Woman of Chinese Descent Beaten Unconscious for Objecting to the Racist anti-Chinese Carnival Song
In a previous post, I wrote about the casual everyday racism faced by Asians in the Netherlands since the outbreak of the Coronavirus. In that post, I also translated the lyrics to a carnival song called ‘Voorkomen is beter dan Chinezen’, which is a blatantly racist hate song about the Coronavirus aimed at the Chinese dressed up as a ‘joke’.
Words have power
There are some people in the Netherlands who claim that being offended is a choice. The mindset appears to be that Dutch people are entitled to make jokes about any subject matter regardless of how sensitive and that if the subject of the jokes gets offended, well they choose to do so. Basically, some people hide behind the right to say what the hell they like or freedom of speech. If only things were so simple. Words have power. Jokes or songs about minorities often serve to dehumanise the subject.
A student at Tilburg University was beaten unconscious on campus when she decided to object to them singing the ‘Voorkomen is beter dan Chinezen’ song. Read what happened below in her own words.
The victim of the attack has filed a complaint with the Police. Some will no doubt say that had she smiled and sang along that there wouldn’t have been a problem.
Tegenwoordig kun je niets meer zeggen in dit land
There are far too many people in the Netherlands who are too quick to dismiss every accusation of racism and put the blame the victims. When a police complaint was filed about the ‘voorkomen is beter dan Chinezen’ song, Dutch social media was full of comments from people claiming that it was just a harmless carnival song. It’s part of the ‘traditie’ that songs are made that satirise current affairs. The Chinese and everyone who agreed that the song was offensive were simply being oversensitive. Or in Dutch. “Tegenwoordig kun je niets meer zeggen in dit land” /Nowadays you can’t say anything in this country.
Well, there’s plenty of downright racist nonsense being said in this land, so where the entitled whining that it’s not possible to do so anymore comes from is beyond me. There’ll be people who will attempt to say that the attack on the Chinese lady had nothing to do with the song. Neeeeee! Absoluut niet. It was a pure coincidence. They would have attacked her even without that hate song existing.
As far as I’m concerned the responsibility of attack on the woman lies firmly with all the people who make excuses for racism and would much rather focus on incidents in other countries than in their own backyard.
This is what comes when society refuses to accept that racism is actually a problem and prefers to hide behind ‘traditie’ and freedom of speech.
The Netherlands is tolerant, rot op naar je eigen land, the Netherlands is tolerant, the Netherlands is tolerant
Disclaimer
Racism occurs in other countries, not just the Netherlands. However, this cowardly attack occurred in the Netherlands, a country that constantly claims to be more open and tolerant than others. There are some who will say that because I write about this subject that I hate the Netherlands. Well if you’re so insecure and thin-skinned that you can’t handle criticism of your country, I can only say, stay calm and eat some drop.
Don’t worry, racial discrimination doesn’t affect you, everything is fine and did I mention how pretty the Netherlands looks this time of year?
Sadly, no cowardly racists who beat up women in lifts were hurt during the writing of this post.
I love your blog. Thankyou so much!