"Racist" Cake In Sweden Sparks Outrage

[The Ruthless Dark Ace]

I'm surprised this isn't in here yet, considering the controversial content of this event, but then again, most "news" in here seems to be from a week or more ago. All these articles have been published on the 17th and 18th of April.

On the 15th of April, 2012, a World Day celebration in Sweden was kicked off by the minister of culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, cutting in to cake made by an artist by the name of Makode Linde.

The Local's first article about it

FriaTider article

Interview with Makode Linde from Al Jazeera

The cake was the artist's way of portraying...something that I can only assume is supposed to be female genital mutilation in a context that is never really seen. He purposefully did it so that as the party goers cut into the red velvet cake for a slice, he would scream, making it seem as though the cake is alive.

Of course the very first thing that happens is racist outrage about the cake. Mr. Linde has been making this cake since 2008. Where was the outrage then?

EDIT:
Thanks to Pessimist, apparently Mr. Linde's purpose was NOT to highlight FGM, even though the Minister's first cut was directed to that spot. How perplexing.
Osocio article
Afro-Europe blog


Anyway, spoons:
I. How do you feel about how this cake was executed? Do you think that the artist was able to do what he set out to do, or do you feel that it is lost due to racist overtones?

II. What do you think should be done? Should Minister Liljeroth give a public apology, or stand by what she has done?

III. Whether or not you agree on how this piece was delivered, do you agree with its message?


PLEASE NOTE
I am not putting this up to spark a flame war or anything. Please respect the opinions of your fellow man, and don't resort to calling people idiots just because they do not agree with your opinion. You know what they say about opinions and assholes.

Please try not to be overly offensive. The material is offensive (although not graphic) but that is the very purpose of it.

This took place in Sweden, so I don't want to see any "stoopid rasest amuricenz" talk.

That is all.

[Kromwall]

The artist had a hard theme to work with and the final result looks just wrong but im guessing the bitching is all due to the way the artist portrayed the face.

Still if it were a white woman all would be fine, i love it how minorities are always on the defensive and are always victims somehow, that's why discrimination continues to this day. Instead of acting all offended and enraged and immediatly asking for a resignation from the minister, they should just show their disaproval and take the situation more lightly.

[Pessimist]

Racist? While I see creating a cake around the subject of FGM to be in poor taste, I don't see...
*clicks on images*
emotion_facepalm


I am not Swedish, nor can I claim any heritage as far as I can tell. I have immersed myself in the culture some due to having some close friends who are Swedes. From and outsider looking in (and these are simply casual observations) I feel like they don't quite get the charged feelings behind racism. The cake is in...we'll go with 'poor taste' as it is, the horrible cartoon face was really unnecessary.


I would like to finish all that with reiterating that one; I'm not a Swede, I'm an American who enjoys Swedish culture because some of her close friends are Swedes, and, two; I do not speak as any sort of authority in my very casual and very limited observations on race in Swedish culture.




xp This just feels like one of those topics that requires a disclaimer with everything. *goes off to email Swedish friends. Expects reaction to be "Huh?"*

[The Ruthless Dark Ace]

Pessimist

Racist? While I see creating a cake around the subject of FGM to be in poor taste, I don't see...
*clicks on images*
emotion_facepalm

I am not Swedish, nor can I claim any heritage as far as I can tell. I have immersed myself in the culture some due to having some close friends who are Swedes. From and outsider looking in (and these are simply casual observations) I feel like they don't quite get the charged feelings behind racism. The cake is in...we'll go with 'poor taste' as it is, the horrible cartoon face was really unnecessary.

I would like to finish all that with reiterating that one; I'm not a Swede, I'm an American who enjoys Swedish culture because some of her close friends are Swedes, and, two; I do not speak as any sort of authority in my very casual and very limited observations on race in Swedish culture.

xp This just feels like one of those topics that requires a disclaimer with everything. *goes off to email Swedish friends. Expects reaction to be "Huh?"*

It definitely is one of those touchy topics where you have to understand the context, but this is going to go viral within the next week, I guarantee you. I also guarantee that most of the people reading the articles in question will just see the racism and ignore the context.

I would be surprised if your Swedish friends didn't already know. This sort of controversy usually sparks a lot of attention.

[Spyke Spiegel]

All of Makode Linde's work looks like that, and he is at least part black himself. I don't think this is really about racism, I think it's more that some one had a stupid idea:

"How do we combat FGM?"
"Let's bake a cake!"

and then picked the wrong person to design it:

"Who's going to bake the cake?"
"A controversial artist who uses black stereotypes in his work!"
"Perfect!"

[Pessimist]

Edasich

Pessimist

Racist? While I see creating a cake around the subject of FGM to be in poor taste, I don't see...
*clicks on images*
emotion_facepalm

I am not Swedish, nor can I claim any heritage as far as I can tell. I have immersed myself in the culture some due to having some close friends who are Swedes. From and outsider looking in (and these are simply casual observations) I feel like they don't quite get the charged feelings behind racism. The cake is in...we'll go with 'poor taste' as it is, the horrible cartoon face was really unnecessary.

