Racism in Denmark
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Racism in Denmark commonly targets
immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
, particularly non-white or non-Western immigrants, as well as Black people, Romani people, and Inuit people. Jewish people and Muslims experience antisemitism and Islamophobia in Denmark. Anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in Denmark is tied to the centuries long history of the Danish slave trade and Danish colonialism in the Americas and Africa. Black Caribbean people, West Africans, Inuit people, and Sámi people in particular have been negatively affected by colonial Dano-Norwegian rule in the Danish West Indies, Ghana, Greenland, and the Sápmi region in northern Norway. Anti-racist and anti-colonial activists believe that Denmark and other Nordic countries have a " colonial amnesia" that results in many Danish people believing that Denmark is free from racism and had little involvement in European colonialism.


Anti-Indigenous racism


Anti-Inuit racism

Populated by Indigenous Inuit people, Greenland was colonized by Denmark. Greenland was a colony of Denmark until 1953, but is now an autonomous region of the
Danish Realm The Danish Realm ( da, Danmarks Rige; fo, Danmarkar Ríki; kl, Danmarkip Naalagaaffik), officially the Kingdom of Denmark (; ; ), is a sovereign state located in Northern Europe and Northern North America. It consists of metropolitan Denma ...
. In 1951, the Danish government conducted what is known as the
Little Danes experiment The little Danes experiment, also known simply as "the experiment", was a 1951 Denmark, Danish operation where 22 Greenlandic Inuit children ("experiment children") were sent to Danish foster families in an attempt to re-educate them as "little Da ...
. 22 Inuit children from Greenland were separated from the parents and taken to Denmark to be given to foster parents as raised as "little Danes" instead of raised with Inuit culture. Several of the children never saw their biological families again. Six of the children, now adults, have demanded compensation from the Danish government for their suffering. The Danish ice cream brand Hansens Is once sold products that were called "Eskimo" and "Kaempe Eskimo" (Giant Eskimo). Many Greenlandic Inuit people in Denmark consider the term "Eskimo" to be outdated or offensive. The company changed the name in 2020 following the global
George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...
.


Anti-Sámi racism

Although Sámi people are not Indigenous to contemporary Denmark, they are Indigenous to parts of northern Norway in the Sápmi region that were once part of
Denmark–Norway Denmark–Norway (Danish and Norwegian: ) was an early modern multi-national and multi-lingual real unionFeldbæk 1998:11 consisting of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Norway (including the then Norwegian overseas possessions: the Faroe I ...
. The Dano-Norwegian government colonized Sámi land and encouraged settlers to move to Sápmi. Sámi activists have requested that a sacred drum that was confiscated by the Danish government after a 1691 witchcraft trial be granted Sámi ownership, campaigning for four decades. The sacred drum was owned by the Danish royal family before being given to the National Museum of Denmark, which had then loaned the drum to the Sámi Museum in Karasjok,
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
. Sámi activists wanted the drum to be given formal ownership by the museum. In 2022, after three centuries, the drum was granted permanent ownership by the Sámi Museum where it is displayed.


Anti-Romani racism

Between the 1920s and the 1960s, Denmark as well as Sweden and Norway conducted
coercive sterilization Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
of
Romani people The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sig ...
who were considered "undesirables" by Scandinavian governments.


Antisemitism


Islamophobia


Nazism

Several neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations exist in Denmark, including the Danish branch of the Nordic Resistance Movement, the Danish Front, and the
Party of the Danes The Party of the Danes (sometimes translated the Danes' Party) ( da, Danskernes Parti) was a political party in Denmark. The party described itself as nationalist and ethnopluralist. Many experts and analysts have classified the Party of the Da ...
. The goal of the Nordic Resistance Movement is to create a racist, pan-Nordic, and ethnically homogeneous state where immigrants, Jews, and Muslims will be deported.


Slavery and colonialism

The Danish slave trade began in 1733 and was formally abolished under law in 1792, but slavery persisted in practice until 1848. In 2017, the Danish government formally apologized to the Ghanaian government for the Danish colonial presence in West Africa. The Danish Gold Coast was located in what is now
Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
between 1658 and 1850. In 2018, Denmark's first statue of a Black woman was erected in
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
. The statue is of Mary Thomas, a labor leader from the Danish West Indies who helped lead the
1878 St. Croix labor riot The 1878 St. Croix labor riot, locally also known as Fireburn, was a labor riot on Saint Croix, one of the Virgin Islands, then part of the Danish West Indies. The revolt started on October 1, 1878 and was suppressed after several days of looting an ...
. Caribbean activists in the
United States Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...
(formally the Danish West Indies) have campaigned for the Danish government to give
reparations Reparation(s) may refer to: Christianity * Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for reparation * Acts of reparation, prayers for repairing the damages of sin History *War reparations **World War I reparations, made from G ...
due to the history of the Danish slave trade and the Danish colonization of the Virgin Islands. Because the Danish West Indies was sold to the United States, there has been little immigration from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Denmark. While "colonial amnesia" has caused many Danish people to forget about the history of the Danish West Indies, U.S. Virgin Islanders are very aware of the Danish colonial legacy due to daily reminders in art, architecture, and placenames. Since 2020, following the global
George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...
, Danish awareness of Danish colonial history has increased. The city of Copenhagen has begun to consider renaming streets after enslaved people who rebelled against slavery. Many food brands that are sold in Danish supermarkets have used African and Asian caricatures to sell their products. In some grocery stores, the section where these products are found is called "kolonial". In 2021, the Törsleffs corporation removed the image of a turban-wearing Sri Lankan man from their vanilla products and removed the image of a Chinese chef from their preserved jams. The Danish branch of
Haribo Haribo ( ) is a German confectionery company founded by Hans Riegel Sr.. It began in Kessenich, Bonn, Germany. The name "Haribo" is a syllabic abbreviation formed from Hans Riegel Bonn. The company created the first gummy candy in 1960 in the for ...
redesigned their Skipper Mix licorice product after it was called racist by consumers because the candies were in the shape of African tribal masks and faces.


See also

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Danish colonization of the Americas Denmark and the former real union of Denmark–Norway had a colonial empire from the 17th through the 20th centuries, large portions of which were found in the Americas. Denmark and Norway in one form or another also maintained land claims in Gre ...
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Danish overseas colonies , conventional_long_name = Danish overseas colonies , status = Empire , status_text = , life_span = 1536–1953 (Denmark)1536–1814 (Norway) , government_type = Constitutional monarchy , even ...
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Danish slave trade The Danish-Norwegian slave trade commenced in 1733 and ended in 1807 when the abolition of slaves was announced. The location of the slave trade primarily occurred in the Danish West Indies ( Saint Thomas, Saint Croix, and Saint John) where sla ...
* Danish West Indies *
Nordicism Nordicism is an ideology of racism which views the historical race concept of the "Nordic race" as an endangered and superior racial group. Some notable and seminal Nordicist works include Madison Grant's book ''The Passing of the Great Race'' ...
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Racism in Norway Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
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Scandinavian colonialism Scandinavian colonialism is a subdivision within broader colonial studies that discusses the role of Scandinavian nations in achieving economic benefits from outside of their own cultural sphere. The field ranges from studying the Sami in relation ...


References

{{Europe topic, Racism in