BGCSNJ Convention 2011 Report

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First Annual Convention ReportBlack German Cultural Society NJBy Priscilla Layne and S. Marina Jones

The First Annual BlackGerman Cultural Society, NJConvention was an importantopportunity for scholars, students,and individuals personal lyaffected by Afrogerman historyand culture, from both sides ofthe Atlantic, to come together.Participants included numerousmembers of the Afrogermancommunity, many of whom arethemselves scholars, authors,filmmakers, and activists.

UWE SPIEKERMANN,Deputy Director of the GermanHistorical Institute, and PIABUNGARTEN, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Representative to

the U.S. and Canada, welcomedparticipants to the pre-conferenceprogram on Thursday evening, ascreening of the documentaryfilm Roots Germania (2007)d i r e c t e d b y A f r o g e r m a nfilmmaker MO ASUMANG,fo l lowed by a l ec ture byASUMANG herself and a Q&Asession. In Roots, Germania,ASUMANG traces her Germanand African roots and interrogatesnotions of German identity andbelonging.

HARTMUT BERGHOFF,D i r e c t o r o f t h e G e r m a nHistorical Institute, introducedthe first session the next evening,

in which DAVID ROWLAND, aboard member of the HumanitieCouncil of Washington, D.C.presented the Champion of theHumanities Award to HANS JMASSAQUOI, JR., on behalf oh i s f a t h e r , H A N S JMASSAQUOI, SR. The awardhonored HANS J. MASSAQUOISR. for his lifetime achievementsincluding working as the editor oEbony magazine for thirty yearand writing a seminal novel abougrowing up Black during NazGermany, Destined to Witness.

NOAH SOW then deliveredthe keynote, Geteilte GeschichteThe B lack Exp er ie nce in

German Historical

Insititute DC1607 New Hampshire

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Germany and the US, in which she reflected on the tiesbetween Afrogermans who were displaced and sent to live inthe U.S. via transnational adoptions and the Afrogermans whoremained but were internally displaced that is, they feltthey did not belong to the German community. SOW stressedthe sense of loss younger Afrogermans feel from the oldergenerations absence: they could have served as role models andhelped confirm that Afrogerman history goes way back.

Presentations then began on Saturday August 20th withthe panel discussion Black Experiences before WWII. BothWILLIAM STRICKLAND and ALMICAR SHABAZZfocused on W. E. B. DuBoiss fascination with Germany and hisexperiences there as a student of Humboldt University inBerlin from 1892 to 1894. STRICKLANDS paper unearthedevidence of Du Boiss growing interest in Germany and respect

for Bismarcks successful unification of the nation in his work atFisk University. Intrigued by German immigrants to the Southwho were not supportive of the discriminatory laws towardsAfrican Americans, DuBois believed Germans treated AfricanAmericans like human beings and judged them by theircharacter and not their race. Seeking a higher degree fromGermanys renowned universities, DuBois appealed to Germanstatesmen for support, believing that he could prove Negroesequal standing to white men with his academic achievements.Reflecting on DuBoiss middle-class dress, education, andmastery of the German language, SHABAZZ suggested thesecharacteristics may have helped him integrate into Germansociety so well. SHABAZZS presentation included an

introduction to Credo, an online repository launched in July2011 that features published and unpublished texts written byand about W. E. B. DuBois (http://credo.library.umass.edu/).The panel concluded with DAN LEES discussion of the limitsof comparing Jim Crow segregation to the policiesimplemented in the German Empires African colonies in thenineteenth century. While whites in both situations useddeveloping legal means to legalize racial discrimination, thepurpose of such discrimination laws was different in the twocountries. In German South-West Africa, they were introducedto control white mens sexual relations with Black women,whereas Jim Crow laws sought to secure the gender and racial

superiority of white men.

The second panel carried forth the topic of BlackExperiences before WWII.. Continuing with LEES discussionof Germanys African colonies, JAMES K. BLACKWELLaddressed the construction of Blackness in Friedrich MeistersMuherero riKarera (Herero Watch Out, 1904), a childrenscolonial novel. BLACKWELL interpreted the novel as atraining guide intended to prepare German children toconquer their fears by learning to dominate the Black man.Meisters practice of associating Black men with evil, darkness,

danger, and barbarism helped plant the seeds of racism inchildren early on. ROBERT WESLEY MUNRO thenconsidered the overwhelmingly positive accounts of Germanyrelayed by African American intellectuals who visited duringthe nineteenth and early twentieth century. MUNROinvestigated whether these lesser-known Black intellectualactually encountered no racism or whether they simply failed toperceive it in their accounts. MUNRO concluded thaGermany was perhaps more welcoming of African Americanbecause those present were often middle-class, entertainers ostudents, and transient, so that their presence would not altethe physical appearance of Germany nor challenge thassumption that Germany was inherently white.

In the afternoon, there were two panels on Race andGender in Postwar Germany focusing on the significance o

intersectionality for the experiences of Black Germans andAfrican Americans. S. MARINA JONES examinedAfro(americano)philia, which found its strongest expression in1960s and 1970s West Germany and whether it extended toAfrogermans. While the West German student movemenembraced Blackness and sought to align itself with the AfricanAmerican Civil Rights struggle and Black liberation movementin general, this Afro(americano)philia did not translate intoan increased acceptance of domestic blackness.

