he thinks he painted me. to make me. my unfair. i am an unsolvable. the secret of. starch july 3rd d. w. . no to racism following the killing of george floyd of the hands of the police in minneapolis there have been weeks of demonstrations in the us against racist violence and the black lives mansour movement has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets across europe to the protests have triggered a new debate here in germany on every day racism which figures show is on the rise and which has a long and troubling history so

a question on to the point racism come to heal the hurt. welcome to this week's show where we're going to try and cast some constructive light on the racism and discrimination that are apparently rooted in our societies i'm peter craven and these are my guests in media roy french by birth she is the founder and executive director of the center for intersectional justice that's a berlin based organization competent all forms of inequality and discrimination in europe and she says as long as there is racism in germany the word racist must not be removed from the constitution as. also with us is brendan keith brown he's a classical music conductor working with renowned orchestras here in germany.

believes it's important to speak his mind on issues like race and exclusion and brandon says reflection on racism is only tolerated when people of color. and a very warm welcome to so many heated underdog and journalist with the german we create sights hussein's here in germany too we must have known him in addressing problems of structural racism and above all police discrimination and brutality. thank you all 3 for being here in the media i would like to begin with you something big is clearly happening hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets in europe and the u.s. we ceded to will before are you confident are you hopeful that this time something more might come of it well what i think is that what is different from before is that. there seems to be a collective epiphany on the fire that racism is real and that it has really deeply deep roots in our societies not only in the u.s. but also in europe in germany france belgium spain italy and and in that regard i

feel like there's a readiness to have open conversations about it and for example such a set which i don't think it would have been think of all 567 years ago. and so that's what i'm hopeful yes and hope hope is different from of him as i'm it means that i i have hope that things will evolve in the right direction it doesn't mean that there are concrete and material science that show me that it's the case currently but what i see is that the fact that. in the mainstream we're speaking about structural systemic racism that we are speaking about police brutality and also putting in question the legitimacy of an institution like the police is giving me hope ok well tell me this your organization we just have the name of the organization the center for intersection of justice and its aims to combat all forms of unequal. and do still in europe the question is how so how i mean we have

a strategy that is very holistic and we don't tackle the problem for just one angle 1st of all from multiple axes so when we say equality and justice for all we mean or more like liberation and equally liberation and justice for all we are not looking at discrimination from single axis like it's been the case just on the axis of gender or sexual orientation or a class or race but we're looking at the entry kate relationship that exists between old those systems of oppression but also all these discrimination by mentions and if they can we do this through i because see in the white a sentence so it includes of course direct classical advocacy with but you see makers at government level parliament level we work closely with the european commission and the european parliament but also from the bottom of meaning working with civil society and trying to amplify movements through a change of narrative

a change of discourse when we speak about this communication ok mohammed you have written about every day racism that people of color are confronted with in majority white cultures. what have you learned it's a fight it's not easy because i can see right now in germany a discussion where a lot of germans white germans especially they say oh races and police protect you that's something in the u.s. we don't have that in europe we have right now the minister of interior affairs who is putting pressure on a journalist who wrote a text about police brutality threatening to sue her and that shows how white supremacy is trying to stop this conversation at the same time we cannot do that anymore because we are here and we are a lot. one example you've just given of discrimination here in germany is your overall sense that you are living in a society that is moving forward only moving backwards i think it's more visible it's not about for what

a backwards what happened to just fly the lynching we just saw it on video that was happening the whole time and now people are starting to take pictures to tell their stories to have the opportunity to write books in the mainstream media for it and that's the difference and i don't think that i can at least say oh it's getting better or it's getting worse from my perspective so there's a readiness that you talked about and there's a there of people. people of color community of you so will his get is getting a higher profile in germany as a result of a new level of consciousness i mean also people of color you have black stories you have in germany a lot of germans from turkish states and the artists and for example the consciousness comes because there is more and more. voices who that now they can speak in them and. set having said that there are more and more other

voices trying to stop those people to tell their own story and to change something and institutions how the society thinks about stuff and also talking about resources who can talk about what and how. brendan classical music conductor we've made the point already at the same time you are somebody who who is driven to get a message across you officer for us in your protest about this about the world you see around you tell me more why are you so vociferously well because of the music is the only genre really that divides a divide society by race and class in such an extreme way and what we're finding out during covert is that whites playing whites for whites isn't working isn't working for the genres to sustain the genre and what i believe if you want to change the racial conscience of people you have to affect their spirit laws and politics of course is not going to change the minds and racial conscience of people

