The day I started to write this column, there was a great story going viral in the social media in Finland.
The day I started to write this column, there was a great story going viral in the social media in Finland. It was the story of Ricky Ghansah, and as the name shows he is not of Finnish descent, although his command of the Finnish language is so perfect that you'd never guess it.
Meeting him personally is another thing, because he does look quite African. But that's not important. The important thing is the lesson he taught to an everyday racist who started to call him names in the street.
Ricky was just waiting for the bus when the racist spied him and, of course, started to abuse him for the only reason that he was black. The man went through the usual litany you'd hear in such situations: most probably he called Ricky a foreign homosexual who only came to our country to steal our women, or accused him of sponging on unemployment benefits while taking all the jobs from unemployed Finns by working too diligently. Then the bus came and Ricky boarded it as usual. The racist, meanwhile, found out that he had neither a cent of money or a bus card, and he started to beg the driver to give him a lift gratis, as he of course greatly needed to get to his destination in time.
So what do you think Ricky did? He actually offered to buy the racist a ticket! Fare money changed hands and then Ricky gave the ticket to the abusive man. The racist was completely flummoxed, but in the end he was able to thank Ricky (not too loudly, though).
The young man's answer was that he was not interested in protestations of gratitude, but that the racist should rather ask for forgiveness so that the whole bus could hear him, and explain the reason.
So ashamed was the racist, he left the bus after two or three stops. The other passengers, however, gave Ricky a standing ovation.
Panu Petteri Höglund is an Irish-language writer from Finland.