Like ROBERT WESLEY MUNRO, KIRA THURMANraised the concern that many issues pertaining to the culturatransfer between African Americans and Germans remain

unexplored. While she acknowledged the wealth of researchthat has addressed the reception of Black popular culture inGermany, THURMAN specifically looked at representations oBlack female artists who participate in high culture, i.eopera and classical music. Examining the discourse aroundAfrican American opera singers like Camilla Williams andLeontyne Price who performed in Vienna in the 1950sTHURMAN found that their negative or positive receptiondepended on whether the role they played was consideredappropriate for a Black woman.

The panel closed with TIFFANY FLORVILs paper A

Covenant on Women-Bonding: Kinship, Friendship andBelonging, which focused on the emergence of anAfrogerman movement in the 1980s and female bonding as anessential aspect thereof. Afrogerman women, inspired by thAfrican American feminist poet and writer Audre Lordeestablished an Afrogerman movement by bonding and forginga sense of shared identity, belonging, and community they hadnever before experienced.

The second afternoon panel began with PEGGYPIESCHEs paper Without the Masters Tool: Audre Lorde


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Black Internationalism and Black German Feminists

A Transnational Shift of Diaspora. PIESCHE

stressed the importance of African Americanwomen getting beyond an American-centered way ofthinking and to looking beyond their borders to seewhat they could learn from their sisters abroad inLordes perspective. Lorde coined the termconnected differences to demonstrate that, despitethe common experiences women of the Africandiaspora share globally, there are also relevant localdifferences and histories that cannot be ignored.

NKECHI MADUBUKOS paper, TheImportance of Race in the German Labor Market:Acculturative Stress of/in Afrogermans, presented

some results of the research she did for herdissertation. MADUBUKO interviewed two groups,Afrogermans and people of European descent(Turkish, Italian, Spanish). All of her intervieweeswere highly qualified with university degrees, thuscountering the assumption that people in Germanywith a background of migration were generallyuneducated and could not easily integrate into theGerman labor market or society at large. Based onher interviews, MADUBUKO created a typology foracculturation stress and found that its causes wereoften white German prejudices towards foreignersbut especially towards Africans, the preferential

treatment of white German employees over

employees with an African migration background

and the lack of an ethnic network or relatives whocould provide support.

In the next panel on Transatlantic Adoption,YARA-COLETTE LEMKE MUNIZ DE FARIApresented some results of her empirical study of 188transatlantic adoptions that took place from 1945 to1960. Specifically, she reflected on the irony inherenin scholars having general access to such files whilthe subjects they study do not. She stressed thimportance of scholars sharing their research andmaking it more accessible to the community, so thait can benefit both parties.

Connected to YARA-COLETTE LEMKEMUNIZ DE FARIAS call for more research and foaccess ibi l i ty to research s tudies , SILKEHACKENESCHS and NADINE GOLLYSpresentations focused on the adoptees fate in theU.S. and Denmark. The panel thus illustrated thlacunae in scholarship on the so-called brown babieand with them the need for scholars to addresadoptions of Afrogerman children by citizens oother countries and look into whether there werealso adoption campaigns for brown babies born in

Japan, Korea, or Italy.

Geteilte Geschichte: The Black

Experience in Germany and the US


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In cooperation with

the Humanities

Council of

Washington, DC,

the convention

featured an award

ceremony for

HansJ.Massaquoi,who was given the

Champion of the

Humanities Award

in honor of his

lifetimeachievements

as an author,

journalist, and

cultural

ambassador.

Accepting the award

at the convention on

behalf of

Mr. Massaquoi was

his son,

Hans J. Massaquoi Jr.
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The second conference day beganwith a panel on Civil Rights inTransatlantic Perspective. REBECCABRCKMANN examined Germansreactions to the desegregation crisis inLittle Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, whichranged from condemnat ions of segregation that appealed to Christianityor moral grounds to articles that mocked

African American leaders and lettersthat supported governor Orval Faubussactions. BRCKMANN emphasizedthat a degree of paternalism, racistundertones, and the fai lure toacknowledge the voice and agency ofBlack people characterized even theGerman comments that supporteddesegregation and Blacks constitutionalrights.

Both PRISCILLA LAYNE andKIMBERLY SINGLETARY addressed

a German fetishism of AfricanAmericans that is closely tied to the Soulculture of the 1960s and 1970s. LAYNEdid a close reading of the portrayal ofBlack men in Lothar Lamberts film 1Berlin Harlem (1975), which follows thetribulations of an African American GIwho decides to stay in Berlin after he isdischarged from the army. She arguedthat, although the film itself is guilty ofracial fetishism to a certain degree, it isalso critical of Germans fascination with

Blacks and Black culture and their failureto recognize their own white privilege.SINGLETARY analyzed instances in theGerman media where African Americanwomen are hypersexualized and markedby a retro aesthetic of the 60s and 70s.SINGLETARY argued that thistransforms them into objects to becollected and devoured, and that theirconfinement to a specific time makesthem both safe to consume andincapable of change.

