{"id":114231,"date":"2020-06-02T16:59:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T14:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=114231"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:24:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:24:57","slug":"peaceful-but-serious-mood-at-black-lives-matter-rally-in-amsterdam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2020\/06\/02\/peaceful-but-serious-mood-at-black-lives-matter-rally-in-amsterdam\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Peaceful but serious mood\u2019 at Black Lives Matter rally in Amsterdam"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, thousands of protesters convened on Amsterdam\u2019s Dam Square to protest racism. The protests focused on institutional racism in both the United States and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHere in the Netherlands, too, we have seen racism on the part of the police \u2013 for instance Mitch Henriquez\u2019s death in The Hague and ethnic profiling. But the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration has recently been guilty of it too,\u201d says Wouter Sterrenburg, EM<\/em>\u2019s photographer at the scene.<\/p>\n

Nia Nikoladze, Melisa Esroy and several other members of the Erasmus School of Colour attended the protests as well. \u201cThis feels like a\u00a0tipping point,\u201d says Nia. \u201cWhen I see how the police in America hit back, I get tears in my eyes. And George Floyd is not the only one. There are hundreds of cases like his. We wanted to show our solidarity with the people taking to the streets in America, but we also wanted to show that these things happen in the Netherlands as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wouter says that the protesters\u2019 anger was not directed at the police officers who attended the rally. \u201cPeople were taking selfies with the cops.\u201d The photographer says the mood was \u2018peaceful but serious\u2019. Nia says the atmosphere was \u2018nice, albeit with an angry undertone, obviously\u2019. The uniformed police Nia saw only sprang into action to provide first aid when a person became unwell.<\/p>\n

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Melisa Ersoy of the Erasmus School of Colour raises a fist, as do other protesters.<\/p>\n

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Thousands of people took part in the protests on Dam Square, meaning social distancing rules were hard to comply with at some points.<\/p>\n

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This protester is wearing a face mask saying\u00a0\u2018I can\u2019t breathe\u2019, a reference to George Floyd\u2019s last words.<\/p>\n

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Two hours worth of speeches were given on the stage. One of the speakers was a transsexual man who told the crowd about an incident involving the police in Amsterdam\u2019s Vondel Park, where police officers commented on the colour of his skin.<\/p>\n

The protesters came in for a great deal of criticism in the media and on social media because they didn\u2019t always keep a five-foot distance from others. \u201cNo one had expected that many people to turn up. I thought that about a hundred people would show up,\u201d says Nia. \u201cThere were cross marks on the ground to help people observe the five-foot rule, but it was impossible to comply with the rules all the time. The great majority of people were wearing face masks, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point we\u2019ll have to learn how to have protest marches while observing social distancing rules, and no doubt we\u2019ll get it wrong sometimes. But it\u2019s important that we keep protesting racism, and that we\u2019re able to fight for minority rights.\u201d In order to minimise the risk of spreading the coronavirus, the Erasmus School of Colour students have agreed to minimise their social contacts to the best of their ability in the next two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\t

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Read more about the Erasmus School of Colour<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t