Esken backs off police charges of racism
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Status: 6:57 p.m. | Reading time: 2 minutes
Esken – “Germany is not the USA, Nienburg is not Minneapolis”
– – The statement by SPD federal chair Saskia Esken about “latent racism in the ranks of the security forces” in Germany caused discussion. Now, after visiting a police academy in Lower Saxony, she spoke about the topic. – –
– After much headwind from their own party, SPD leader Saskia Esken relativized her accusation of racism against the police. With her new statements, Esken now joins her critic Boris Pistorius in terms of content. – – – DAfter her statements about latent racism among the police, the SPD federal president Saskia Esken emphasized that she did not want to put the police under general suspicion. “One thing is clear, police officers do not want racists in their ranks,” said Esken on Thursday after visiting the Lower Saxony Police Academy in Nienburg. The police are a professional group in which there should be no black sheep. Esken is sure that the majority of the police officers see it the same way. When it comes to racism and the police, the problem is not in the structure, but in individual cases. “Personally, I’ve only had positive police experiences in my entire life,” said Esken. But she also knows of people with dark skin tones who would have experienced something different, and so one has to ask where that comes from. “And I think we would do well to deal with it.” Esken had visited the police academy at the invitation of Lower Saxony’s interior minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) after her statements had caused excitement and contradiction from her own party. Esken had said in an interview: “In Germany, too, there is latent racism in the ranks of the security forces, which must be recognized and combated through measures by internal leadership.”Lambrecht: “Absolute majority” has “nothing to do with racism”
