Mixed Race Studies

Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany

HarperCollins
480 pages
2001
ISBN: 9780060959616

Hans J. Massaquoi (1926-2013)

This is a story of the unexpected. In Destined to Witness, Hans Massaquoi has crafted a beautifully rendered memoir—an astonishing true tale of how he came of age as a black child in Nazi Germany. The son of a prominent African and a German nurse, Hans remained behind with his mother when Hitler came to power, due to concerns about his fragile health, after his father returned to Liberia. Like other German boys, Hans went to school; like other German boys, he swiftly fell under the Fuhrer’s spell. So he was crushed to learn that, as a black child, he was ineligible for the Hitler Youth. His path to a secondary education and an eventual profession was blocked. He now lived in fear that, at any moment, he might hear the Gestapo banging on the door—or Allied bombs falling on his home. Ironic, moving, and deeply human, Massaquoi’s account of this lonely struggle for survival brims with courage and intelligence.

Prologue

To write of ones self, in such a manner as not to incur the imputation of weakness, vanity, and egotism, is a work within the ability of hut few; and I have little reason to believe that I belong to that fortunate few.
—Frederick Douglass

I could not agree more wich the above sentiments, expressed so eloquently over a century ago by the great abolitionist in the preface to his autobiography, My Bondage, My Freedom. If, like Mr. Douglass, I nonetheless decided to risk being thought of as weak, vain, and egocentric by making public the story of my life, it was mainly because of the persistent urging of persons whose literary judgment I felt was above reproach, such as my longtime friends Alex Haley, the author of Roots; Ralph Giordano, of Cologne, Germany, author of Die Bertinis; and my former employer and mentor. Ebony publisher John H. Johnson. Each convinced me that my experiences as a black youngster growing into manhood and surviving in Nazi Germany—an eyewitness to, and frequent victim of, both Nazi racial madness and Allied bombings—followed by my years in Africa were so unique that it was my duty as a journalist to share this rather different perspective on the Holocaust. Alex felt that because I was both an insider in Nazi Germany and, paradoxically, an endangered outsider, I had a rare perspective on some of the Third Reich’s major catastrophic events. He also urged me to record my equally unique experience of finding my own African roots.

Four fundamental aspects set the private hell I endured under the Nazis apart from both the pogroms suffered by my Jewish compatriots in Germany and from the racial persecution inflicted on my African-American brothers and sisters in the United States.

As a black person in white Nazi Germany, I was highly visible and thus could neither run nor hide, to paraphrase my childhood idol Joe Louis. Unlike African-Americans, I did not have the benefit of inherited survival techniques created and perfected by countless ancestors and passed down from generation to generation of oppressed people. Instead, I was forced to traverse a minefield of potential disasters and to develop my own instincts to tell me how best to survive physically and psychologically in a country consumed by racial arrogance and racial hatred and openly committed to the destruction of all “non-Aryans.”

Nazi racists, unlike their white American counterparts, did not commit their atrocities anonymously, disguised in white sheets and under the protection of night. Nor did they operate like some contemporary American politicians who advance their racist agendas by dividing black and white Americans with cleverly disguised code words about “unfair quotas,” “reverse discrimination,” and “states’ rights.” Racists in Nazi Germany did their dirty work openly and brazenly with the full protection, cooperation, and encouragement of the government, which had declared the pollution of Aryan blood with “inferior” non-Aryan blood the nation’s cardinal sin. For all practical purposes—except for the courageous and unflagging support I received from my German mother, who taught me to believe in myself by believing in me and my potential—I faced the constant threat that Nazi ethnic-cleansing policies posed to my safety alone. I faced this threat without the sense of security and reeling of belonging that humans derive from being members of a group, even an embattled one. Because of the absence of black females and the government-imposed taboo of race mixing, I had no legal social outlet when I reached puberty. Unlike the thousands of Africans and so-called “brown babies”—children of black GI fathers and German mothers—who reside in the Federal Republic of Germany today, there simply was no black population to speak of in Germany during the Hitler years, certainly none that I encountered. Not until long after the war did I learn that a small number of black Germans—the tragic so-called “Rhineland bastards” fathered by World War I French and Belgian colonial occupation troops—were exterminated in Hitler’s death camps.