During the convention, participantshad the opportunity to hear theexperiences of Afrogermans born inGermany and raised in the U.S. as well aslearn about Afrogerman lives in

Germany. While the keynote addressedthe latter part, the second panel onSunday, Sharing Our Stories, gave rareinsight into personal histories ofAfrogermans who came to the U.S. at anearly age. DEBRA TANNER-ABELLrelayed her truly transnational familynarrative as well as pictures of herparents and siblings and their lives inboth Germany and the U.S. in aslideshow. VERA INGRID GRANTthen presented a fictionalized version ofher transnational experiences in anexcerpt of a novel she is currently writingentitled Paper Girl: A Novel, in which ayoung girl explores her past while writingan imaginary story of papermaking. BothTANNER-ABELLS and GRANTSstories demonstrated the need forpersonal accounts of and insights into thehistories of Afrogermans born afterWorld War II.

In the next presentation, TheAfrican Identity in Germany Today,ADETOUN KPPERS-ADEBISIargued that there are three identities inGermany: mainstream (= originalGermans ) , minor i ty (= Turk i sh

community), and marginalized (= BlackGermans, for example). According toKPPERS-ADEBISI , Turks areaccepted as a minority in Germany andwere awarded a prize by ENAR(European Network Against Racism) forreferring to themselves as People oColor (POC). But in doing so, theyrendered the marginalized identity oAfrogermans invisible as it became

subsumed by the minority identityespecially since members of the AfricanDiaspora in Germanyboth with andwithout German citizenshipare noofficially recognized as a minorityNumerous publications and webinitiatives by African migrants attempt toprovide more in-depth information abouthe African continent in general and lifein Germany in particular.

However, the term Afrogerman itoo narrowly defined because it does no

include African migrants. In her view, theterm Afropean better reflects theidentity of African migrants in Europe.

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This event is evidence that

the Schwarze Deutsche

Bewegung (Black German

Movement) continues and I

am certain that this is only

the first of many

conventions.Remarks ofThe Honorable Congressman

Alcee L. Hastings

Ranking Member, Helsinki

Commission Delivered by Dr. Mischa

Thompson

COVER IMAGE

On Friday, August 19, 2011, on the invitation ofDr. Mischa Thompson of the U.S. HelsinkiCommission, a delegation of Black Germansmet on Capitol Hill to discuss issues of concernto Black Germans.
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Closing the panel, CLAUDIA SEELE presented the resultsof her M.A. thesis, Young Childrens Ethnifying Practices: AnEthnographic Research in a Daycare Center in Berlin. Thefour- to six-year-old children interviewed were born and raisedin Germany, yet most of them would be regarded as migrantchildren or children with a background of migration in thedominant discourse in German society. SEELE argued thatthese children thus come to function as the Other in theconstruction of a normative understanding of Germanchildren. Family origins, language, and physical appearanceact as important criteria in this practice of ethnifying children.She averred that ethnicity is not a pre-determined fact butpractically accomplished and negotiated in childrens socialinteractions.

The conference concluded with a panel on Organizing

Ourselves, in which several participants shared how they havehelped bring German Studies to more African Americanstudents and helped raise issues pertaining to people of colorwithin German Studies. CLAUDIA BECKER relayed howGerman studies has thrived at her home institution, thehistorically black college North Carolina Central University inDurham, beginning with its founding in the 1940s by German-Jewish migr Dr. Ernst Menasse. Over the past four years, theGerman Program, which attracts majors from History,Sociology, Psychology, and Criminal Justice, saw an increase instudent enrollment in the basic German language classes ofmore than 200 percent. This success is largely thanks to theefforts of BECKER, who, in 2011, became the first tenured full

professor of German at NCCU and strives to keep thecurriculum aligned with students needs.

The panel closed with BECKER, LEROY HOPKINS,and JANICE MITCHELL introducing the committee Allelernen Deutsch. Alle lernen Deutsch is an arm of theAmerican Association of Teachers of German (AATG) andseeks, among other things, to increase the number of AfricanAmerican students taking German, encourage these students tostudy abroad, and provide them with more curricula thataddress the Afrogerman experience. Among the committeesaccomplishments, Alle lernen Deutsch established a 3-year

grant seminar in Berlin that was open to twenty high schooland university educators seeking to improve their interculturalcompetence in order to teach German language and culturecourses that better acknowledge Afro-Europeans and otherminorities often marginalized in German courses.MITCHELL, HOPKINS, and BECKER stressed theinterdisciplinary nature of their efforts and the need for moreoutreach across the Atlantic, including sharing scholarly work,personal stories, and strategies for dealing with racist attitudes.

Well attended, the conference boasted renowned scholarin the fields of Afrogerman and African American culture andhistory and several artists, journalists, and local residents, somof whom were Afrogermans or had served in the US Army inGermany. The wide range of participants, activities, andsubjects addressed reflected the goal of bridging the gapbetween scholarly work about the Afrogerman community andactivism and personal experience within it. The livelydiscussions sparked throughout the weekend testify to theimportance of such transnational and interdisciplinary inquiryand the continuing need for further investigations intoAfrogermans rich history and the impact the Afrogermancommunity has had on both sides of the Atlantic.


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I am happy to be here today and very proud to be a part ofthis historic event. I will speak about our geteilte Geschichte.

