WALKING ON RACISM
UP to 500 people marched through the streets of Dingle on Monday in an anti racism demonstration organised and led by Walking on Cars frontman Pa Sheehy who felt compelled to support the wave of worldwide protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minnesota on May 25.
Participants in the demonstration assembled in socially distanced lines in the Marina car park where Pa addressed them briefly, denouncing racism worldwide and warning that even though racism is not a visible issue in West Kerry it exists nonetheless in less obvious ways
“This march is about showing the people who are constantly discriminated against, brutalised and murdered because of the colour of their skin that ‘we see you, we hear you and we are with you’,” he told the demonstrators.
“The easiest thing that we could do today is stay at home and watch the rest of the world fight racism. We see it on the news, on our phones and it’s easy to disconnect from it and feel like it’s not really here. The truth is that it is here, maybe not as obvious as we see in other parts of the world but it’s here,” he added.
“Racism is a global problem and it calls for a global response. Martin Luther King said: ‘ In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends’. And we are not going to be silent today.”
With demonstrators chanting anti-racist slogans in Irish and English, the march proceeded from the Marina to the Holy Stone and back via the relief road and the Mall.
Following the march Pa told The Kerryman that he organised the demonstration because he felt compelled to join the worldwide wave of anti-racism protests after watching a video clip of George Floyd being killed by Minneapolis police.
“It moved me. I felt compelled to do something [and], with the guidance of people around me, I decided to do a march in town. There was a great turnout – the young people of Dingle are very tuned in and they turned up today,” he said.