German soccer fans respond to comment about black player: ‘Be our neighbor’ [View all]
Source: Washington Post
May 29 at 1:35 PM
Soccer fans in Germany showed their support for Jerome Boateng, a black player on the national team and for Bayern Munich, by displaying signs saying “Jerome, be our neighbor” during a friendly match between Germany and Slovakia in Augsburg.
The emotional display came after Alexander Gauland, a top member of Germany’s anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland, told a newspaper that “People find him good as a footballer, but they don’t want to have a Boateng as their neighbor.”
The comments about Boateng, whose mother is German and whose father is from Ghana, drew immediate condemnation and apologies. Gauland, whose comment appeared in the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, denied making the comment and said in a statement (via The Guardian) “I don’t know him [Boateng] and would never come up with the idea of denigrating his personality.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/05/29/german-soccer-fans-respond-to-comment-about-black-player-be-our-neighbor/
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