The German word geteilt has different meanings, some ofwhich are actually opposites. Geteilt means shared and at thesame time it also means divided, separated. The wordGeschichte means history.

Geteilte Geschichte. There couldn't be a better term tosum up how and why we wound up here together, why thiscongress is taking place, and why I love the German language.It is our geteilte Geschichte, our shared history, which alsodivided us.

Now, what exactly are the things we share? This is noquite as easy to answer as it may seem at first glance. We're aBlack, and we're all German, you could say. Yeah. Well.

Who is Black? What is Black? This discussion is so old thaIll keep it real short. Every person can call themselvewhatever they like to call themselves.

I can call myself Hildegard Princess of Power. But thidoes not give me the experience of an actual Princess let alonea Princess of Power. It is not about what I'd like to be or whasomebody thinks I am.

Geteilte GeschichteIrmgard and James W. Tanner Memorial Lecture

Let us listen and learn.

And testify.

And respect each other.

And you cannot explain me.

And I will not explain you.

It is still as crucial as always that we tell our

own stories.

That is what we came here for, after all.

Noah Sow

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The way I use the word Black is: asan experience. And a global standpoint.A political term. All I have to know is:am I Black? And I think I know thatalready.

What and who is German? That iseven more complicated because you canbe German without having any German

experience.

When you look to the Germanconstitution, it is only the passport thatmakes you German.

When you ask the Germans who livein Germany, they'll find what makes youGerman is the passport and the languageand to be white. One of those nothappening, you're not German. Thisbelief prevails to the extent that someeven have the opinion that there can't be

racism in Germany as no Black Germansexist.

I, too, grew up with this Germanpreconception. Of course, I knew thatyou can be German and Black at thesame time, but .... the passport and thelanguage thingI had simply neverthought about it.

Then a funny thing happened. Thiswas in 2004, when I lived in New York. I

went to the Steuben Parade for the firsttime. With me was a white Germanfriend.

A young guy came up to us who wasreally enthusiastic about being German.You guys also German? he asked us.

I said, Yeah, and you?He said, I'm SO German!I said, Cool, was geht ab, was

machste hier, studieren oder Urlaub oderwas? He said, Come again??

I said, You ... do speak German,

right?He said, No. But I want to learn it!I said, "Wow! Were you adopted or

something? What brought you here?Where are your parents?

He s a i d , "N a w, my g rea t -grandparents were German, so I'mGerman, and I'm proud of it. I started agroup of young Germans in New Jersey.Why don't you come join us?

I thought to myself: this guy may bea lot of things. But not German.

At the same time, I was aware thatthis was the first time I had a white kidwho was proud to be German (I'm sureyou all know about the connotations ofthis phrase) invite me to a meeting ofyoung ... Germans? instead of suggesting

that I can not be German because I'mBlack.

And I was thinking about him, Youdon't know the language, so you can't beGerman. I wasn't thinking.

But the most interesting reactionswere from the people around us. TheGermans with me said, This guys aloonie and clearly not German. Theyhad been brought up with the samepreconceptions as I. Some other

Germans from Europe who were not myfriends started laughing at me forclaiming to be German.

And the Germans from the UnitedStates asked me all kinds of questionsabout Germany, whats it like, are thereforests, and so on.

If you asked me today who'sGerman, I'd say, It depends on yourpersonal history.

You can clearly belong to severalplaces, several countries, several familiesat the same time. We all know that.

You can belongeven if it goesagainst a whole nations definition andunderstanding of itself.

To belong is a very private thing.

I can live all my life in this countryand belong to another countrywhere

my parents came from. Or I can live allmy life in this country and not belongbecause Im just not feeling it.

Or I can move some place and feelafter a few years, or even instantly, thatnow, I belong here.

What I am trying to say is: Nobodygets to determine where you belong.

You can be refused a passport, an a t i o n a l i t y , a p l a c e t o l i v eacknowledgment of your history, deniedhuman rights, all of that. And we have apersonally experienced this.

But you cannot be refused belongingThere is no certification for

belonging.

Oh, I could draw something andhand it out to you, no problem, but I amnot the authority on where you comefrom, or where you belong.

And can nobody else determinewhere I belong.

Those times are over.

Let me tell you a few things abouGermany that you possibly havent heardyet. It is easy to learn the good thingabout Germany; everybody wi lvolunteer to tell you the positive stuff, th

nice buildings, the high living standardfor some people, and so on. There armany good things about Germany. BuIm not here to brag about. Im here toput our experience into context. And thBlack German Experience goesas youprobably figurebeyond gingerbreadhouses, beer gardens, and hiking.

Germany has a long history oconquering and being conquered, and ait is a country in the middle of Europe

with buoyant harbors and strong trade, ihas never been an isolated country.

So of course there has always beenextensive migration and culturaexchange from inside and outside oEurope into and from Germany.

Moreover, Germany is a federationof 16 states, roughly based on the biggeslocal tribes. These states are calledBundeslnder, which literally translates afederal countries. So Germany iintrinsically multi-ethnic, and it alwayhas been.

