The perception that germans out wide the ahead in blue ice has never been true and will never be too its and. People always ask me where im from its not possible to be german and black. From the moment i get up and leave the house in the morning im confronted with racist views images and syria types of people. As a child alice wanted to have white skin because i felt bed being black and not being able to blend in and i was kind of sticking hollow to. The group and being you know different than the rest i didnt want to be different. Ive. I am traveling around germany to talk with other black people about oh experiences with racism my 1st stop this hammock thats where i was born into how. I had absolutely wonderful parents and that helped me a lot in difficult situations. I mean i always had a lot of friends about it i do remember. That we played these funny games like whos afraid of the black man and tender little negroes thats called in german soul and i remember that sometimes they ran after me and said yeah nothing can hurt in Something Like janice an african and as an african and the problem is that african men something bad. Had 1st met sammy looks when i was a teenager and have today hes one of germanys most successful reface a hip hop on. The mic could be very much my machine i do. A lot of that as much as ever using. That ive come to see semi in a studio as you can see the label is not much this had a number of top 10 hits and has sold all the a 1000000 records. Its nice to. He also produces other musicians. Just. As if it was a kid i wanted to be white and cute. Yeah as a kid white and as a teenager i really wanted to be black. Thats nice only still needs to not have this ambiguity so it seemed so clear cut like on the white side and white people just knew who they were black people did to me i felt like i was in the middle i grew up in a white family in a white neighborhood it was definitely a challenge. The challenge of distance vision for me the feeling of being caught in between is something imposed on you from the outside i mean people always say dont you see taunton conscious blake and why do you feel of me out effect this yourself i dont find it unusual why should i have to choose sides inflicted by me against you one thing that caused me a fair amount of confusion right from the start was that i have straight hair. Does display meet in most of a machine in a one shot as in which he could sneak going on top of the stand in grade school if some kid called me the n. Word and i reacted defensively or aggressively theyd say hey youre not really a nigger because your hair is straight with me so for me that was like ok im dark enough to get called the n. Word but my hair isnt frizzy or curly enough for me to have the right to get upset about it that was the 1st contradiction that was imposed at the time i was reading harry potter book to my son in the evening at bed time and one night he said he wished he were white because then he could be like his friends in the moment and all you have to do is paint that thing on his forehead and wear around glasses and hed look like harry potter to be loved thats in the else we have reports and i wish him good but that made me realize that theres an acute shortage of dark skinned superheroes so i wrote the song and made a really nice video to go along with it. His issue is with us we. Have. Long. Advice no. I dont think. Im kidding thats exactly what they believe that. For. Me you know. I might as well like going and i dont like things. Like. Last nights. Sleep this long period of time thats maybe long long time so when i dont like. The last one like the sign down i like the straight talk. Its how i can remember when i was 13 i was an intern of ana and thats when i started going to politics and the other kids would say. Why youre listening to that anderson be listening to black music i did and i liked it more and then it was the black music scene whatever that means hip hop and r. And b. Album from the school on down and is a c. In the and then all of a sudden yes a black person a part of the majority of im up on my own money and i mean and then when these positive associations pulls its even us its you and you had a son does it go with us well from a single i think thats one of the main reasons i became who i am and its of the young where the rep thing this test of a rap was the 1st thing that gave me a Home Court Advantage so to speak and im for tired houses i just had to let my pants hang a little bit lower thing less in the scope of my calf to the side and move like this until i saw the sign everyone was into it it looked authentic and it fit well with my exotic status those clothes if i did graffiti deejaying collected records started producing rasping and and beatboxing all the hip hop disciplines except breakdancing that was too much work so youre telling me in. Just body type because ill. Only with words. As a journalist i dont have a Home Court Advantage. When i decided to become a journalist and when i became an anchor i was actually i think the 1st female black anchor and germany i didnt have any role models. To be nothing maybe ill be happy because for me its really important that children you know when this which on the t. V. That might see me and think oh right i can be on t. V. And read the news and i dont have to have a job which was filled the face the stereotypes for me that would be great if i could help bring dump areas in that sense. That people have been living in germany for 400 years but today they numbered about 1000000 from me in cologne of come to see. Do support the yeah. He was born in 1925 been brilliant. Why did your father come from chemical into germany back then coming one by cameroon with a german colony. In mind for you. Just as people used to dream of going to america. At the time many Young Africans wanted to come to germany. Says there was no such thing as what we know called racism. At least not as we know it today. You can only started to take shape when the Young African started asserting themselves for instance by marrying german women oh. And the reaction was there taking away our women for nothing prince in the name onset the following way. And now you appeared in ethnographic exhibits also known as humans zeus what was it like standing for debian imagine human being those of us being exhibited like objects literally exhibit