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Whites as victims of racism? This is an upside down debate
Saturday, 20. August 2022

Interview: Camilla Alabor
Blick.ch, 20.08.2022

Ms. Pinto, the comment columns were dominated by outrage over the cancellation of the concert at Brasserie Lorraine in Bern. What was your first reaction when you heard about it?

Jovita Pinto: I was annoyed and hoped the topic would soon disappear. We are in the middle of the summer slump, scandals generate clicks.

Why did you hope the topic would disappear soon?

This kind of debate doesn't benefit people who experience racism. On the contrary. What is scandalized is the cancellation of the concert, thus white people are portrayed as victims.

You say the focus is wrong?

Absolutely. The coverage implies that people who belong to the majority society are threatened in their existence because of a debate about dreadlocks. That's trivializing racism.

What do you mean?

Racism is about structural inequality: about people not having the same access to education, housing or economic resources because of their culture, religion or body. Whites can experience disadvantages, but not because they are white.

Let's take a step back: In the current debate, there is a lot of talk about cultural appropriation. What does the term mean?

We talk about cultural appropriation when a dominant culture takes over certain aspects of a disadvantaged part of society, reuses them, and profits from them.

In other words, it's about a power imbalance: That the majority society helps itself to a minority and profits from its ideas and culture?

Exactly. But let me elaborate a bit.

Please.

There is a direct connection between cultural appropriation and colonialism. The idea of going to foreign places and owning, selling and profiting from the local people, lands and resources is part of the colonial logic. This applies not only to raw materials, but also to culture. Ways of life have been devalued, destroyed and at the same time parts of them have been taken over. Cultural appropriation and expropriation must be thought of together.

Back to the incident in the Brasserie Lorraine: In your view, is it a problem if white people wear dreadlocks?

I don't want to tell anyone what to do. What is important is that dreadlocks have a history. They became a global symbol of black resistance in the 1960s, in the fight against centuries of dehumanization. When reggae music spilled over into Europe during the 1970s and dreadlocks were embraced by European youth culture, there was in part a solidarization with black anti-colonial movements. At the same time, the question of how to show solidarity arose: Are white people grappling with the fact that they are favored by racist structures? And is it solidarity or appropriation when white people wear dreadlocks? Because they are wearing a hairstyle that black people are discriminated against for wearing. This debate was also the reason why many white people eventually decided to stop wearing dreadlocks.

Another criticism of the concert at Brasserie Lorraine was about the genre: that white people play reggae music. Isn't music for everyone?

Of course, there has always been a cultural exchange. The question you have to ask yourself is the question of power: there are people who expand their sense of well-being through the exchange - and others whose livelihood is taken away. The most famous example is Elvis Presley. From him we know that he stole songs one-to-one from black artists and made money with them, and was celebrated as innovative by the majority society. These were the same songs that when black artists played them, they were dubbed noise and not played on the radio. It was similar with hip-hop: the music became mainstream the moment white artists started rapping.

But should white people only be allowed to make folk music? That's not a solution either.

No. But if you take music from marginalized people, you can, as an artist, for example, make sure that non-white artists have the same access to the concert hall as you do. We are far from that today. Just look at the bands currently playing on the main stages of open airs: They are mainly white men. And if I may add one more thing ...

Yes?

The discussion about cultural appropriation is important. But what I almost despair of in the current debate is that we are now asking ourselves what white people are allowed to do and what they are not. But it's hardly about people who are affected by racism - blacks and others. But these people should be at the center. And we should be asking: What can we do so that racism no longer restricts their lives?

Jovita dos Santos Pinto is a gender and racism researcher. She is writing her dissertation at the University of Bern, where she is working on the topic of "Postcolonial Public Spheres and Black Women in Switzerland." She lives in the canton of Zurich.

[DeepL Translator]