Because Germans of my generation were expected to be fair skinned and of Aryan stock, it became my lot in life to explain ad nauseam why someone who had a brown complexion and black, kinky hair spoke accent-free German and claimed Germany as his place of birth. So let me state here once again, for the record, that I was born in 1926 in Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city, because my grandfather, then consul general of Liberia to Hamburg, had brought with him his sizable family. His oldest son became my father after an intense courtship with my mother, a German nurse. Shortly before Hitler’s rise to power, my grandfather and father returned to Liberia, leaving my mother and me to fend for ourselves in an increasingly hostile racist environment…

The Subject in Black and White: Afro-German Identity Formation in Ika Hügel-Marshall’s Autobiography Daheim unterwegs: Ein deutsches Leben

Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature & Culture
Volume 21 (2005)
pages 62-84
DOI: 10.1353/wgy.2005.0012
E-ISSN: 1940-512X;Print ISSN: 1058-7446

Deborah Janson, Associate Professor of Foreign Languages
West Virginia University

Black Germans still experience prejudice and social isolation based on their appearance. Alhough they are born and raised in Germany, their fellow citizens often do not accept them as Germans because of their skin color. Such social exclusion makes it difficult for Black Germans to define for themselves who they are and where they belong. Yet through their own community-building efforts and the transnational diasporic interactions with Blacks in other countries, Black Germans are developing the means to resist marginalization and discrimination, to gain social acceptance, and to construct a cultural identity for themselves. This essay explores these and other aspects of Afro-German identity formation via an examination of Ika Hügel-Marshall’s autobiography, a work that, until now, has received little scholarly attention despite its relevance to the ongoing—albeit relatively new—Black European identity movement. As an “occupation baby” of mixed-race origins who was raised in a Catholic home for children with special needs, Hügel-Marshall’s transformation from a neglected and abused child into an empowered and politically active adult is inspiring, while her experiences with racism are paradigmatic for the Black-German experience.

Race after Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Postwar Germany and America

Princeton University Press
2005
288 pages
6 x 9, 17 halftones, 1 line illustration, 2 maps
ISBN13: 978-0-691-13379-9

Heide Fehrenbach, Presidential Research Professor of History
Northern Illinois University

When American victors entered Germany in the spring of 1945, they came armed not only with a commitment to democracy but also to Jim Crow practices. Race after Hitler tells the story of how troubled race relations among American occupation soldiers, and black-white mixing within Germany, unexpectedly shaped German notions of race after 1945. Biracial occupation children became objects of intense scrutiny and politicking by postwar Germans into the 1960s, resulting in a shift away from official antisemitism to a focus on color and blackness.

Beginning with black GIs’ unexpected feelings of liberation in postfascist Germany, Fehrenbach investigates reactions to their relations with white German women and to the few thousand babies born of these unions. Drawing on social welfare and other official reports, scientific studies, and media portrayals from both sides of the Atlantic, Fehrenbach reconstructs social policy debates regarding black occupation children, such as whether they should be integrated into German society or adopted to African American or other families abroad. Ultimately, a consciously liberal discourse of race emerged in response to the children among Germans who prided themselves on—and were lauded by the black American press for—rejecting the hateful practices of National Socialism and the segregationist United States.

Fehrenbach charts her story against a longer history of German racism extending from nineteenth-century colonialism through National Socialism to contemporary debates about multiculturalism. An important and provocative work, Race after Hitler explores how racial ideologies are altered through transnational contact accompanying war and regime change, even and especially in the most intimate areas of sex and reproduction.

Table of Contents

• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Democratizing the Racial State: Toward a Transnational History
• Chapter One: Contact Zones: American Military Occupation and the Politics of Race
• Chapter Two: Flaccid Fatherland: Rape, Sex, and the Reproductive Consequences of Defeat
• Chapter Three: “Mischlingskinder” and the Postwar Taxonomy of Race
• Chapter Four: Reconstruction in Black and White: The Toxi Films
• Chapter Five: Whose Children, Theirs or Ours? Intercountry Adoptions and Debates about Belonging
• Chapter Six: Legacies: Race and the Postwar Nation
• Abbreviations of Archives Consulted
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index

THE MILITARY occupation of Germany by American troops elicited two striking responses that were organized around irony and issues of race. One came from Germans, who noted with incredulity and derision that they were being democratized by a nation with a Jim Crow army and a host of anti-miscegenation laws at home. The second came from African American GIs who, in their interactions with Germans, were stunned by the apparent absence of racism in the formerly fascist land and, comparing their reception with treatment by white Americans, experienced their stay there as unexpectedly liberatory. Both responses criticized the glaring gap between democratic American principles and practices; both exposed as false the universalist language employed by the United States government to celebrate and propagate its political system and social values at home and abroad. Yet both also suggested the centrality of intercultural observation and exchange for contemporaries’ experience and understanding of postwar processes of democratization…

Read Chapter One in HTML or PDF.