Unfortunately, however, the majoritylikes to think even today that Germanyand the Germans are somethinghomogeneous. Incidentally, whiteGermany likes to imagine itself as whiteThis fantasy overrules logic, law, historyand reality to this day.A common feeling among Germans is:

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dont know who we Germans are! But certainly notBlack! And in perpetuating this fantasy, this image,Germany is very successful.

Most people in the world do not know thatGermany is not and never was entirely white. Today,cautious estimates come to the conclusion that morethan one percent of Germans are Black. A millionpeople. A lot of peoplenot counting the ones wholive in Germany with another passport. 20 percentof all Germans have direct ancestors from outsideGermany. Moreover, most people around the worldcannot believe what they hear and see when theyfirst learn about how far back Black German historyreaches.

Germany has a severe and hurtful colonial pastand issues acknowledging this past, or dealing withits cause and effects. In the early colonial times, aswell as during the Nationalsozialismus, Black peoplewere institutionally dehumanized and killed, put inconcentration camps, robbed of their human rights.Germany still has a hard time tackling theunderlying racism on which the ideologies behindthese acts could build. The United Nations had toreprimand Germany, twice in the last five years, forits insufficient engagement against racism and for itsinsufficient acknowledgement that racism actuallyexists.

Colonial images and stereotypes remain intact,untackled, and continue to spread. To this day, weare exposed to Jim Crow-like and other racist imagesand stereotypes on a daily basis. In schoolbooks, inchildrens books, in nursery rhymes, in the mediaas part of the German tradition. The core ofstructural racism is not being fought on aninstitutional level. People of Color in Germanycontinue to be attacked and killed by racist mobsand those crimes are not even considered hatecrimes.

There are No Go Areas for us in our owncountry.

Heres a quote from a paper by the Alexandervon Humboldt Stiftung: The histories, culture, andpolitical struggles of black foreign nationals inGermany today are tolerated ... by the liberal, whiteGerman Left; however, the recognition andacceptance of an Afrogerman legacy among theGerman Volk is a much harder task for whiteGermans. Blacks are still perceived as interesting

guests at best, but increasingly they, like otheperceived foreigners, are seen as guests who havworn out their welcome. This is the backdropagainst which Afrogermans announce their identityand assert their history.

There are certain spaces that are assigned to mebased upon goodwill. The rooms in which I amwelcome in Germany are generally remote fromintellect, any kind of control, power, or selfdetermination. If I want any of that, I'll have to fighhard for it and may or may not succeed. To this dayBlack people in Germany are conspicuouslyencouraged to pursue a career in show business othe service and catering industry, kept from thacademic path if possible. I was strongly advised to

become a seamstress when I was in high schoolNothing wrong with becoming a seamstress, bubelieve me, this is not where my talents lie. I woulmake a terrible seamstress. There is no institutionasupport, no institutional empowerment network fous in Germany. No university program, noscholarship to try to soothe or counteract a history ooppression.

Many Afrodeutsche in my generation grew upwith a single white parentmostly the motherandmany with hardly any other Black person around oeven in sight. Not in their family, not in their schoo

not in their town. Of course, this influences a childfocus, self-perception, and identification.

Hundreds of thousands of Black kids in

Germany had toand many still have tofind oufor themselves where they belong, how they candefine themselves, if they have to define themselvein any way would they rather not definethemselves at all or maybe only say, This is me.And not as an imposed exotic identity, or anallegiance to a nationality that is consideredparadoxical to their appearance and has an exclusiv

conception of who can actually belong at all. Andhow can they stop constantly being defined awrong, other, inferior?

Thandie Newton recently said in a speech, was other before being anything else. Even beforebeing a girl.

I'm afraid this sentence rang a bell for some ous.

Geteilte Geschichte

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I am constantly being told what I amand what I am not; therefore, it isindispensable, it's crucial that I correctand dismiss all these external attempts atdefining me.

I say what and who I am.

And for one, I am a Black German

Woman.

So much about Germany. And aboutme.

Now, I cannot tell you what it is liketo grow up in the United States because Ididn't grow up in the United States.

I cannot describe your history, yourexperience, your present.

If I want to find out more about you,

then I can only read up on your stories,and maybe ask you to share yourthoughts, your knowledge. I can listen.And learn. I have no idea what it's like tohave been solidly, physically displacedfrom your own country, your own town,your own family of birth.

I owe it to Rosemarie Pea and theopenness with which she shares her lifestory that I was able to get a first glimpseinto one of the biographies of the Black

Germans who grew up outside Germany.

You Black Germans outs ideGermany have distinct biographies. Butyou also have something in common inyour personal history: you went away.

Some of you were lucky enough toleave the country of your own accord.

Some of you were displaced,abducted, taken against your will fromyour home country when you were littlechildren.

Germany decided after (!) WorldWar IIwith right- and left-wingpolitical parties in agreement on thispointthat it did not want Blackchildren in its new model democracy. Youwere expelled from your own countrybecause Germans cannot be Black, andyou just happened to be: Black Germans.

Had you been tourists, you couldhave stayed. Had you been white, you

could have stayed. But your flaw was thatyou DID belong. Germany would nottolerate this, and still has a hard timetolerating it today. Some of you remainstaatenlos to this day, without nationality,without constitutional rights.

