The White Sea debate yes,

what happened now?

An anonymous collective of non-white artists and former students suggested that Konstfack's exhibition space White Sea should be renamed as an anti-racist measure.

The proposal was taken up for consideration in 2019 in the school's management group, with the principal's directive to produce arguments on both sides.

Professor Sara Kristoffersson, sitting in the group and strongly dissatisfied with the process, wrote in January 2021 a debate article that voluntarily hauled out the proposal in the public eye where it died.

A side effect of this was that she herself was subjected to an organized, bullying-like campaign by her teaching colleagues at Konstfack - whose proclaimed tolerance and openness did not extend to critics of modern racism theory. 

The event may

seem like a setback for anti-racism or as a victory of reason over the foggy and tumultuous logic of post-science (choose according to prejudice profile), but I think such programmatic interpretations miss the point completely. 

I think optimistically that the White Sea battle was a learning process, another arduous step in the movement of Swedish society towards increasing multicultural maturity.

The whole largely destructive debate lands in a constructive way - if not sooner then at least now, with the excellent, concise, hard and sober book Sara Kristoffersson wrote about it all. 

"The whole sea storms"

is certainly not a book of reconciliation, but rather a clarification and deepening of a position.

And a welcome one - in his original debate article, Kristoffersson was really quite sloppy and imprecise, waving the scornful signal words "identity politics" and "insult".

In the book, she is much better. 

Here she steers away from letting her story become part of the politicized battle painting, the one you know where Western universities are haunted by post-possibly-inspired lunatics who trump through whirling agendas and forbid truths you do not like.

You feel the urge from the big easy-to-buy story as a strong current around her text, but she has tied herself to the mast and kept her own course straight. 

On the other hand, she gives

a stimulating and well-formulated critique of modern racism theory and anti-racist practice in the art world and academia.

That's fine, these currents need to be heard.

She offers distinct opposition to the idea that non-whites automatically and generally speak more truthfully and correctly about racism than whites.

That's fine, that road is a dead end.

An argument must always be judged by its quality as an argument, not by who puts it forward.

(Although, of course, only non-whites can tell about the experience of swimming in the White Sea, but that's another matter.) 

And above all, she sticks to the facts (which both journalists and family therapists know are healing), to what actually happened at Konstfack in 2021. What people said, what they wrote and not least what they emailed each other - probably without thinking that the school emails are public documents and could be requested by Kristoffersson at a later stage. 

In August 2021

, the principal states that there is no reason to change the name of the White Sea.

At the same time, Kristoffersson himself is on his way back to work after sick leave and a nightmare-like HR process to bury the workplace conflict.  

It has cost a lot, but I think the lessons of the White Sea Battle are many: open debate is always better than slanderous gossip in semi-public online forums;

it is not unethical to present personal opinions in public (which 44 teacher colleagues bizarrely criticized Kristoffersson for in a joint debate article);

anonymous collectives are not a good form of organization in an open society.

Simple things, which were not at all obvious a year ago. 

And then another

, to discuss in small groups: Is the debater's skin color relevant for evaluating her argument?

In the clip below, you can hear Kulturnyheter's critics.

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In the clip, you hear the critics of cultural news.