Blackness in Germany

Afroeuropa: Journal of Afroeuropean Studies
Volume 1, Number 1 (2007)

Tomi Adeaga
Universität Siegen, Deutschland

This paper analyses the situation of the Black population in Germany. It revises its historical origins, well back in history, although it focuses more on the experience of the younger generation, particularly people of mixed parentage who are exposed to an endemic racism rooted in the stereotype of Africans as the most primitive race on earth. The survival of the myth of white superiority has been preserved in Germany and little effort has been made to integrate black Germans into mainstream society.

…Being black in Germany means that one is a foreigner, who has to struggle against stereotypical notions of the African continent as one at the bottom of the evolution ladder. The issue of Blackness is determined by the operational modes of the political climate in Germany, which depends largely on the political party in power. A look at the political situation at work in Germany before World War I shows that racial discrimination already existed in the societies because of the way the German colonies were operated before they were taken over by France and England. We only have to look at the Herero Uprising in Namibia whereby thousands of Hereros were killed. The Swakopmunder street is a proof of the German colonial history. What seems to have gone lost in history is the fact that the first official German concentration camp was built there in 1907 and all the Hereros who dared to be against the German hegemony were killed there. The Africans in Germany, including the Francophones in the French army stationed on the Rhine river, who had relationships with German women and gave birth to mixed children which were seen as exotic and unwanted, were victimised along with the Jews, the Roma and the Sinti and other non-Aryan foreigners by the German NS government.

In an attempt to shed some light on the dynamics of cultural co-existence in multi-ethnic societies as a way of bridging the gap between them, Homi Bhabha has developed the concept of “cultural hybridity” to discuss the dynamics of the impacts of colonisation. However, hybridity in my opinion is the co-existence of two cultures which do not mix together…

…Bhabha’s observation identifies the differences in cultures existing within the same country. Indeed multiculturalism is highly complex in its composition. However, it is secondary within German contexts because the dominant factor still remains the skin colour, the otherness. There is often the tendency for politicians and even Germans themselves to claim that Germany is a homogeneous country. However, this claim is an illusory one because of the existence of multiple cultures due to the mass migrations both from parts of Europe, and the rest of the world. Intermarriages have also always taken place. Moreover, since people of African origins have been in Germany as far back as the 10th century or even earlier, the possibility of mixed African presence has always been there. But their presence became a national problem as the political climate became hostile to people considered as threats to the German existence and supremacy…

Read the entire article here.

Germany’s history has established a unique context for biracial individuals. For one, foreigners that look different have a hard time being accepted as German citizens. While the most prominent political activists of the Afro-German movement were women, Afro-German men chose the venue of music to express their struggle for identity and acceptance. Their contribution to the Afro-German movement of the early 1990s emphasized German citizenship and a demand to be recognized as Germans (El-Tayeb, 2003). Afro-Germans do not enjoy the advantages of “uncontested national belonging that come with being white” (El-Tayeb, 2003, pg. 479). The Hip-Hop group Brother’s Keepers addressed this issue with their song “Fremd im Eigenen Land” (Stranger in your own country) (El-Tayeb, 2003). African Americans living in the United States do not typically struggle with this issue. Nationality of Americans is not defined by racial make up, but in national allegiance (Asante, 2005). As a consequence, Afro-Germans have a problem with “cultural location”: The dilemma they face because they are “born in Germany, are educated in Germany, and view themselves as German yet in the minds of their fellow citizens they are not truly German because they do not have pure German ancestry” (Asante, 2005)…

Understanding the Identity Choices of Multiracial and Multicultural Afro-European and Black Women Living in Germany: Identifying a Model of Strategies and Resources for Empowerment

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München
October 2006
179 pages