so what we need to do is to force people to develop empathy and i believe you can do that through sound getting people together of different walks of life different nationalities different religions different colors different races together and to share in the through sound this is a type of empathy that will go into the power that will go into the streets and this is something that you can't emulate through any other aspect of society and you've been here in germany you've been doing that for 4 years i what is your what's the difference between for you between american society the american society that you have lived in the jail and the german society that you do live in war you know what would you like to communicate to our audience about to on the surface african-americans typically say at least they don't shoot us here very often they don't shoot us too often here it still happens quite a lot and it's not covered in the media in germany so in a surface level that there's not this you know perpetual fear of being shot by the police but at the same time the racism is more insight. it is and more backed by

the government the fact there's no racial census here so the government of germany basically says that racism doesn't exist and that if you're not count you don't germany does not say that racism does not exist today you know i think what they say if i may i think what germany's saying is that racism is an individual interpersonal phenom in and that is not routine in institutions and in the system so there's. a lack of recognition of the existence of systemic institutional racism and racism individual racism is mostly pushed to certain groups like neo nazis like you know by people who are intentionally racists because we don't have this imperial data it's very difficult to justify every day racism is very difficult in the united states we have this imperial that in the u.k. you have this data on police brutality racial profiling it's very difficult to find out about discrimination and health care here all of these things and my sense is

that that is changing the more information more statistics more figures are being counted and that the. the let me tell you no it's not actually there is if i may there is a few studies for example about police brutality in germany and that people and people of color i worked for years about on this topic and there's one only one study revealed showing how big the problem is so i also see my thing but the thing this big government backed government should investigate is the incidences of racism in america it's very complicated but the state and federal government investigate when you go to the café and they kick you out they do it for free here in germany have to pay a lawyer short of lawyer has white fertility the judge doesn't want to deal with this either they also have the same racial conscious of white germans who were raised as you can't count on the government to help people who are victims of racism in germany. i can remember germany 20 years ago it was a very very very different country it was mono. ethnic in large measure

it was more the cultural in large measure from my perspective it was the question we had that we just now whether this is you know societies change whether it's moving forward or backward my sense is that germany has made huge steps forward as well just one more thing you know the sociologist michel the amount in many sociologists internationally when society becomes globalized the more inequalities created the more separation we have it's like all in vinegar people don't all hold hands and kiss when the wall came down the east and west did not all hold hands and kiss it still fairly separate when the refugees came the german people all of them didn't just walk of them in to their neighborhoods we still have pictures on the resume if you have wearing a job you're not going to be invited you're not likely to be invited for that job why are pictures on the resume we're still looking at the way people look how imitation white german can you become to have access to society point i'm sorry i don't know if that's really changed that much and also when you say that 20 years

ago germany was very you know if need can win a cultural i don't think it was the case it's just that people were invisibility. they were you know this generation of so-called guest workers and their descendants their children and grandchildren who didn't live here but they were recruited in certain areas and did not have access to public discourse they did not have access to visibility in the public space and this is maybe what has changed a little bit i wouldn't even go as far as saying that it has to be tremendously changed but what has brought awareness as i said more and more people coming from other countries people of color coming from france from belgium from the us are making their way to germany and also exposing those issues but we haven't really gone beyond the exposure and this is only right now happening that racism is really has come forward and i'm not really sure but i think that. one sandy you have been so patient but i'll bring you in next we need to just move it myself but it's not

ok. the long and the very top see debate on the impact of race is also recently manifested itself here in germany and europe and the us as well in a global wave of protest actions against monuments statues and other artifacts celebrating and even glorifying racism and colonialism they've been toppled let's get a quick feel for that's all about and we'll talk about that too. there he lives christopher columbus this statue in the u.s. state of minnesota stood for one of the most important people in world history the man known as the discoverer of america but for many people especially those in latin america his name represents the beginning of a period of great suffering marked by the oppression and exploitation of the indigenous population. that is caution over monuments commemorating the colonial era has been reignited in europe as well including here in the english city of bristol at where colston is remembered as a philanthropist by som and is a slave trader by others the bronze monument has now been yanked from its pedestal

