Vigil for George Floyd
By Simone Höhl
Sat, June 06, 2020 at 1:45 p.m.
Freiburg
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Black Lives Matter: Up to 10,000 people commemorate George Floyd – and other victims of police violence – at a vigil in Freiburg’s city center, including in Germany.
The square of the old synagogue in Freiburg’s city center is full. When the vigil begins to commemorate the killed American George Floyd early Saturday afternoon, the police estimate that around 5,000 people have gathered. And more and more are coming. At the top there are 10,000.
“I can’t breathe” und “White Silence is Violence”
Many people wear black and hold up self-painted signs. “Black lives matter” is written on one of the posters of an older woman: “Freiburg – no place for racism”. Three young women write the sentence “I can’t breathe” on cardboard. Black George Floyd had said he couldn’t breathe when he was lying on the floor and a white policeman pressed his knee to his neck. The sentence is chanted in many protests in the USA. There will also be demonstrations in several German cities on Saturday.
“If you’re looking for racism, you don’t have to look so far across the pond.” Demo participants
“It is a privilege,” says a spokeswoman for the opportunity to speak freely, but at the same time reminds of injustice. “If you’re looking for racism, you don’t have to look so far across the pond,” says a young man. And a 29-year-old from The Gambia finally asked everyone to think for a minute and kneel down. When the whole place gets up again, there is applause. “I have had experiences with racism,” continues Baboucarr Boye at the microphone and reports from Bulgaria. But he also tells how passers-by approached him twice in Freiburg and said that he should go back to his country.
Blacks are seen as threatening just because of their skin color, Boye says, and encourages people not to leave everyday racism uncommented, but to approach people and seek contact with other cultures: “Skin color doesn’t matter – because we all breathe.”
The university’s anti-discrimination department, the groups “Our Voice” and “Here and Black” and the university BIPoC group (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) had called for the vigil in Freiburg. Many participants wear face masks. At the request of the organizers to keep a distance from each other, the crowd on the square moves apart.
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