Some of you, of the Black Germanchildren in the 1950s and 60s, were given

away for adoption to Scandinavia, andsome were brought to the United Statesof Americadepending, among otherthings, on how dark or light your skinwas.

The United States' reaction to theGerman wish to get rid of the BlackGerman children was not a unanimousone. There were different opinions in theUS. One was: No way. It is racist andcruel to take Black children away fromtheir mothers and give them up for

adoption to a faraway land. We shouldnot play a part in this arrangement!Another reaction was: This countryGermany is so obviously racist that noBlack child can safely grow up there; yousend us those kids alright and we'll takegood care of them.

Today, fifty years later, Im thinkingmaybe they both were right.

This is the history we share.

I will not try to compare tragedy.Let us never try to compare pain.Even though we have different

experiences, we now know that they areclosely connected.

We have all been displaced.

Some of us were physically abductedfrom our own country. Some of us wereexpelled from the country, internally. Wehave been divided so forcefully, ruthlessly,that even most of us, Black Germans, are

not aware, or are just now beginning torealize, that our whole history, includingour own personal history, has beenobscured.

But what lies hidden will not goaway by not looking.

It will stay.We are well aware that it is there.

Some of us, in fact more and moreare summoning the courage to carefullytake a look.

One piece of the puzzle at a time.This is the work you are doing righ

now. Right here.It is very personal and intimate

work.

The work we Black Germans inGermany do is another piece of thipuzzle. Step by step, we are coming tounderstand that there is a reason, a linkto why our older generations in Germanygrew up isolated, alienated from otheBlack peoplewith the same pain andthe key question that could not andcannot be safely enunciated, You all donot identify with me. Where can I findsomebody who does? And whom I canidentify with?

We are coming to understand whythis has been so. Why most of the BlacGerman kids in the 1970s and 1980didn't have anybody to turn to.

Because they had taken you away.

You would have been our sisters, oumothers, our aunts. Our teachers, oudeans, our doctors, our librarians, ousocial workers, our judges, our pilots, ounurses, our neighbors. We've been

missing you a great deal.

There are younger Black generationin Germany who are growing up withBlack parents, relatives, role modelsteachers. Thank God. But you knowwhat? That doesn't change the fact thayou're missing, and that we miss you.

Now, we did not learn any of this inschool, right?

There's a universal knowledge gapgoing on.

Yeah. And some of us are fightinghard to change that.

But all of this is only a part of ouhistory.

I read something very smart andrelevant in the blog of a Black Germanteacher named Patrick: Black Historycannot always be about the victimizationof black people throughout history.

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Hes so right!

Of course, the Black Germanexperience is not solely a painful one.

There is something else we do notlearn at school, and it's not somethingsad and depressing, but somethingexciting and uplifting. It is the fact that

youll have to stay strong now; I hopeyou're sitting firmly in your seatsit isthe fact that Black people in Germanygo way back. Way longer than thearrival of American armed forces inWWII or French armed forces in WWI.So many people think and like to thinkthat the Black European presence issomething relatively new, owing toaviation, american GIs and all thatmodern stuff.

So wrong.

We go way back.

Let me give you a handful examples.I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.Heres a little gallery of Black Europeansgoing way back.

[picture of Septimius Severus statueon screen]

In the military of the RomanEmpire, there was a considerable number

of Black soldiers. Legions from as early asthe year 36 B.C. were comprised ofAfrican soldiers, among others. TheRoman Emperor Septimius Severus wasa Black man. He was born in the year146, in the city of Leptis Magna, in theRoman province of Africa, now Libya.He became the head of a family dynastythat led to more emperors among hisdescendantsfor example, the EmperorCaracallawho governed in Europe andfar beyond.

Another brother: Alessandro DeMedici, Count of Florence, Italy, in theearly sixteenth century, was one of thefirst Black heads of a European state, ifyou dont count the three African popesthat lived before him.

[picture of Alessandro De Mediciportrait painting on screen]

Another man from Germany whocant remain unmentioned is the Blacklawyer and philosopher Anton WilhelmAmo from the University of Halle. Hewrote a scientific paper about the legalstatus of Black Europeans in the year1729.

He clearly was not the first one.

Because there was no first one.

We have always been there.

[picture of Charlotte Sophia portraitpainting on screen]

Meet sister Queen Charlotte Sophia,born the princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a German woman in theeighteenth century. She is related to aBlack family of the Portuguese Royal

House, one of her ancestors beingMargarita de Castro y Sousa. ThisCharlotte Sophia married George III ofEngland in 1761. And she became theQueen Of England. She was an amateurbotanist and introduced the Christmastree to England. She is the great-great-great-grandmother of Queen ElizabethII of England. You can even see a

resemblance in some portraits... The Cityof Charlotte in North Carolina wanamed in her honor.

Right now, this summer, is the 250thanniversary of Charlotte Sophia'coronation. The German Bundesland oMecklenburg is celebrating, and proud oher heritage. Her German heritage, thais. No word of her Black ancestry

Although this would mean so much tomany Afrogerman children today. Id say99 percent of all people don't knowabout this royal ancestry.

We go way back. All the examplethat I just mentioned were BlackEuropeans or Germans even beforeGermany was called Germany. So howcan one think that our nationality is orever was purely white.

