Skip to content

"White Danes must actively distance themselves from racism," says Senior Fellow Mary Consolata Namagambe

Details

Article

In an interview published by Weekendavisen, Senior Fellow Mary Consolata Namagambe explains that white Danes should be better at saying actively no to racism in their everyday life:

“After living in Denmark for 22 years, I have been put in situations where everybody around me knew what was happening was racist, however nobody did anything to stop it. They waited for my reaction, for me to stop the violence. This is similar to seeing violence in a public space and just turning the blind eye to it without interference. This is how I believe it is here in Denmark and that is what I want to change. As a white Dane you should no longer just interpret the violence, but also actively say no to it and show that the behavior is unacceptable. Many white Danes have the interpretation that racist are only folks you see on TV. That racists are defined as members of the Ku Klux Klan or something similar. Folks who are generally nice people and “didn’t mean to offend anybody with their comments” cannot be considered racists. That is the description that we need to get rid of. And then we also have to get rid of the term hyggeracisme (cosy-racism). Cosy and racism should not be associated with each other. Racism is not cosy.”

You can read the whole article here (in Danish). Mary will also be speaking at the 2020 Copenhagen Fellowship in August.