worth press and from what they supposedly represented of namely africa with vast skirts drums dancing saunders. And. Didnt the idea was that people under splay were foreign exotic. And were showing spectators what their homeland is like this and. Basically it was just a big show. Me i am mad as im good im going the good numbers show evidence how crazy is that us a german was supposed to imitate this was perceived. Africa was just such a huge continent. And hes a consummate. With a high trot so i was and im a black man so of course i should be able to do that thats how it is its in my blood and lets talk about the nazi era its so hard to imagine because black people would obviously attract attention in every genre that was so racist as right as a member of the kind and. We didnt need to wear yellow stars. Everyone could see we were aliens. Did you know a lot of other black people in germany. Who says sure everyone knew everyone and member someone colonial films made back then but many of us would meet up as part of the cast. Yet thats me. This is mine and thats my closest and im still like the fact that the shot a close up of me. And everyone who was in black was in that film. And. It was a good day i was 16 at the time. And it struck me i thought my god were all here together with them. Because they could take us away without anyone noticing or not. Is oath. And that thought weighed very heavily on me this. Is good thank god i never came to pass the but in vietnam we were too few in number to matter to the nazis that. When i die before you know all contact with white women with the fair women horrible from the fields to the business of it i would have been sterilized still and in. The end i might also have been charged with racial defilement big ice and shunned. Oh how do you say that you took great care not to get too close to a white woman. Was it like how you being all trying to become invisible how can we imagine that i wanted to 1st see men the sleestak thats the right word invisible i could become the only of course with a face like this i could never completely disappear. But i tried. I think thats what i really did have some smoked and skipped as i and the main thing was to keep your head down can your mouth shut. I made sure i did that as was about and to the point that i started to starter the source. Yeah i started john black welcome and of so good listening to the difficult often horrible things you experienced. How did you find the strength to go on but yeah the w. C. Well i have to say with gods help. I became a religious person league as i mentioned above. Thats what you go. To dont you know michelle always says theres nothing in the german constitution that states what a german is supposed to look like but some people havent gotten the message for them we asked the exotic. When i was a child complete strangers would touch my hand say it feels like a birds nest. Right. Way to my gawd its good to see you still see my watch breakfast t. V. Every morning i turn on the side and think its like an afro german woman on german public t. V. Be as were so proud of you so sure and you do such a wonderful job of just 1000 was the story that the deer may look at your hair we have to talk about that yes we do. And then i will work in some culkin at all well. Like. Things on t. V. That yes i think it is enough not to love your curls ok then i would always wake up the movies are good these are the hurdles. Right now im really happy to be talking to s. That dont call out the founder of cause a number of cully hamner thats how sometimes i think that black peoples hands really politicized its like a political statement whether you have to have done it naturally the stereotype is that the hair is messy and wild that doesnt go all the bun in the professional but also how the afro hair just isnt acceptable. Our Society Still doesnt comply with our ideals of beauty. Look at beyond saying shes a black woman that shes a performer of the shes the embodiment of empowerment but she still wears a straight blonde weve made its kind of anti you know ive met women who work in law offices in places like that we get into trouble if they wear their hair naturally that kind. Of to happen can you tell us about the natural Hand Movement does is this sort of fell into the result i mean what. Its about allowing people with afro textured hair to wear it naturally without causing a fuss or having to feel selfconscious. Thats what life is about accepting yourself to get 7 limbs absence of times. Change. To feel comfortable in your own skin thats the goal but its not so easy. I think the problem is that if you see all these stereotypes about africa about tribes about being primitive of that barrier a native underdeveloped. It hits you. Part of the problem on the images from the days of colonialism and the lin dance to streets named after german nice and colonialists it was ian berlin in 884 that european nations had a conference when they cost the f. A. Cant economies. And he had a street festival and at forcing the city to change the name from was. Unique. And im here was just crazy akins political scientists and activists why its important for you to remain just as the term is one of the oldest words. Person but look at the roots of the term has election and the greek roots morris and morris and guess that means doc or black but it also means stupid even primitive and so you see already in the origin of the work that there is this idea of black inferiority but then we look into the history of the street name if we see that the street was named quiet its name in the context of the brandenburg involvement in the trans atlantic and slave meant and to prize how would you say thats germany dia with this colonial history i think theres a huge problem. A lot of aspects of german korean history are not widely known we cant even begin to understand National Socialism without looking at the colonial and to see that its because we find that they are ideological political but also personal continuity. Linking german colonialism and National Socialism. Please and i set off to uncover some of the traces. Soft colonialism in the german capital. Ok i think i moved to berlin 10 years ago but this defers time im seeing this fresco can you explain why im a c. So we had the house and this here shows us the trail of tobacco so you see and slaved african men