and shoved into the harbor by protesters. across belgium and numerous statues of king leopold the 2nd have been covered with paint or pulled down to protest the monarch's reign of terror in the congo. and in germany there have also been demands for years now to rename monuments and streets that pay homage to germany's colonial past. to uphold or to tear down do we need to rethink our culture of remembrance. was one big important question 1st of all i'd like to go right back to mohamed i was very rude of you off there can you build a bridge from what we've just been listening to where you were in the point you wanted to make try. it also depends where you are if you can see how homogeneous the german society is when the decisions are made that's a very wide space usually in journalism in politics in civil society and the

discussion also is for example what happens right now in berlin with the engine discrimination law which is talking about police brutality they have a lot of the lore of its kind in germany when i talk to my friends from the us for example they are like you don't have an anti discrimination law like i'm an ikea. we don't know what happened a lot of all the white men in this case i'm sorry. are trying to say we don't need this law this is discrimination against police and that's also the discussion with this monument for example who decides how our public space we share it how the space looks like usually it's not black people it's not people of color and usually the backlash is oh you do identity politics i mean if your identity really matches an ugly monument like this that's very sad.

i mean things to do bates is very interesting brandon said he's tired of it he's bored by it all let's get amelia 1st of all to not use the monuments debates where you're coming from the well i think it's symbolically it's very powerful because we see that it's happening everywhere in the world and so i'm coming back against my idea of a clue to the idea of a collective epiphany knowing that we want to. so i think it's what i do when i was that base who want to lift the veil of it could be cold of silence you know or the veil of skewed he's 3 and and the images for me are really powerful in the sense that he questions the power and he questions the invisible objective neutral norm that is supposed to represent history and science and in that sense it's raising a lot of voices so many different perspectives in telling one side of a history of history and so there's an african prevent that says until the lion can

tell the story of the hunt only the hunter will be glorified and this is exactly what's happening so that's why by tearing down those statues we're sitting the record of history right in the sense that we allow another perspective on history to be said and we also. pay tribute and respect to the victims and survivors of slavery of digital sites that have been committed against the mind hero here in germany so few people know about that for example and so that's why i think it's powerful and really long overdue so i think that this is a very passionate take on the debate you were you did say while we were listening to the reports. that you found the the debate to become tiresome well what white people really hate is taking away their individual ism and when you generalize about why bill you become very defensive the fact is that white people have to decide to reflect internally and stop focusing. on the xterm lies ation of racism i

grew up in the south lots of confederate flags lots of statues about slavery i know how people think and and how they really feel about racism taking statues down is not going to change the racial conscience of of white americans it's it's it's beautiful it's passionate but in the long run it's not going to change much but don't you think that we need to have like change happening from very different angles and that it's organic and that you know having this can help as well trigger change and i know white people in america don't like the look and the feel of racism but putting steps in place to give cultural access and cultural membership to people of color especially musicians like i'm coming from there not willing to do it tearing down a statue feels good it makes you look good in empowers you but what happens after you take down the statue are you going to hire black people in the workplace or you

can get black friends 75 percent of all white people don't live around black people which makes the self reporting of racism suspicious and it's even more so in germany so it's wonderful take them down of course but it's not going to change anything. i would i was in charge it's there in february and they have the same discussion and i had the i had the feeling there it's a bad ground it's a proxy discussion for a so much more so i would argue it doesn't harm if this idea as a statue is gone but also i would see both of you and i agree that it doesn't except make a difference in the public space but it does not change that so many black people and people of color are living in the conditions of course i want to take down the people who owned my ancestors but is that really going to change things i'm not sure it's lifting the veil. well more than more or less every 4th person here in germany has roots outside the country and sadly these germans

are often excluded they're given a very hard time in large measure because of how they look one case in point in corona times is the many asian germans who say that they are feeling the brunt of racism on a regular basis most of the book. victoria korean movies germany's her parents came to germany long before she was born and she's used to encountering prejudice because of her appearance. after the corona outbreak began in china and the 1st cases appeared in germany this bad treatment intensified. she's experienced degrading looks and some people make a show of avoiding her. she said a man called out to her that she should be sprayed with this in fact and i suppose because i have the feeling that since the pandemic began i should go more has a telly through the streets i make myself small and i'm afraid of encountering hostility i also have the feeling that even though i live in berlin i'm just not perceived as german. integration researcher isn't surprised by this at

