Straight Guys Kissing Is Officially Our Favorite Way to Protest Nazis
This post is also available in: ไทย
This Monday, the German city of Chemnitz put on a gigantic concert in protest of a week of neo-Nazi rallies. Though organizers expected 30,000 people to show up, they got double that. And that huge crowd got to see two straight guys kissing onstage as a protest against the far-right.
Benjamin Griffey, better known as the rapper Casper, and Felix Brummer of the local band KraftKlub kissed on stage at the free open-air concert. From the stage, Casper said, “I refuse, even in the darkest times, to think that the world is only full of hatred. The fact that so many have gathered here is for me the proof that the world can also be colorful and wonderful.”
The concert was in response to a week of far-right protests. Those protests were after a German-Cuban man was allegedly stabbed to death by two immigrants — similar to the Mollie Tibbetts story in the United States, where anti-immigration activists are trying to control the narrative to support their views, against the wishes of Tibbetts herself and her family.
Concertgoers chanted “Nazis out” at the show and carried anti-racist signs. Bands performed in front of a banner reading “#WirSindMehr,” or “We are more,” a riff on the neo-Nazi slogan #WirSindDasVolk, or “We are the people.” According to organizers, the concert was to show “there is no place in Chemnitz for Nazis.”
One of the straight guys kissing, Brummer, also said, “We’re not naive. We’re not under the illusion that you hold a concert and then the world is saved,” he added. “But sometimes it’s important to show that you’re not alone.”
The concert was headlined by Die Toten Hosen, one of Germany’s biggest rock bands. Campino, the lead singer, said of the concert, “This is not about the fight between right and left, it’s about basic decency.”