I would like to finish all that with reiterating that one; I'm not a Swede, I'm an American who enjoys Swedish culture because some of her close friends are Swedes, and, two; I do not speak as any sort of authority in my very casual and very limited observations on race in Swedish culture.

xp This just feels like one of those topics that requires a disclaimer with everything. *goes off to email Swedish friends. Expects reaction to be "Huh?"*

It definitely is one of those touchy topics where you have to understand the context, but this is going to go viral within the next week, I guarantee you. I also guarantee that most of the people reading the articles in question will just see the racism and ignore the context.

I would be surprised if your Swedish friends didn't already know. This sort of controversy usually sparks a lot of attention.

Yeah, I'm not going to be surprised if this turns into a version of the infamous Danish editorial cartoon. Though that one wasn't so much racism as actual outright criticism.

True. Unfortunately it's the middle of the day for them so they're off being 'productive', so I can't harass them yet. xd

[The Ruthless Dark Ace]

Spyke Spiegel

All of Makode Linde's work looks like that, and he is at least part black himself. I don't think this is really about racism, I think it's more that some one had a stupid idea:

"How do we combat FGM?"
"Let's bake a cake!"

and then picked the wrong person to design it:

"Who's going to bake the cake?"
"A controversial artist who uses black stereotypes in his work!"
"Perfect!"

He chose the topic himself and has been performing this particular cake since 2008.
Why there hasn't been outrage about this before, I have no idea.

[Spyke Spiegel]

Edasich

He chose the topic himself and has been performing this particular cake since 2008.
Why there hasn't been outrage about this before, I have no idea.

I guess because there is a Government minister involved?

[Pessimist]

Spyke Spiegel

All of Makode Linde's work looks like that, and he is at least part black himself. I don't think this is really about racism, I think it's more that some one had a stupid idea:

"How do we combat FGM?"
"Let's bake a cake!"

and then picked the wrong person to design it:

"Who's going to bake the cake?"
"A controversial artist who uses black stereotypes in his work!"
"Perfect!"

Yeah, I just looked up a piece that talked about the cake, then went into more detail about the artist himself. It softens the blow of the initial reaction to the cake just a tiny bit given that all his work is like that.

It makes me facepalm even more when the claim is made that the cake is NOT primarily to depict the horrors of FGM.

Source ett

Source tva

[The Ruthless Dark Ace]

Spyke Spiegel

Edasich

He chose the topic himself and has been performing this particular cake since 2008.
Why there hasn't been outrage about this before, I have no idea.

I guess because there is a Government minister involved?

Probably because there is a white government minister involved.

[The Ruthless Dark Ace]

Pessimist

Spyke Spiegel

All of Makode Linde's work looks like that, and he is at least part black himself. I don't think this is really about racism, I think it's more that some one had a stupid idea:

"How do we combat FGM?"
"Let's bake a cake!"

and then picked the wrong person to design it:

"Who's going to bake the cake?"
"A controversial artist who uses black stereotypes in his work!"
"Perfect!"

Yeah, I just looked up a piece that talked about the cake, then went into more detail about the artist himself. It softens the blow of the initial reaction to the cake just a tiny bit given that all his work is like that.

It makes me facepalm even more when the claim is made that the cake is NOT primarily to depict the horrors of FGM.

Source ett

Source tva

I find that shocking, as the minister was directed to start cutting from there.

[Spyke Spiegel]

Edasich

Spyke Spiegel

Edasich

He chose the topic himself and has been performing this particular cake since 2008.
Why there hasn't been outrage about this before, I have no idea.

I guess because there is a Government minister involved?

Probably because there is a white government minister involved.

I don't think the outrage would be any less if it was some one like Michelle Obama.

[Pessimist]

Edasich

Spyke Spiegel

Edasich

He chose the topic himself and has been performing this particular cake since 2008.
Why there hasn't been outrage about this before, I have no idea.

I guess because there is a Government minister involved?

Probably because there is a white government minister involved.

Okay, be fair, most of Sweden is white*. Immigration is increasing, but they are nowhere near the diversity of the US.


*I blame this on the cold and the vampires. Yes, I need to go get some coffee

[The Ruthless Dark Ace]

Spyke Spiegel

Edasich

Spyke Spiegel

Edasich

He chose the topic himself and has been performing this particular cake since 2008.
Why there hasn't been outrage about this before, I have no idea.

I guess because there is a Government minister involved?

Probably because there is a white government minister involved.

I don't think the outrage would be any less if it was some one like Michelle Obama.

That is very true. Either way, it is in exceptionally bad taste, even if the artist is doing it for the shock factor.

Then again, the theme of the party was artistic freedom and an artist's right to provoke his audience.

I don't think this could have gone well even if he wasn't there.

[Spyke Spiegel]

At the end of the day it's a bad idea. The artist can bake whatever kinds of cake he wants, and do whatever he wants with those cakes. But a person in government should have seen how controversial this is and found some other way to highlight the issue. Because now no one is talking about FGM, they are talking about this stupid cake.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to begin my campaign against infant circumcision by a having a Jewish friend of mine bake a cake in the shape of a baby boy. We will then invite people to cut bits off the cake boy's p***s while we make baby crying sounds in the background...