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From Brooklyn to Brick Lane, ethnic neighborhoods across the world in the past decade have seen an influx of young, White, alternative college graduates. Instead of joining their peers at investment banks, this group has chosen to enter the ‘green’ movement, to make art installations, to spend their weekends perusing flea markets for vintage treats.

In this essay I am interested in exploring how can we conceptualize the increasing prevalence of hipsters, especially considering contemporary discourse and emphasis around racial justice? Why do hipsters continue to be white?

Brick Lane is a starting place. The streets, warehouses, and bars of Brick Lane speak to histories of immigration, racism, and globalization that are crucial to understanding hipster identity formation across the world. Through an exploration of Brick Lane I will theorize about the origin and prevalence of hipster identity. Specifically, I will argue that the rise of “the hipster” is best understood as an attempt to re-imagine Whiteness, and that White hipster identities and communities are based on racist and colonial paradigms that marginalize people of color.

History of the Hipster

Our current understanding of the ‘hipster’ has ancestors rooted in the racial tensions of the mid-twentieth century. In 1957, the writer Norman Mailer published a groundbreaking essay, “The White Negro,” in which he argues that hipsters (rebellious, middle-class White suburban youth) were appropriating angst from Black America in order to obtain a more legitimate sense of authenticity.

First Mailer identifies a profound crisis in Whiteness. Disenchanted by war and economic crisis, the collective “psyche was subjected…to the intolerable anxiety that…life was causeless” (Mailer 1957). Due to this experience of trauma, White people could hardly “maintain the courage to be individual.” The promise of Hip lay in its ability to liberate the White body, to allow the body to escape from the “prison air of other people’s habits, other people’s defeats, boredom…and self-destroying rage.” ...

New airline will fly refugees directly to Sweden

Planes filled with refugees will soon fly directly from refugee camps in the Middle East to Sweden.

While migrants and refugees are risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean in small boats, thousands of tourists use airplanes to fly safely over the sea.

The flights have until now been reserved for tourists, but that is something a new Swedish airline wants to change.

Emad Zand and Susanne Najafi have started the airline Refugee Air to fly refugees from camps in the Middle East directly to Sweden, where they can seek asylum.

- When private companies are competing to send people to the moon, we must also be able to do something to save people in distress, says Emad Zand to the Swedish television program "Gomorron Sverige".

The established airlines are unable to take refugees into Europe, as companies are faced with the responsibility of sending them back if they are not granted asylum.

Refugee Air will assess the refugees' asylum chances before they get on the planes, to ensure that all passengers can get asylum when they arrive in Sweden.

- We will select passengers in cooperation with local relief organizations, said Emad Zand to Gomorron Sweden, and continues.

- We are trying to close a gap that already exists. All agree that it is a bad solution to let children die in boats on the way here.

Promises of free willing young blonde girls attract Arabs to Sweden
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A tax-financed luxury living with free housing, sky high welfare benefits and their own "blonde beauty" as a girlfriend. These are some of the promises that immigrants from the Arab world currently are receiving to make a pilgrimage to Sweden, according to a investigative report in Dala-Demokraten.

Right now, over a thousand immigrants a day, most of whom are men, are seeking asylum in Sweden.

Many people have asked themselves why so many Arabs choose to go through Europe to get to the little country far up north, where the summer is autumn and the winter lasts until summer.

In its report, Dala-Demokraten states that most of the so-called refugees are already residing in Syria's neighboring countries, where there is no war, but takes to northern Europe for economic reasons.

Expectations of Sweden in particular are soaring, according to the newspaper. On the sites where smugglers go out with information, Sweden is singled out as the best country to go to: You get asylum quickly and you can soon get a family reunion.

On the sites, the migrants are also promised a tax-funded life of luxury. They are told that they must stay in luxury hotels until the government has found a free accommodation to them. Then they can sit back and let the Swedish taxpayers bear all their costs of living.

There is also sexual content in the advertisements, according to Dala-Demokraten. Among other things, the Arabs are promised their own free young willing blond Swedish girlfriend if they manage to illegally get all the way to the promised land in northern Europe (article picture).

"In reality one can say that the young Syrian men are lured to Sweden by the oldest trick in the book - money and girls. Pictures of blonde beauties are published, and that Swedish women require real men," writes Dala-Demokraten.

... Sweden is fast approaching a complete collapse. More and more municipalities are raising the alarm that if the migrants keep coming at this pace, the government can no longer guarantee normal service to its citizens. In addition, ominous statements from government officials have left Swedes in fear of what tomorrow may bring. If the migrant wave keeps coming, in 10-15 years, Swedes will be a minority in their own country.

At a press conference October 9, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said that Sweden is in a state of crisis. However, when asked to clarify what he meant by this, Löfven was unable to produce a single coherent sentence.

Three ministers appeared by the Prime Minister's side at the hastily summoned press conference, which came on the heels of an extraordinary government meeting. The purpose of the press conference seems to have been to convey two messages:

To explain to the world and the Swedish people that Sweden is facing "one of the largest humanitarian efforts in Swedish history."
That there is no more housing available, and migrants should be prepared to live in tents.

During the question period after the ministers' speeches, journalist Tomas Ramberg of Ekot Public Radio asked: "You say that Sweden is preparing for a crisis situation, what do you mean by those dramatic words?"

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Sweden has contracted an investment company to house 1,260 refugees offshore in offshore ships.

The Sweden's migration agency has decided that the country has run out of room, contracting an investment company to provide holding facilities for single men and families.

The tender information provided by the immigration department details prison-like conditions, with one shower per 15 people and strictly regimented meal times. Nearly nothing is known about the company which won the tender, other than that it deals in recycling solutions. The actual vessel to be used for housing the migrants is unknown.

"The Migration Board can not disclose the name of the actual vessel because the supplier requests commercial confidentiality," the migration agency's release states.

...

The bidder has a limit of 150 Swedish kroner per day ($17.83) to spend on feeding the migrants, including kitchen services. This is roughly the price of two meals at McDonalds in Sweden, which has an expensive cost of living compared to most other countries. It is unknown how the migrants will be fed, as such contracts tend to be won by the lowest bidder.

There is also no information on such policies as curfews, although the company which won the contract is expected to hire a private security force.

The plan follows increasingly hostile measures toward refugees in Scandinavian countries, generally known for broad political correctness. Denmark's government previously proposed stripping refugees of all but the most personal valuables and money upon entering the country. Sweden has also banned train service with Denmark in fear of refugees and inadequate personnel for checking identification documents.