Dominique Michel-Peres

This grounded theory study investigated the identity choices of highly achieving multiracial and multicultural Afro-European and Black immigrant women living in Germany and the role these choices played in their personal constructs of coping and self-empowerment. 10 openended narrative interviews, field observations formed the data base; whereby the field observations where used to affirm or disaffirm evolving hypothesis. The historical, social, and cultural context in which these women live is reviewed, and key terms such as racism and discrimination are clarified. The individual racial identity choice and coping strategies were analyzed, and a theoretical model was developed describing the a) causal conditions that influence and form racial identity choices, b) phenomena that resulted from these causal conditions, c) the contextual attributes that influenced type of strategy developed, d) intervening condition that have an impact on the type of strategy developed, e) the strategies themselves, and f) the consequences of those strategies. The components of the theoretical model are first described and then illustrated by narrative excerpts.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
Abstract
Introduction

1. Conceptual Point of Departure
1.1. Bi- / Multi-isms and the Precariousness of Recognition
1.2. Racist Construction in Europe
1.2.1. European expansion and exploration:-its role in shaping images of Africans and of “races”
1.2.2. The stage is set: socio-historical and socio-cultural props
1.2.2.1 Social Darwinism and German colonialism
1.2.2.2. Internalized Colonialism
1.3. Representations and Projections
1.3.1 Postwar Germany’s Black children
1.3.2. Non-white minorities and the German educational system
1.4. Summary

2. Racism and Discrimination
2.1. Racism, Discrimination and Subjectivity
2.1.1. Defining racism
2.1.2 What is racism? Identity Choices of Multiracial & Multicultural Afro-European and Black Women in Germany
2.1.2.1. Axiom 1: Racism does not implicate the existence of races
2.1.2.2. Axiom 2: Racism implies the existence of social hierarchies
2.1.2.3. Axiom 3 Racism requires influence in social structuring processes
2.2. Racism and Racial Discrimination’s New Attire
2.2.1. Central Frames in Racism
2.2.1.1. Abstract liberalism
2.2.1.2. Abstract liberalism and its role in cultural racism
2.2.1.3. Cultural racism and self-fulfilling prophecies
2.2.1.4. Symbolic Racism Excurse: Germany’s discourse on immigration
2.3. Racial Discrimination : Subjectivity and Psychological Impact
2.3.1. The Psychological Impact of Perceived Racial Discrimination
2.4. Summary

3. Identity Construction, Patchwork Identities and the Stigmatized Self
3.1. Identity Construction and Patchwork Identities: Who am I?
3.1.1. Patchworks of Racial and Ethnic choices
3.2. Multicultural-Multiracial- Who am I?
3.2.1. Models of ethnic and racial identity development
3.2.1.1. Visible racial and ethnic group models (V-REG)
3.2.1.1.1. Cross’s Theory of Black Identity Development Identity Choices of Multiracial & Multicultural Afro-European and Black Women in Germany
3.2.1.1.2. Helm’s model of White Identity Development
3.2.1.1.3. Multiracial identity development models
3.2.1.2. Salience model: Ethnic Identity Development Theory
3.2.2. Implications for Afro-Europeans and immigrants
3.3. Cultural Differences and the Salience of Ethnic and Racial Identity and Oppositional Identity
3.3.1. Voluntary and involuntary minorities
3.3.2. Oppositional identity and the burden of “acting White”
3.3.3. Accommodation without assimilation
3.3.4. Personal and group attributions to racism and discrimination
3.4. Racial and Ethnic Identity’s Role in the Self-Esteem of Minorities
3.4.1. Self-esteem
3.5. Social Identity and Stigmatized Identities
3.5.1. Social identity and stigmatized identities
3.5.1.1. Coping with attribution ambiguity
3.5.1.2. Maintaining a sense of Self independent of the “spoiled collective identity”
3.5.1.3. Ethnicity, race, gender and other socially defined groups as developmental contexts
3.6. Summary

4. Identity Choices in Multiple Contexts: Concepts, Properties and Dimensions
4.1. Methodology
4.1.1. Participants
4.1.2. Procedure
4.1.2.1. The narrative interview: Identity Choices of Multiracial & Multicultural Afro-European and Black Women in Germany
4.1.2.2. The interviewing process
4.1.2.3. The interview
4.1.2.4. Underlying ethnographic aspects: field notes and observations
4.2. Verification of Concepts and Categories
4.2.1. Verification
4.2.1.1. Quality verification