all. the question where are you from i can have german citizenship i can have a german passport and still be confronted with these questions just because i don't look german what does it mean to look german. being stigmatized because of a different skin color or a non german ethnic background how do we solve our racism problem. mohammed that question that one question what does it mean to look to seem so very significant it does. but i'm dead that you brought this example because. during coronado when it started a lot of people told me oh we are all the same now because the virus does not seem there are we are all in it together it's not the it's not like that intersection only we can see that different groups in society are hit in a different way by this virus i came from the us to germany and

a lot of my friends in the usa said at least you have health care there no it's not that easy because if you are under commented for example or you have a few g.'s that is you cannot just go to the hospital and it's like just shocking that corona is just showing the structures we are living in here in germany and if you do not look like a typical german which is white then you have often a problem. ok so you have very eloquently once again outlined the problem that we are faced with you know how do we move forward from here and before before we came in we were chatting together before the program and you were saying the only people who can change will are so the whites yes well i just want to say after this that i believe integration is simulation is not the answer and i think we need to have make it what i call naked acceptance because integration integration is simulation means to become imitation white german and and this is one of most difficult things about germany is to accept people that don't fit this particular image and as

germany becomes globalized is just creating more and more problems. but yes this is a problem that white people can decide to solve this is not something you can do with money you can't do through legislation it's something that white people have to develop the conscience to reflect on really what do you think the white community can contribute towards this well 1st of all you mentioned that white people react very defensively when we take away their privilege of individualism which is a white privilege by the way because you know a lot of people of color and black people don't have the privilege to just act and and speak for themselves you know like anything we say here will be unfair to our entire ethnic groups and reese. so i think what's important is to confront this fragile beauty the fact that. when we speak about racism white people get defensive because they feel attacked personally and they don't want to be seated seen as a black person it's not what it is about we're tackling

a system that has been in favor of white people and that's the responsibility of white people to see this and to detach their ego from the whole conversation and to that's the only way we can move forward. to develop empathy as you were also saying i think it's really important that it's. groups learn to feel empathy towards minorities and that's something that we learn from very early on little boys little girls learn from the early childhood to identify and feel empathy towards boys nonwhite people learn to feel empathy and to identify with white people white because they are so dominant in the media in stories in in films in television advertisements etc and so that's why there's a and imbalance of power and privilege that needs to be turned around and reshuffled we need to redefine power in that sense and this can only be done if

there is a readiness to put white ness in question to render it visible to say white. this is a defendant of or white supremacy is the fundament of racism so what do we do with it how do we deconstruct the white superior norm that's what needs to be done that's amazing when you say thank you so much if you have half a minute on how to overcome how white people i mean how can i overcome my own racism. i think i need more than half a minute for that but what i always say is yes in the u.s. you have god donald trump but the discussion is 20 years ahead compared to a discussion here in germany we want to know and we don't even though you have a language to talk about in terms of the situation that you told me before and so i got to thank you i'm sorry i know your time is to show right i hope we have given you some food for thought what is a very very difficult matter a very difficult treat excellent guests thank you all for being here here here so i

think you'll choose thank you. bob. up on her.

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a duel with words from. where i come from we don't run away from a confrontation. when i was 5 years old my father took me to his friends and i was hooked on the spot. a sport that you learned sold early enters your soul. the fencing is a language and a good source for it is a conversation. must keep your opponent understand the thinking new of the man to get close otherwise you can score a hit. it's not unlike a tough interview really when interviewing politicians or corporate c.e.o.'s you have to wait for the right moment just to get around that defensiveness then make your move don't feel. you have to take risks to get results.

i've got alphas and i work a d w. all we can be the generation that ends it good malaria must start millions

can live. this is the news live from the united states scrambles to hold a massive surge in corona virus infections. states reporting of new cases forcing some of them to pause fans to reopen their economies the program. india's capital launches a mass coronavirus containment campaign the number of cases rising high. because of the healthy cells of nearly 30000000 residents and test everyone showing symptoms.