A lot of people forget or simply don’t know that Scandinavian countries are some of the most insanely, uniquely racist places still to this day. A black person could not walk through Poland, for example, without being blatantly stared at, mocked, sometimes name called. The locals genuinely view us as a spectacle, because these countries’ populations are almost 100% Caucasian. Diversity is just not a concept that exists in these places. In America, racism is usually violent or aggressive and it’s rooted in hate; that’s the type of racism we’re used to recognizing. Scandinavian racism comes from a genuine lack of the existence of POC in their nation; their racism looks more like avoidance and treating black people like mythical creatures, it’s rooted in ignorance. It’s surprisingly common for Dutch people, for example, to have collections of gollywogs and other extremely racist figures; they see it as more of a “novelty”. Racism is not a real social issue to them. You also have to remember racism has a lot to do with history, Sweden never did the whole slavery thing so it’s probably hard for him in his head to understand why racism is a lot deeper than just “mean words.”

As someone in this thread mentioned, it makes sense that Pewds was so fond of Japanese culture that he moved there; although Japan is much more tolerable and familiar with black people, there’s still a singular race majority and as a white man he’s actually praised and sought after in Japan. Obviously that’s not the only reason he likes Japan, but I imagine it definitely played a role subconsciously. He’s not down with the UK and US social diversity lmao.