans who “whatabout” any criticism from an imperfect messenger are probably not acting in good faith, but the inverse is worth considering as well.
Isn’t that what they all do?
OK, how about I put it another way - you are as vile as each other.
You happy now?
People I like do bad things because of the situation.
People I do not like do bad things because they are bad people.
Once I understood this all the endless tearing down and who can shit the best on a country/people/religion/ethnicity/whathaveyou on social media made sense.
I really have no affinity for either group but I do find it odd how quick Europeans are to point at American racism while ignoring or denying the existence of their own racist tendencies.
People I do not like do bad things because they are bad people.
No. If I do not like either group then your point is invalid.
And yet sadly compared to most of the world they’re some of the least racist.
Maybe try: America’s racists are as vile as Europe’s racists are as vile as Asia’s racists are as vile as Africa’s racists are as vile as Oceania’s racists are as vile as… Antarctica’s?
If you truly feel that European racism is in any way comparable to US racism, maybe think again.
People asking you to show your badge when your white friends don’t have to sucks and I believe is very demeaning and humiliating. But it’s miles away from being shot at or being afraid that your local hillbillies gonna revive the old customs of hanging black fellas.
Yeah just don’t ask about the Roma
No shit.