One of the publications of the

German Historical Institute is a bookcalled Germany and the Black DiasporaPoints of Contact, 12501914. I wouldsay theres a reason this forthcomingpublication will first be issued by anAmerican press and not in BerlinMunich, or Frankfurt, Germany.

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This is the history we

share.

I will not try to compare

tragedy.

Let us never try to compare

pain.

Even though we have

different experiences, we

now know that they are

closely connected.

We have all been

displaced.

Noah Sow


11/1411

There is work to do. We are uncovering our own history,slowly, each generation anew. Black European historians andscientists have been doing this work over and over again, forcenturies.

To compensate for all that has been effaced from thehistory booksconcerning our historythere is an exhibitioncalled Homestory Deutschland, which I strongly suggest youvisit or get the catalogue for. It is the first exhibition that putsBlack German biographies from multiple centuries intocontext, along with a historical timeline of Black presence inGermany.

I learned so much from this exhibition. I have seen it inGermany, in several cities, as well as in Dakar, Senegal.Reactions to it have always been the same. Can this be true?

We go way back!

Yes it's true. We are no incidents, coincidences. We haveroots there. We have folks there. We belong. We always have.And we ourselves, as we sit here today, are living proof. Nomatter where we've been taken, or where we choose to live. Icherish this exhibition and its timetable so much that I askedfor permission to include it in my book Deutschland SchwarzWei. I'm grateful that it worked out. But youre not going tofind the portraits of the people over the centuries in my bookonly in the exhibitions catalogue, so do check it out.

Of course, there is also a lot about Black North American

history that we're not taught in school. For example, that theBlack North American experience is not a homogeneous oneeither. I have an aunt from Mali who moved to New Yorkseveral years ago. She is American now. Her experience isdifferent from Puff Daddy's experience. Barack Obama'sexperience, coming from a multicultural family with a Kenyanfather, is different from that of my friend Tuli who hasn'tstepped out of Brooklyn for twenty years. Or of my friendSabin, who is Moroccan and Swedish and from Los Angeles.Or of you, the Black Germans who were brought to the US aschildren.

There is no universal Black experience in the US. Butthere are communities. There is a present that we share. Thereare some experiences that we share.

Please let's admit and embrace the abundance of ourhistories. The Black German heritage and experience havealways been diverse.

What other things are there that we Black Germans can beproud of? I know something.

In the 1980s, Afrogerman people in Germany startedmeeting up with an agenda. They exchanged experiencesformed a community, teamed up for a mutual movement. Thiwas mostly upon the initiative and under the guidance oAfrogerman women. There has also been some exchange andcontact with sisters from the United States, for example, AngelDavis.

We owe the Black civil rights movement in Germany afteWWII predominantly to strong women. You have no idea, omaybe you do, how many issues of domination and oppressionthis has spared us. We did not even begin a struggle foheterosexual men's rights. We fought for every Black person'rights. This turned out to be a big advantage. We still cash ion the multiple benefits that derived from the fact that it was agroup of empowered and empowering, emancipated women

leading the German Black Rights movement. We profit fromthis on an academic level, in our community, and in oufamilies! It makes such a difference.

Thank you, Ladies, many of whom joined in thorganization of ADEFRA.

More good stuff: we keep creating safe places, and moreand more of them.

There is a Black Community weekend retreat in Germanyevery year called the Bundestreffen. It's been going on for ovetwenty-five years now. Let me show you a short clip for you toget an idea.

[VIDEO 25 Jahre Bundestreffen]

If you haven't been to Germany yet, but you'd like to visitthis would probably be a good place to start. Thats what GracArmstrong did. She visited in 2008 for the first time, togethewith Rosemarie Pea. Shell tell you in her own words.

[ VIDEO: GRACE interview at Bundestreffen]

I know grown-up people whose parents met at aBundestreffen more than 20 years ago. That makes for a whole

generation with a whole new . somebody else said it bettethan me, in his own words.

[Statement from Video trailer for the film Mein Vierte100 from Julie Rivera] I would call this an achievement.

This last short statement was from the trailer of the newdocumentary called My Quarter Century Mein Viertel 100by Julie Rivera; the premiere was just last week. And I thinkSebastian, the man from the video clip, is so right.

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Today, I no longer need an externalreference to understand who I am, whatis my history, what is my heritage, whereI belong. I am not a child anymore.

I choose my environment.

I do not need to wait outside thehouse of an oppressor and ask him pretty

please, why won't you accept me as anequal, why do you discriminate againstme... because I do not need hisacceptance. I couldn't care less about whyhe doesn't like me or what he thinks ofme at all.

I have a whole group of people thatmatter.

It is the achievement of the peoplewho have built the Black community inGermany since the 1980s that this feeling

of belonging is even possible for me.

Yeah, I have been displaced. But I'vealso been retrieved.

Plus, I have another definition fordisplaceda positive one.

It says: I am no longer dependent ona place.

Because I take my space with me.This is my house tonight.

My place is potentially everywhere.In a chatroom. At a convention. AtRoscoes. At the Bundestreffen.

At certain universities. In somegalleries. At many concerts.

And isn't that a typical BlackGerman strategy?

Because we are so diverse, we havedirect access to multiple perspectives.

So many places.

