Post by Eddie: Internalized racism of a whole community still flourishes unchecked

In recent years there seems to be a commitment to make the Maltese society an inclusive and a better one. Now, disabled persons have equal opportunities, persons of the same sex can marry and raise a family, while for cyber bullying, a campaign is being driven by the Anti-Cyber Harassment Alliance Malta to stamp it out once and for all – Illegal immigration and the consequential racism is being tackled too.

And yet while all these measures are being put in place, the marginalization, the cyber bullying, antagonism and the internalised racism of a whole community still flourishes unchecked. And all of this because the place happens to be the late Dom Mintoff’s hometown.

Access the Internet, type ‘Bormla’ or ‘Cospicua’ together with ‘running commentary’, and a good number of articles with hate comments against it, and its community will pop up. The screen shots shows at least 50 write ups with disdainful remarks towards anything Bormliz.

As expected, these articles are further enhanced by bloggers who are only too eager, and willing to add their own list of disrespectful, and detestable comments like: ‘Bormla is known as the arm-pit of Malta or a more ruder part of the human body to be more accurate’.

Another article writer in another local English language newspaper had even gone as far as to publish an article informing readers that Bormla is a ‘Crime hot spot’ comparing it to the CSI television series. The mind boggles with this comparison because no article about localities where crimes occur in Malta on a more frequent or regular basis has ever been written comparing them to some crime series.

Which brings me back to internalized racism, or ‘the personal conscious or subconscious acceptance of a society’s racist views, stereotypes and biases of one’s national group. It gives rise to patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that result in discriminating, minimizing, criticizing, finding fault, invalidating, a supposedly ‘lesser’ section of society.’

This blog appeals to those decent members of society to stand up against these hate writers and respond to them on their own blogs.

The Government, the Police authorities the Broadcasting Authority, and the Institute of Maltese Journalists should also step up to stop these hate-filled articles that are helping to incite hate blogger comments.

A stance needs to be taken where people who post these hate comments intended to blemish a whole community, are publicly named, shamed and if required brought to justice