Stories and News

Stories and News No. 1076 In France an inquiry into incitement to racial hatred was opened by the State prosecutor's office after the selection of Mathilde Edey Gamassou to interpret Joan of Arc in the annual festivals of Orleans was greeted by racist insults from far right social media’s users. The girl, 17 years old, whose father is from Benin and her mother is Polish, was chosen among 250 girls. " Joan of Arc was white ", says one of the most shared post, " we are white and proud to be white, don’t change our history ". Yes right, let’s not change our history... The first man on earth was not a colour . He was the earliest, although he didn’t know it, although he didn’t understand it, but it was already too much, what being human would have entailed. The very first woman to set foot on this planet was not just a colour. She was the initial one, albeit ignoring it, even though discovering every day the weight and responsibility of being a woman, be...

Stories and News No. 1065 The indisputable numbers explain that in the major European countries and USA , which are often brought up by so-called local leaders as examples to follow, the immigrants are around 15% in Sweden, 14.4% in the United States, 12% in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, slightly less in France and even lower figures in Spain and Italy. This means, for purely statistical reasons, that there is a huge number of our fellow citizens who spend weeks, if not months, without meeting a foreigner. Anyone who started a speech about the problems of society and the priorities of the latter, no matter he’s a political exponent, of any sort, rather than the man in the bar, the social network friend, the chatty colleague or the relative statesman , even if only by citing the migrants, he should be kicked in the ass. Otherwise, it would be like slavishly accepting to be the one who is first kicked out and then cheated. Yet, despite over time the presences...

Stories and News No. 1020 We weren't  born racist, because, since we were kids, we’re taught to discriminate on the basis of the origins and, often and willingly, the skin colour, not only at school, but everywhere, in each plausible, influenced way . With Arithmetic : Hundreds, thousands, ten thousand, and more victims are approximated by default, down to zero value, in inverse proportion to the distance from our country of birth. In short, the more the dead are far from us and the less significant on the balance of our empathy. At the same time, one life lost by one of our fellow citizens is worth hundreds, thousands, ten thousand, and more lives beyond the boundaries of our ID. With Geography : You can say and write immigrant, illegal, foreign, stranger, in short diverse , and yet, although all of the following could at least be into one of the above categories, there is no imagination that might figure the blue eyes of a Swedish, the red hair of an Irish lady, the bl...

Stories and News No. 995 "Dad?" "Yes?" "Are you bad?" "No, I'm not, why do you say that?" "Because at school the teacher read us a story where bad kids were taken away by the Bogeyman and he is a black man. Why do you get them, Daddy, if you're not bad?" "I do not get anyone, son, that's just a fairy tale..." "But you have always told me that there are often more truths in the fables than in reality, right?" "Yes, sure... you remember everything, huh?" "I try. Am I bad too?" "Not even for a dream, son, why do you ask that?" "Dad, if bad children are taken away by the Bogeyman, the latter must be even worse than them. And if I am his son, that is, yours..." "Listen to me now carefully. Your teacher has told you a story of one Boogeyman who takes away bad children, not everyone. Are the children all bad?" "No…" "Not even ...

Stories and News No. 975 India ’s Foreign Minister has publicly condemned racist aggressions towards African students near Delhi this week. A Kenyan girl told she had been dragged down by a rickshaw and beaten by a group of men. Once upon a time there were you , them and others . Where you is us , the many, sometimes too many. Where they seem always to be more, even in the case of just one. And where others are simply others . Everything but us , you and me . I said, there were once. We talked, wrote and, above all, we read about and we saw some bad news. Uniquely beautiful and profitable to legalized misfortunes’ eaters, who used to see raising high their murky trade actions if the latest creatures of this world sadly fall on the ladder of human understanding. The most common story is simple, though enlightened words, and suggestive images too, are often futile: you , we , are intolerant and brutal, insensitive and sometimes cruel towards strangers, but you , we , shou...

Stories and News No. 948 Pateh Sabally , 22-years old man from Gambia, committed suicide by drowning in the Grand Canal in Venice. I read that, according Italian law, no one was forced to save him. Four life rings is the price you pay. For the show ... Watch this movie, even if you've already seen, I know. We all have did it, and here we are again. Maybe we didn’t understand before. Maybe it would go better with the language subtitles. That hit where the heart doesn’t hurt, because now no longer beats. That's right, this is a story that survives death itself. Because, inside a sort of circle of hell built in a TV network, there is someone who desperately needs to tell it. And someone else with a perverse habit to listen with locked ears and memory. Watch the scene, despite being old, but always trendy. There is the sea, as always. There's the ship, the travelers and him. The one who dies at the end and the beginning, during too. And even earlier, i...

Stories and News No. 907 Many in Italy criticized an image of the Pro Fertility campaign by the Ministry of Health , where below the supposed good guys symbolizing ‘ good habits to be promoted ’, separated by a fracture, you may see the ‘ bad company to be abandoned ’ (together with a girl smoking weed and a drug addict even a black man…) Here is one day, then. One day far from the good ones... It is morning, very early. Giulia always gets up first, because she loves to breakfast alone. This is the way she gets the time to wake up calmly, but never completely. Because something has to keep on dreaming. Even awake. Then she prepares milk and cookies for everyone, takes a shower, dresses and goes to work, where she teaches Italian to foreigners . It often happens that many in classroom are blacks . Bad companions in the picture painted for the day of fertility. But this does not prevent the meeting of destinies. To be even fruitful. Just as the teacher spreads her n...

