George Floyd was the first Black man in the white U.S. police officers in an operation killed. Nevertheless, the response this Time is much more intense; in the United States as well as in the Rest of the world. In countless cities on all continents, in total, hundreds of thousands came together alone this weekend to demonstrate against systemic racism and police violence.

New racism debates

"This really surprised me," says Tahir Della. The 58-Year-old is in the Federal Board of the Initiative Black people in Germany (ISD) is active, one of the oldest interest groups in the country. Surprised him, "that the now achieved such a resounding Public that so many people show their solidarity in the world", and that suddenly about "systemic racism" is being debated in the General Public.

As many media requests as these days have had the ISD never, says Della. But overall, since he began to get involved 33 years ago in the Alliance, some of it done: Black people demanded more active your say in the society, says Della. There are now Afro-German Landtag and the Bundestag, as well as European Parliamentarians. However, given the estimated one Million black citizens in Germany are represented in the Public was obviously still under.

change was introduced

Other countries are not, in their Definition of racism more than Germany, says Della: "There is still the understanding that racism or racist Act only to call so, when an Intention is undetectable." Indeed, racist acts were, however, without the intention of possible, because this will be instilled from childhood.

Tahir Della also works as a technical officer of a publicly-funded Berlin-based programme, where he deals with anti-racism and post-colonialism. As a progress, he also evaluates the choice of words after the attack in the Hessian town of Hanau, Germany, in February, in which a bomber killed eight people with a migration background: "at the Time, was used for the first Time by the media, the word racism in the context of the offender", previously, had been spoken in such cases of "foreigners" or "xenophobia". This change, Della will be to restore to the persistent lobbying of various associations.

Young, politicised Generation

But the greater awareness explains only a part of why the death of George Floyd's gets so strong reactions. Della suspected, "that there is now quite a lot of things come together for an international Echo": The violent reaction in the United States, and the Corona pandemic, which added to the on average poorer and poor health services provided to black people in the United States particularly hard. Not least, the Amateur video, which was recorded how a white COP kneels in minutes on Floyd's neck, this "I can't breathe" choking he could not breathe, finally unconscious.

The Video is also from the point of view of Aladin El-Mafaalani an important factor for the global reactions. The Dortmund-based sociologist had visited in his North Rhine-Westphalian home town of a Demonstration, and then asked how could it be, that a geographically so far-flung event brings more people to the street than the corresponding events in Dortmund itself. There, the neo-Nazi terror group "NSU shot and killed in April 2006," the kiosk operator Mehmet Kubaşık. It is a case of a racist murder series, was announced in November 2011.

The greater concern in the case of George Floyd was explained by the fact, so Mafaalani, because the Video had achieved, in particular, on Instagram, many young people - "a new Generation, also through Fridays for Future networked and a new culture of Demonstrating has developed". The Dortmund-based sociologist, believes that today's students "are confronted daily with the American President, things happen in connection with AfD, right-wing populism and the Like, and are politicised in a very different way".

- States in Europe

The protests were from the beginning clear that racist police violence is not an exclusive Problem of the USA. To cases, the Initiative Death in Custody researched, in which black people and other so-called People of Color in Germany are in custody killed since 1990 have been according to the group of at least 159.

certainly the most famous case of Oury Jalloh, who died in 2005 in Dessau in Saxony-Anhalt in a fire in his detention cell. Opinion is that he was before his death, hard to miss, when the fire came, therefore, accelerators are used.

The confidence of Black and People of Color in the police was Dwindling, believes Tahir Della, "because the people still the feeling prevails, the police are not fully there for me. I can't complain without anxiety and fear, or ask for help - and needs to be restored."

Della is in contact with initiatives in other European countries, all of which were once colonial countries. There, too, there were concrete political campaigns against racist police work. "There are very many Parallels, despite the fact that the companies are very very different."

protests despite Corona

What to include in the United States under the slogan #BlackLivesMatter. - "black life" - will be held, is in practically all the countries theme, in which black people are discriminated against. Tahir Della is happy, that parts of the majority society were to do the same, "but not in a paternalistic Form, but in solidarity with Form".

Only the time, of all things, while the Corona of a pandemic make it "in pieces," says Della. Although many of the protesters mouth protection in large crowds epidemiologically meaningful minimum, comply with stands, but barely. Della calls, therefore, on of the organizers and participants of the rallies prudence: "please take care of it, that the remains in the view that it comes to pay here again an Increase of the Infection."

author: David Ehl,

*The contribution of "After the death of George Floyd: If a Protest is global," published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.

Deutsche Welle

Date Of Update: 07 June 2020, 23:26