5. Analysis and Results
5.1. Sources of Influence
5.1.1. Direct and indirect dispositional and situational sources of influence
5.1.1.1. Dispositional factor
5.1.1.2. Situational factors
5.1.2. Higher categories
5.1.2.1. Coping strategies
5.1.2.2. Personal characteristics
5.1.2.3. Social identity: content and salience
5.1.2.4. Threats
5.1.2.5. Opportunities
5.1.3. Core Category, phenomena, and consequences
5.1.3.1. Core category as causal condition
5.1.3.2. Phenomenon resulting from racial socialization parental racial-beliefs
5.1.3.3. Context in which coping strategies develop Identity Choices of Multiracial & Multicultural Afro-European and Black Women in Germany
5.1.3.4. Intervening conditions influencing coping strategies
5.1.3.5. Consequences of strategies against powerlessness, helplessness and victimization
5.2. Multicultural-Multiracial Narratives: Excerpts from two lives
5.2.1. Jennifer’s story
5.2.1.1. Explicitness of experienced discrimination and perception
5.2.1.2. Racial salience
5.2.1.3. Sense of self
5.2.2. Angela’s story
5.2.2.1. Attribution ambiguity
5.2.2.2. Parent’s experiences with racism and racial discrimination
5.2.2.3. Internalized racism and race salience

6. Discussion: Implications for Multicultural Counselling and Empowerment
6.1. Focus on Primary Socialization Issues and Subjectivity
6.1.2. Focus on strengths and assets

References

List of Tables

1. Ratio of German to Foreighn Students According to School Track in the Year 2002 in Germany
2. Discourse on Immigration as Represented in two Major German Publications
3. Summary of Salient Points in Poston and Kich Multiracial Identity Development Model
4. Table 4 Participants Ethnic Backgrounds
5. Dispositional and Situational, Direct and Indirect Factors

List of Figures

1. Conceptual framework: The embeddedness of identity
2. Identity construction as patch-working
3. Descriptive model of the relationship between ego identity and Nigrescence
4. Factor Model of Multiracial Identity
5. Paradoxes found in self-esteem research
6. Research results on the detrimental effects of membership in devalued Social-groups
7. Summary of research results on social-group membership and its Consequences
8. Results of research on the factors affecting social identity development and how they interact
9. In-group and out-group identification in relation to expectations and Aspirations; group vs. individual based strategies; and attribution style
10. The results of axial coding: Higher categories and their respective subcategories
11. Theoretical model for understanding idenitity and strategy choices of multiracial and multicultural women

Read the entire dissertation here.

Afro-German Biracial Identity Development

Virginia Commonwealth University
May 2010
75 pages

Rebecca R. Hubbard

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at Virginia Commonwealth University

An increase in the biracial population has heightened our awareness of unique issues that pervade the experience of these individuals. The importance of environmental influences on biracial identity development has been established, but investigations concerning racial socialization of biracial individuals are scarce. This study, utilizing a qualitative design, explores racial identity development of biracial Afro-Germans living in Germany. The purpose of the study is to understand the strategies that biracial individuals use to negotiate their racial identity, factors that influence their development, cultural influences, and racial socialization processes. Interviews with biracial Afro-Germans were conducted using phenomenological interviewing techniques. Twelve themes emerged from the data that are best conceptualized in an ecological model. Inter-rater reliability was established in two phases. Implications of the findings include a need for continued research with Black-White biracial populations.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Abstract
• Problem Statement
• Review of the Literature
  • Developmental Models
  • Developmental Models of Biracial Identity Development
  • Ecological Models
  • Ecological Models of Biracial Identity Development
  • Racial Socialization
  • Racial Socialization of Biracial Individuals
  • Value of Cross-Cultural Comparisons
  • Historical Context of People of African Descent in Germany
  • Empirical Research with Afro-German Populations
  • Theoretical Conceptualization
  • Research Questions
• Method
  • Purpose
  • Design
  • Role of the Researcher
  • Sampling & Recruitment of Participants
  • Procedure
  • Data Analysis
  • Verification
  • Limitations
• Themes
  • Intersectional Identity
  • Black Identity
  • German/White Identity
  • Disconnect/Denial
  • Positive Internal Coping
  • Environmental Support
  • Injured Family
  • Person-Environment Discrepancy
  • Multi Kulti
  • American Familiarity
  • Racism, Marginalization, Conflict
  • Progress and Change
  • Ecological Conceptualization of Themes
• Discussion
  • The Essence of Biracial Afro-German Identity
  • Culture and Nationality
  • Lack of Appropriate Language
  • Future Directions
• List of References

