[rlonn]

This is a very uplifting post. Thanks for sharing. I hope more people will follow in your footprints, when they see it's possible.

About racism, it is sadly alive and well in Europe also. I think the tech hubs are likely better than many other places as they are more diverse. In Stockholm, where I am, we have had to import lots of SW developers as the industry demand is much larger than the local supply (SW developer is the single most common occupation, all categories) but I still see occasional instances of under-the-table racism - e.g. a landlord might prefer to rent out an apartment to a native swede before an immigrant. And women can also find themselves isolated and sometimes have to work much harder to prove themselves in a very male-dominated segment. But I think we're heading in the right direction at least. Hopefully, my daughters will not experience these things, if they choose to work in SW development when they're adults.

Keep up the trailblazing!

[sgt]

It's unfortunate, but it's understandable that "regular" people want to minimize risks by e.g. avoiding the unknown. What I mean is that you can't really blame the typical citizen who sees something unknown, reads the news and is concerned about his/her property.

Non-western immigrants in Sweden have a bad reputation, simply because integration has been handled poorly by the government (and their immigration policies have arguably been way too open), and that people come with all kinds of backgrounds, war torn countries etc.

It's a chicken and egg situation, I think the best thing Sweden can do at this point is to partly shut the doors on immigration and focus on integrating the population currently living in ghetto like suburbs.

[remoquete]

Understanding is not condoning. Their motivation for discriminating people on the basis of their ethnicity may be understandable, but cannot be forgiven. You can improve integration while also letting immigration in.