didn't think she painted me. am. i. to look at me. my answer. i am an unsung for whom. the secret of. starts july 3rd d. w. . no to racism following the killing of george floyd at the hands of the police in minneapolis there have been weeks of demonstrations in the us against racist violence and the black lives massive 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 our question on to the point racism how to heal the hurt. from 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 my birth she is the founder and executive director of the center for intersectional justice that's a bill in based organization combine 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 so our proposal. 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 for reflection on racism these are only tolerated when people of color . and a very warm welcome to so many time to heat an author and journalist with the german weekly sorry to say they're in germany too we must have known to be shin's in addressing problems of structural racism and above all police discrimination and brutality. thank you all 3 for being here 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 see the chill 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 would 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 up to ms and 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. see and do still screaming nations 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 this communication 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 cape relationship that exists between all those systems of oppression but also all these discrimination dimensions and i think and we do this through advocacy in the way the sentence so it includes of course direct classical advocacy with policymakers at government level parent 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 mohamed you have written about every day racism that people of color confronted with in majority white culture has. 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 by germans especially they say oh racism and police protection 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 forward backwards what happened to judge floyd 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 talks 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 oh i have to send for example the consciousness comes because there is more and more. voices. that now they can speak 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 music conductor we made the point already . the same time you are somebody who who is driven to get a message across you have a sister of senor protest about this about the world you see around you tell me more why are you so vociferously well the classical music is the only genre really that divides a divided society by race and class in such an extreme way and what we're finding out during cove it is that whites playing whites for whites isn't working isn't working for the genre's who sustained 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 and. 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 it you don't generally 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 phenomena 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 that my sense is

that that is changing the more information more statistics more figures are being counted and that the. the battle no no no it's not actually there is it 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 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 me. well no. that's nick in large measure

it was monocultural in large measure from my perspective it was the question we had that we just now whether this is you know we societies change whether it's moving forward or backward my sense is that germany has made huge steps forward. just one more thing you know the sociologist michel the man to many sociologists internationally when society becomes globalized the more inequality is 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's 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 sorry sorry i don't know if you really changed that much and also when you say that 20 years ago

germany was very no ethnic and won 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 really 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. you have been so patient but i'll bring you in next we need to just move right over. 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 in europe in 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. the discussion over monuments commemorating the colonial era has been reignited in europe as well including here in the english city of bristol edward constant is remembered as a philanthropist by some 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 in streets that pay homage to germany's colonial past. to uphold or to tear down do we need to rethink our culture of remembrance. one big important question 1st of all i'd like to go right back to mohamed i was very rude to cut 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 where 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 anti 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 interest in the nation love like i'm an ikea. we don't not have been a lot of all the white men in this case i'm sorry. are. 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 if it's not people of color and usually the backlash is oh you do identity politics i mean if your identity of really matches an ugly monument like this that's very sad.

things to do bait is very interesting brandon said he's tired of it he's bored by it all let's get emilio 1st of all to not use the monuments debate tell us where you're coming from well i think it's symbolically 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 cherry and and the images for me are really powerful in the sense that he questions 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 and telling one side of his history of history and so there's an african prevent that says until the line 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 alone another perspective on history to be shared and we also. pay tribute and respect to the victims and survivors of slavery of digital sites that have been committed against them and heroic here in germany so few people know about that for example and so that's why i think it's 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 lissome 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 externalization 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 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 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 they're 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 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 these are they as a statue is gone but also i would see both of you and i agree that it does makes it 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 they 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 she is 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 have the feeling that since the pandemic began i should go more hesitantly 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 could 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 that what does it mean to look to seem so very significant it does. but i'm dead that you brought this example because. during her own hour when it started a lot of people told me oh we are all the same now because the virus that's not seeing 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 i have 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.

status 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 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 chancing 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 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 going to be unfair to our entire ethnic groups and reese. so i think what's important is to come from and see 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 bad 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 dumbing down groups to 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 child 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 and 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 amazingly when you say thank you so much for that you have heard of the minutes on how to overcome how white people like me how can i overcome my own racism. i think i need more than a huff 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 when you don't we don't even though now have a language to talk about race in terms of history lesson that you told me points so you got to thank you i'm sorry i've got a year to get into the time is too short right i hope we have given you some food for thought what is a very very difficult matter a very difficult may treat excellent guests thank you all for being here you're here so i think you should see think you.

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i'm not laughing at them well i just sometimes found but i said nothing which is that i don't think the printer jemma culture of looking at the stereotype of quests that anyone thinks leaves the country behind on time. yes i mean it seems ridiculous grandma there you go yes it's all about ok. i'm rachel join me from the german sunday w. . post.

the body . this is d.w. news a live shot from berlin the united states struggles to contain a surge in coronavirus cases with several states reporting startling new numbers some leaders are tightening restrictions that have been rolled back also coming up on the show italy sees a fresh cluster of virus cases in an apartment complex in the country south.