The Associated Press is naming and shaming majority-white European nations competing in the Winter Olympics for their apparent lack of diversity, insisting the recent influx of migrants into the countries should be instantly represented among their most elite athletes.
“At the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Sweden is sending a team made up almost exclusively of ethnically Swedish athletes,” the article states, noting NHL player Mika Zibanejad, whose father is of Iranian descent, is a standout exception in the Scandinavian country’s contingent.
“That hardly reflects the diversity of the Nordic country: About 2 million of its 10 million residents were born abroad, about half of them in Asia or Africa,” AP scolds, citing Statistic Sweden’s demographic figures.
“The Olympic rosters of France, Germany, Switzerland and other European winter sports nations look a lot like Sweden’s: overwhelmingly white and lacking the immigrant representation seen in their soccer or basketball teams.”
The article hoists 30-year-old snowboarder Maryan Hashi — a Swedish immigrant from Somalia — as an avatar in its attempted takedown of the scourge of “overwhelming” whiteness at this year’s games, who told the outlet she felt like an “alien” when she took to the slopes in the country’s snowy north.
