2014 German soccer world champion Jérôme Boateng says it would be "desirable" for more famous white athletes to join in the tributes to George Floyd, sending a signal against racism. "Our voices carry, we have a platform and we reach many people," said the 31-year-old defender from Bayern Munich, whose father is a Ghanaian, said Thursday in an interview with Deutsche Welle radio.
"I think we can do a lot more"
"All the white athletes who are not currently speaking are not racists, obviously," he said, "but of course it is desirable that they also use their notoriety for this cause. Many do, but I believe that 'there is much more we can do. "
Many athletes, the majority black, have already joined the tributes to George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, who died on May 25 in Minneapolis in the United States, repeating "I can't breathe" ( "I can't breathe"), while he was kept on the ground under the knee of a white policeman whose colleagues remained passive.
"In schools too"
For Jérôme Boateng, it is important to go further than a simple message on social networks: "We must also take matters into our own hands, whether in the form of work with children, or in integration projects Anyone can help. "
"It always depends on the parents, and what they pass on to their children. In the schools too, the issue of racism must be integrated into the curricula. This is only how we will move forward," he adds. -he.
The ex-international, who said he had suffered from racism on the ground since his childhood, had been the target in 2016 of a statement by a far-right leader, Alexander Gauland, who had affirmed that "people appreciate as a footballer but would not like to have him as a neighbor. " Chancellor Angela Merkel then publicly supported Boateng.