Tag Archives: Racial Profiling

We call on the University of Frankfurt to take a stand on civil disobedience

Two days before Christmas, we received a reply from the Equal Opportunities Office of Goethe University Frankfurt am Main to our letter dated 18.12.2016. We are pleased about the clear words: distancing from AfD and the Junge Alternative; insight into worrying press work; acceptance of responsibility for the support of right-wing agitation; assessment of the satisfaction of the workshop participants and the quality of the content of the workshop; statement on the perception of the cooperation with glokal e.V.; and offer for a clarifying conversation, possibly with the university president.

However, we do not believe that the “real[] scandal” is “Young Alternative damaging work against racism and other forms of discrimination through false statements” in light of the dispute with the university and the Equality Office. What else could be expected from a right-wing group? It is therefore all the more the responsibility of a society-shaping institution such as the university to actively counteract a general shift to the right in politics, social groups and the sayable. Not to do so is the scandal.

In this regard, we fail to understand why the Equality Office cannot make a clear commitment to the need to exercise civil disobedience to racist practices such as racial profiling. And how does the university, which has established an Angela Davis Visiting Professorship in Gender and Diversity Studies, view this? Angela Davis, who sees herself as part of the Occupy movement and for whom lived resistance is the linchpin of her theory and practice, was “on the one hand surprised, but at the same time also concerned, during her stay in Frankfurt in 2013 on the occasion of the professorship named after her, how much the problems with racially motivated violence and discrimination, e.g. with regard to “racial profiling” […] are similar in the German and U.S. context” (http://www.cgc.uni-frankfurt.de/angeladavis-bericht.shtml). After the Cologne police – well aware that their actions are well received by current racist discourses – carried out mass racial profiling on New Year’s Eve 2016, thereby violating the Basic Law, it is all the more important to act decisively against institutional racism.

Insight and an apology to us as an association and to the speakers directly affected is necessary and good. However, Goethe University must go beyond the isolated dialogical moment and face up to its social responsibility. In this sense, we ask the university to take a position on the practice of civil disobedience in a post-colonial, post-national socialist country and to engage in a public debate about this.

The racist police selection on New Year’s Eve in Cologne must be followed by political consequences

In its press release of 10.01.2017, the Antirassistische Initiative e.V. strongly condemns the racist segregation of visitors to the Domplatte on New Year’s Eve and their denigration by the Cologne police and demands consequences for those responsible. Continue reading →

Statement of glokal e.V. on the incidents at the University of Frankfurt

Requested by the Equal Opportunities Office of Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, two speakers from our association glokal e.V. held a workshop on November 10, 2016 entitled “Racist? – Not me! Racism-critical sensitization in the university context”. One of the participants was Jonas B., who – as it turned out afterwards – is an assessor of the Young Alternatives (youth organization of the Alternative for Germany/AfD) in Hesse. Four weeks after the workshop, he wrote a youtube clip entitled “Experiences from the racism workshop” (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHSdSj-Vsc) and addressed the public with the Junge Alternative via press release
(Link: https://www.facebook.com/JainFrankfurt/photos/a.185144411899079.1073741828.154473238299530/240384756375044/?type=3&theater).
In it, our speakers are accused of having called for violence against police officers in the workshop.
Continue reading →

Repeated police violence against trans*of color – a press release from LesMigraS and GLADT.

On October 23, 2013, one of our employees was arrested together with three other protesters at a rally against police violence and arrests of activists of the refugee protest camp at Oranienplatz (Berlin-Kreuzberg). During the police custody, which lasted about an hour, the police officers behaved in a discriminatory and violent manner towards our colleague. In the process, his basic rights, which any state and executive authority is obligated to uphold according to the Basic Law, were strongly disregarded and violated. Continue reading →

Justice for Trayvon Martin

On February 26, 2012, Neighborhood Patrol Coordinator George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a black teenager. A few days ago, Zimmerman was acquitted of both murder and manslaughter charges by a Florida court. The ruling has sparked outrage and great incomprehension in the U.S. and around the world, reactivating a debate about racial profiling and institutional racism. The National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has launched a petition to the Department of Justice that has already been signed by over half a million people in just a few days. The petition can be supported here:

bell hooks anticipates a description by Zimmermann in her 2000 book, All about love:

“White supremacy has taught him that all people of color are threats irrespective of their behavior. Capitalism has taught him that, at all costs, his property can and must be protected. Patriarchy has taught him that his masculinity has to be proven by the willingness to conquer fear through aggression; that it would be unmanly to ask questions before taking action. Mass media then brings us the news of this in a newspeak manner that sounds almost jocular and celebratory, as though no tragedy has happened, as though the sacrifice of a young life was necessary to uphold property values and white patriarchal honor. Viewers are encouraged to feel sympathy for the white male home owner who made a mistake.”

In Germany, the Initiative of Black People in Germany (ISD) and the Campaign for Victims of Racist Police Violence (KOP) have currently launched a campaign appeal “Racial Profiling Costs.” All people who experience or observe racial profiling are encouraged to raise their voices. A form for a letter to the Federal Police Headquarters in Koblenz can be found here.