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Queen General Ekat! <3
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Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 66,475
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Queen General Ekat! <3
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 66,475
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NL: football pundit Johan Derksen causes outrage with racist remarks
https://nltimes.nl/2024/04/10/footba...racist-remarks
Quote:
Johan Derksen has once again caused an uproar with racist statements on Voetbal Inside. In a response to an interview by Black parliamentarian Habtamu de Hoop about preserving the Frisian language, Derksen laughingly said: “He’s not Frisian, come on.” And: “I’m not Surinamese, am I?” The statements are likely not punishable, but he pushes the limits of the law, experts told RTL Nieuws.
GroenLinks-PvdA parliament De Hoop was born in Ethiopia and adopted by a Frisian couple when he was 8 months old. He grew up in Wommels. He spoke about preserving the Frisian language in an interview with SBS on Tuesday. “People who are trained bilingually can even speak Dutch better,” De Hoop said in a piece about Friesland receiving 18 million euros to encourage the use of Frisian. “It also helps with the use of the Dutch language. We can do so many wonderful things with it.”
On Voetbal Inside on Tuesday evening, Derksen responded to the interview, saying that De Hoop shouldn’t be talking like that. “Someone who was born in Friesland has the right to talk about it like that.” Presenter Wilfred Genee pointed out that De Hoop has Frisian parents. Derksen said: “Yes, but he is not Frisian, is he? Come on.” Genee laughingly responded, “He speaks it really well.” - a commonly used microaggression against people of color.
De Hoop responded to the remarks on the football show on X. “I grew up in Friesland as a child of two Frisian parents. I grew up playing handball and skating and the less fun things that come with life on the farm. I entered politics because I wanted to give other young people opportunities. Actually, I don’t have much time or interest in this nonsense.”
“Don’t let anyone tell you who you are or where you belong. No one, never. I am Frisian and I am proud of it,” De Hoop said.
His colleagues expressed support for him. “Shameless,” said outgoing Minister Hugo de Jonge of Home Affairs. “The end of everyday racism that too many people face every day.”
“Away with the everyday racism of Vandaag Inside,” said former PvdA leader Lodewijk Asscher. Current GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans added: “Stop this racism and just treat others with respect.”
Derksen told AD that his statements had “nothing to do with racism” and blamed society for being too woke. “No matter what you say these days, there is always racism, or anti-Semitism, or homophobia. You still have one on Dutch TV who says what he thinks about it, and then he is an idiot. What are people concerned about? But I am always very easy about it: I am not interested in anything, and I accept all consequences.”
So far, Derksen’s multiple racist, misogynistic, and homophobic “jokes” and comments have had little consequence. In 2020, Veronica Inside got its last episode scrapped after Derksen made a “joke” about anti-racism activist Akwasi and blackface Sinterklaas character Zwarte Piet, but the program was picked up for a new season a month later. In 2022, Derksen resigned from Vandaag Inside with great fanfare after his joking confession about sexually assaulting an intoxicated woman at a party caused an uproar. But he was back at that job less than two weeks later.
This latest bout of racism will likely not have any repercussions either. Criminal lawyer Anis Boumanjal told RTL Nieuws that the statements were “downright insulting” but probably not punishable. “It is a borderline case, but I think you can also include this in the criminal law framework. It is an insult, and the discriminatory character makes it aggravating. What is certain is that this is morally reprehensible in any case.”
Boumanjal thinks criminal law should intervene more in incidents like this. “But I can imagine that you, like De Hoop, think: I’ll leave it. Reporting it and getting angry about it is often a punishment for yourself for someone else’s misdeeds. This is not an extreme excess, but again: it is downright an insult by a pedantic man who wants to shout himself out of his insecurity again.”
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Habtamu De Hoop

Johan Derksen
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