The tools we use for empowerment,for expressing ourselves, come from allover the world. And these tools welearned firsthand.

Spoken word traditions fromBavaria. Poetry in West-African meter.Science and research from Timbuktu,Addis Ababa, Accra, and London. HipHop from the US. Creative writing from

Algeria and Sudan. Children's gamesfrom Cameroon and Nigeria. Strategiesof resistance from Togo and SouthAfrica. We learned so much from ourgrandparents, uncles, cousins, and bestfriends.

Of course, being Black is not justabout adversity.

It is also about diversity, history, andan incredible richness of cultures andperspectives.

So what should we do with eachother now?

Well what do you think? Wevealready begun. We're talking. Andlistening.

And learning from each other.

Before we can educate others aboutour history, we must educate ourselves.

This is what we're doing at thisconvention. And hopefully thereafter.

There is much to learn about theAfrodeutsche Civil Rights Movement.

Read May Ayims books and learnabout ADEFRA and ISD.

There are great theories and worksabout civil rights in the US.We all should read bell hooks!With all due respect. These books,

these works, are important.

Our stories are being told andwritten by all kinds of people, andnowadays you can get a fancy degree ifyou try to tell my story. (You'll get yourdegree alright. But it won't mean much.It will not count where it really counts.)

There is a lecture I frequently hold.It is called Seven Indications ofSuppressive Discourse. The indicationsapply everywhere. And also here. Amongour two countries, the US is thedominant one. Compared to Germany,the US has prevalence, more worldwideattention, more power.

With this comes a side effect that ioften ignored. And I want to talk about iopenly.

Inc identa l ly , we can crea tesuppressive systems for each other.

Out of our own pain, out of ouown want, we are capable of running

over the pain and want of the nexperson. The dominant group much moreso than the group who is being listened tosignificantly less frequently.

We must not exoticize each other.We are not each others native

informants.We cannot invade each other'

experience and interpretation thereof.Because experience is not negotiable

I do have a suggestion for how to

solve this, how to prevent us fromrunning over each other.

You know the saying, Nothingabout us without us is for us?

I'd love to make a deal with you altonight. It goes as follows.

Let us listen and learn.And testify.And respect each other.

And you cannot explain me.And I will not explain you.

It is still as crucial as always that wtell our own stories.

That is what we came here for, afteall.

Now, in order to make the GeteilteGeschichte a shared history, for thefuture:

I think right now we are at the poinwhere weve been meeting a long lossister for the first time, and now welhave to decide how and where therelationship should go. Of course, I havean idea about how I want it to go. Andhopes and dreams about us in the future.

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Today, I no longer need an external reference tounderstand who I am, what is my history, what is myheritage, where I belong. I am not a child anymore.

I choose my environment.

I do not need to wait outside the house of anoppressor and ask him pretty please, why won't youaccept me as an equal, why do you discriminateagainst me... because I do not need his acceptance. Icouldn't care less about why he doesn't like me orwhat he thinks of me at all.

I have a whole group of people that matter.

It is the achievement of the people who have

built the Black community in Germany since the1980s that this feeling of belonging is even possiblefor me.

Yeah, I have been displaced. But I've also beenretrieved.

Plus, I have another definition for displacedapositive one.

It says: I am no longer dependent on a place.Because I take my space with me.This is my house tonight.

My place is potentially everywhere.In a chatroom. At a convention. At Roscoes. At

the Bundestreffen.At certain universities. In some galleries. At

many concerts.

And isn't that a typical Black German strategy?

Because we are so diverse, we have direct accessto multiple perspectives.

So many places.

The tools we use for empowerment, forexpressing ourselves, come from all over the world.And these tools we learned firsthand.

Spoken word traditions from Bavaria. Poetry inWest-African meter. Science and research fromTimbuktu, Addis Ababa, Accra, and London. HipHop from the US. Creative writing from Algeria andSudan. Children's games from Cameroon andNigeria. Strategies of resistance from Togo and

South Africa. We learned so much from ougrandparents, uncles, cousins, and best friends.

Of course, being Black is not just abouadversity.

It is also about diversity, history, and anincredible richness of cultures and perspectives.

So what should we do with each other now?

Well what do you think? Weve already begunWe're talking. And listening.

And learning from each other.

Before we can educate others about our historywe must educate ourselves.

This is what we're doing at this convention. Andhopefully thereafter.

There is much to learn about the AfrodeutscheCivil Rights Movement.

Read May Ayims books and learn abouADEFRA and ISD.

There are great theories and works about civirights in the US.

We all should read bell hooks!

With all due respect. These books, these worksare important.

Our stories are being told and written by alkinds of people, and nowadays you can get a fancydegree if you try to tell my story. (You'll get youdegree alright. But it won't mean much. It will nocount where it really counts.)

There is a lecture I frequently hold. It is calledSeven Indications of Suppressive Discourse. Theindications apply everywhere. And also here. Among

our two countries, the US is the dominant oneCompared to Germany, the US has prevalencemore worldwide attention, more power.

With this comes a side effect that is oftenignored. And I want to talk about it openly.

Incidentally, we can create suppressive systemfor each other.

Geteilte Geschichte

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BGCSNJ Convention 2011 Report

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