Stories and News No. 902   While the King of Norway becomes viral thanks to a truly commendable speech on diversity, in a school in Aarhus, Denmark, the principal has decided to divide students between ‘indigenous Danish’ and immigrants. Let’s play a game. A story, a promise. A dance and a challenge. On the same page. Class, world. In the same heart, if you like. Classes for immigrants and classes for ‘true’ Danish? Well, you can do more, you know? Classes for those who look too profoundly in your eyes and classes for those who just pretend to give up the fight, classes for those who will never arrive first, but they have accepted and classes for those who will never give up. And they are right too. Classes for the ugly inside and classes for those from the ugly past, classes for those who have a beautiful future, but only if they have luck and those from the horrible past, not yet deleted. Classes for those who always forget most futile things and classes fo...

Stories and News No. 868 Araminta Ross, aka Harriet Tubman , activist for the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage, has earned the distinction of being the first Afro-American woman on a US banknote . I can die but once, Harriet said . Like all great persons who spent their existence for the rights of many, there are an infinite number of times when she will back into life... My name is Harriet and I'm not dead. I'm not dead when I found out that the real chains are made of human skin, the most resistant metal in the world. And I did not die even when I was about to convince myself that there was something right, meaningful, even normal. In human skin chains. I'm not dead when I realized how much I was deluded to think that having free hands and feet was enough to have peace. And I'm not dead when I finally realized that having peace was not enough to get hands and feet free. I'm not dead when flipping through the pages of the mirror I found a m...

Stories and News No. 832 I read that in Middlesbrough, England, they had the questionable idea to distinguish the homes of refugees from the "normal" neighbors by painting red entrance doors . With the risk, among other things, that the houses will become an easier target of racist attacks... I am Baseema . I am seven years old and my name has a precious meaning. It means smiling . Now, there is smile and smile. My father says that mine’s value is double. Because I smiles before and even after having discovered the real sense of things. For example, take this red door’s thing. When I saw it the first time I smile, really. What am I saying? I heartily laughed, as when you eat something good. That is, when you eat something. Big . A red door? And we are the only ones to have it? Why? I asked my mother while she mended. My mother does nothing but mend the few rags we call clothes, where holes are ever much more than the rest. That is the story of our lives,...

Stories and News No. 818 One day. One day is enough for me. A day when we will all be disabled . No, not diversely abled , which is a tolerated euphemism to evoke yet another human wonder. Disabled, that is what I mean. Lack of normally wasted skills. Debased as undervalued. All blind , then. Although for a single day, all unable to accuse alleged guilty skin colors. All unable to fear the supposed scandalous clothes. And no one will be able to take advantage of vulnerable forms to cover own cowardice. All unreachable by words written strictly turning back to the heart. Far from delusional sentences erased for twenty-four hours from the sadistic machine called news, which does not miss the occasion to ride on helpless grounds. All deaf , so. And even for a single day, all indifferent to the timely screams of the professional parasite, always ready to throw himself on the monster that he designed. Okay, no heavenly music and natural melodies. Silence, absolute absence ...

Stories and News No. 791 I read that yet another African American was executed by US police. This time the victim was a young man on a wheelchair and again the discussion moves on the usual question: was he armed or not? Of course he was. Here is the confession of the agent... Your Honor, I confess. The relatives of the dead are right. The victim had no gun . Yet he was armed, I swear. And I knew I had to shoot. Rifle ? No, no rifle, I would say so, otherwise. I know the weapons, I know them all, because they taught me well. I was careful. I studied and rehearsed with commitment. By the way, it does not take a genius to get an A, today. Because lessons are everywhere. And everybody is a teacher. Knife , you say? Look: no blades, so we exclude a lot and we may move forward. A bomb ? Did I hear right? Did you say bomb? Well, believe me: I would have liked so. It would have been easier. For me and for you, especially the jury. Within seconds the story would h...

Stories and News No. 787 In a Texas school a 14-year-old named Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for bringing to class a homemade digital clock he built, mistaken for a bomb... Somewhere there is a drawer. I have no idea how large it is. And I have even less of how many things are there. Things . Made of uniqueness and wonder. Call them inventions . Call them normal stuff, for those who are not and never will be trivial. Call them also bombs . Because even if you will strive to turn off the love for the change of the one making fly everyone else, you will not get another result. That makes the flame on the wick. Bigger. Much bigger. As long as no one will be able to pretend it does not exist. There are of course time travel machines by people like Ahmed, full speed souls, only “guilty” to kneel at the side of the inadmissible sky. But there are also the others in the drawer, resting. Dreaming. Us . There is a mirror that reflects only repressed emotions and invincible ...

Stories and News No. 706 I read that Ioan Popa, a 52 years old homeless, was beaten to death by a 22 years old guy from Milan, Italy. In according to the police, October 14 night, the man was murdered in front of a pub because he wanted to pet the Italian’s dog, then helped by his friends to hide the homicide. All this and much more, happens and continues to happen on the general silence. Silence. Silence of the last people of this world, who have no voice… As the dog. I am the dog, now. The dog of the failure caress. I am the one who saw everything and, unlike you, free to drop the stolen blood, I feel all weight on my back. It's my fault. I make it mine. Indeed, if I had not been there, the man would not have violated the border. For a dog’s pet. And if people die for such a fleeting contact with equally insignificant creatures, you know how does obsession for distances is vain? Between us? Yes, I'm the dog. And I'll take the blame. Just because I was ...