{"id":118164,"date":"2020-10-05T10:58:37","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T08:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=118164"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:39:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:39:52","slug":"students-reminisce-about-racism-protest-hopeful-but-a-long-way-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2020\/10\/05\/students-reminisce-about-racism-protest-hopeful-but-a-long-way-to-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Students reminisce about racism protest: hopeful, but a long way to go"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday, it was exactly four months ago that there thousands protested in Rotterdam against police brutality and other forms of institutional racism. Protesters stood on and around the Erasmus Bridge on 3 June, 2020. Plenty of students were also amongst them. Three EUR students look back on that day.<\/p>\n

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Raquel saw a whole new generation at the protest<\/h2>
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Raquel and Beatrice<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRaquel Williams<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

\u201cStudent Raquel Williams (second-year International Bachelor Arts and Culture Studies student) recalls that she was impressed by how many people of her own age and even younger turned up. \u201cI love to skate at the skate park on the Westblaak. During the protest, I actually saw a lot of young skaters. A whole new generation were standing near the bridge that day. I\u2019ve never seen that before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raquel stood on the Leuvehoofd together with a mannequin named Beatrice. Beatrice is half white, half black and she has \u2018BLM\u2019 painted on her body, the abbreviation for Black Lives Matter. Raquel explains that she wanted to use this mannequin to show that racism is not just a problem of black people. \u201cIt\u2019s bizarre that people are treated differently because of the colour of their skin.\u201d This also affects her personally. \u201cI stood there for my mother. She\u2019s a woman of colour, I am white. She gave me my life, yet she has a voice that\u2019s hardly ever heard in society. I stood there for her and all those other unheard voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

More episodes of the podcast<\/h2>