At the Best Kept Secret Festival in the Netherlands last month, Straat asked “all white men” to step back so that a mosh pit could be reserved for women, queer people and people of color.
She repeated the same call this week during her performance at the Ghent Festival (Gentse Feesten) in Belgium, again asking white men to move aside to create a temporary mosh pit for those groups. She also urged the audience to “put yourselves in other people’s shoes more often,” saying the aim was to create space for people who often feel excluded or unsafe in mosh pits.
The remarks triggered hundreds of complaints in the Netherlands and nearly 200 complaints in Belgium, with critics arguing that the comments targeted people on the basis of race and sex. Belgium’s anti-discrimination body Unia and the Dutch discrimination reporting center concluded they would not pursue the matter, saying there was no evidence that white men were actually excluded from the concerts and that the remarks were made in the context of an artistic and political performance.
Meanwhile, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service is reviewing multiple criminal complaints over Straat’s remarks at Best Kept Secret and has said it has not yet determined whether any criminal offense was committed.