My mother with her half-African background was Albertslund’s very first non-Western immigrant, and that bloodline has been diluted once again with me. So it was a pretty easy choice to make when I heard about the Black Lives Matter march in Copenhagen on June 7th.
But even though I support the cause – and am completely against racism and racial discrimination, and am both angry and indignant about, among other things, police violence against black people in the United States – I will stay home next time there is a demonstration.
Selection of pages
Those who have both black and white parents or grandparents – the results of often complex bridging between races and cultures – often become homeless and alienated in the racial division that the organizers of the BLM march insisted on, with black participants being asked to take the lead and white people in the back.
Can my mother – half black, half white – lead the demonstration? Or can I, someone who has been diluted once more – and what if I take my children with me. They hardly reject the ‘average Dane’ in terms of appearance? Where does my family fit in with this demonstration? The answer is nowhere, and that is exactly why we will stay home next time, even though we support the cause.
‘Well-meaning’ division?
Many of my ethnic Danish friends came to the same conclusion, and I understand them. It is difficult to protest for equal rights and equal treatment or against racial discrimination if you do not feel like being welcomed, or seen and heard as an equality, or if you even feel that you are being discriminated against.
This ‘well-meaning’ racial division is thus alienating to both us, the ‘mixed products’ (I myself use the term ‘nougat Danes’) and to the ethnic Danes who sympathize with the case. And by the way, these Danes’ anger and rage over police violence in the United States is as real and heartfelt as mine or Bwalya Sรธrensen’s, spokeswoman for Black Lives Matter.
Listen to Hรธrup
In the 1880s, Radical founder Viggo Hรธrup claimed that people in a democracy should be divided according to their views and opinions. This point is as valid today as it was then, and it also applies to the protests that are now, as before, part of the political debate.
The idea of โโdividing people by their race leads us in a dangerous direction, no matter which side pushes this agenda. Some dig trenches, and others build bridges – extremists on every wing belong to the former category.
Source: The Nordic Page