harvesting tobacco then enslaved African Women packaging the tobacco and it is sorted and weighed you know as a white overseer and then its package further its made ready for shipment and you see one of the white oversea has already lounging and having a smoke but then you see the ship departing and then not you can see its berlin because you see the silhouette of the german the french dont so this clearly explains the source of the wealth that was used to build this place right but of course it also implicates the people that frequented here and the suffering that is also depicted here. Make people often defined by this skin color the well known south african artist robin wrote place with the stereotypes he experienced apartheid in south africa now hes been living in berlin for 40 inches. I. Could tell you this year i can see you working on a new p. C. s. I have a work in process and its a world guy some modern man this is about myself african identity. And of course the africa is a strong some bull its interesting that you chose here of course i can identify with that but what does i mean look at what the role of detail a for have play for you he became a way to to classify a place principles will place through he to. Who did you pick to kind of the stand and the for the racial category. So saying that if they go through my hair they say its f. I have i am exactly black on the public categorized as kind of has colored always mixed race. So if the goal waned we invaded to find you here because you guys as white how were you classified as on the farm classified as gullit as if it is a person of mixed race and so on might be and so my grandparents and. In many ways my cultural background is quite complex because i know you know we dont associate ourselves with black and neither white. Sorry but i know you view it as black d. C. s german content what i think is in the german gone pics im viewed as out of oh really so thats actually pretty interesting. I use off as a way to subvert it also to to play with. You on the valvoline what these kind of cultural labels off. This particular piece reading speed it means will be 18th if it needs to be defined its going to be categorized and im trying to knob explore the notion of something that is completely in this new disconsolately and you find. I was born in 1981 and in the early ninetys we had a serious offer of racist attacks in germany and also placed in hot and high us to get it and so willing it must be backed by stand the skunk. During the attacks. It was really heartbreaking to see and it frightened me so much as a child. And i think thats something that is also very scary if you look at the recent vice and racist attacks on refugees in germany and so few of the people who take them were caught and put on trial and i think thats a very dangerous message to everyone who experience racism because it means ok you can be attacked but you know you can attack people but you can get away with it in that it gives us the message ok people can do to you whatever they want they wont be put on trial. And that scares me a lot. About us an apprentice roof or working in the east end german state of sex and im hot he hasnt been living here for very long in 2013 he fled book enough icing for germany his job gives the 28 year old some stability was but otherwise his life is often difficult recently he will speak not by of right wing thought i mean east and the town of pool where he lives as a few 8 months ago there were beaten up right here tell us about my. Career im going to the school and saw amanda and if with the woman in charge. And he said in my didnt look at that im sure defusing the n. Word for us to look at this black piece of trash with nigger i didnt say anything that when i went to the counter to pay this call and he went like this. And i said this is what do you want from me and he says ill show you i went over there and he hit me 3 or 4 times like this. You know muscle history of how bad the way you have it many boao less do today i felt a lot of pain in my stomach losses and i come down the block for about 2 months. And more not holding. On but how does it feel when no one steps in to help you when youre being beaten up and you often treat it with hostility and its hard to expand on that how do you cope. With it in a country so im always afraid when i go out now in a sort to see who can i go to work im afraid of what might happen along the way the supply route people make just just like im going to cut your throat so i did see and they shout go back to where you came from shook me to do that to me every day. This is the courthouse in the town of stand up its where the man who beat up he says im trying. How do you to be annoying you about to see the person would take it as just. Im not afraid. I cant wait to see him again and look into his eyes to see enforcing them is you have. The attacker who has a long criminal record was found guilty of assault and sentenced to 10 months in jail but he appealed was just a reason for his hearing. The. Cameras arent allowed inside the consulate. After a 4 hour asked the constitutions. And peace out how was it for you today. I never expected it to go so well and yes it was very pleased to. See turkey. The conviction is upheld but the attacker intends to appeal again. Once you wake up in the morning and you switch on the radio or you switch on the t. V. Youre confronted with all these stereotypes about africa and its really difficult to talk about racism in germany because once i experience it when i talk about racism people say oh youre too emotional youre over reacting the company true im sure the person didnt mean it that way so they dont really take it serious and that is really hard because i feel like i am not taking serious but my experience. On this was worth it to the secret. I thought it was racism without regret because he should all gives. And and listening in the Office Display is the artist and writer. The story shes originally from particle but has lived for many years a 1000000000. For me it took a lot of effort to Research Lecture me history because there was nothing that was presented to me in school for example what told us the silencing play in your eyes i think in the last words that ive been doing im very concerned with this question of silencing and speaking and with the with the fact that its not that we have not been