List of Tables

1. Table 1 Mean Age and Parental Heritage by Gender
2. Table 2 Participant Demographics

List of Figures

1. Figure 1 Root’s Ecological Model of Biracial Identity
2. Figure 2 “Sarotti Mohr” Trademark of a German chocolate company
3. Figure 3 Hubbard’s Ecological Model of Afro-German Biracial Identity (HEMBAGI)

Read the entire thesis here.

Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture & History, 1890-2000

University of Rochester Press
2005-03-01
266 pages
Pages: 266
Size: 9 x 6
Hardback 13 Digit ISBN: 9781580461832
Imprint: University of Rochester Press

Edited by

Patricia M. Mazón, Associate Professor of History
State University of New York, Buffalo

Reinhild Steingröver, Assistant Professor of German
University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music

Since the Middle Ages, Africans have lived in Germany as slaves and scholars, guest workers and refugees. After Germany became a unified nation in 1871, it acquired several African colonies but lost them after World War I. Children born of German mothers and African fathers during the French occupation of Germany were persecuted by the Nazis. After World War II, many children were born to African American GIs stationed in Germany and German mothers. Today there are 500,000 Afro-Germans in Germany out of a population of 80 million. Nevertheless, German society still sees them as “foreigners,” assuming they are either African or African American but never German.

In recent years, the subject of Afro-Germans has captured the interest of scholars across the humanities for several reasons. Looking at Afro-Germans allows us to see another dimension of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ideas of race that led to the Holocaust. Furthermore, the experience of Afro-Germans provides insight into contemporary Germany’s transformation, willing or not, into a multicultural society. The volume breaks new ground not only by addressing the topic of Afro-Germans but also by combining scholars from many disciplines.

Table of Contents

1. Dangerous Liaisons: Race, Nation, and German Identity
2. The First Besatzungskinder: Afro-German Children, Colonial Childrearing Practices, and Racial Policy in German Southwest Africa, 1890-1914
3. Converging Specters of an Other Within: Race and Gender in Pre- 1945 Afro-German History
4. Louis Brody and the Black Presence in German Film Before 1945
5. Narrating “Race” in 1950s’ West Germany: The Phenomenon of the Toxi Films
6. Will Everything Be Fine? Anti-Racist Practice in Recent German Cinema
7. Writing Diasporic Identity: Afro-German Literature since 1985
8. The Souls of Black Volk: Contradiction? Oxymoron?

‘If You Can’t Pronounce My Name, You Can Just Call Me Pride’: Afro-German Activism, Gender and Hip Hop

Gender & History
Volume 15 Issue 3 (November 2003)
Pages 460 – 486
DOI: 10.1111/j.0953-5233.2003.00316.x

Fatima El-Tayeb, Assistant Professor of African-American Literature and Culture
University of California, San Diego

The history of the black German minority, now estimated at around 500,000, goes back several centuries. It is only since the twentieth century, however, that Germans of African descent have been perceived as a group. This did not lead to their recognition as a national minority, but rather, from the 1910s to the 1960s, they were defined as a collective threat to Germany’s racial and cultural ‘purity’. When a sense of identity emerged among Afro-Germans themselves in the 1980s, the majority population continued to deny the existence of ethnic diversity within German society. At the turn of the twenty-first century, Afro-Germans seemingly suddenly appeared as a new, ‘hip’ minority. This appearance was largely focused on the immense public success of the Hip Hop collective ‘Brothers Keepers’, conceived as an anti-racist, explicitly Afro-German intervention into German debates around national identity and racist violence. This article explains the success of ‘Brothers Keepers’ by contextualising it within the tradition of two decades of Afro-German feminist activism and the transnational Hip Hop movement of European youth of colour.

Read or purchase the article here.

Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out

Orlanda Frauenverlag (German)
1986
University of Massachusetts Press (English)
1992
ISBN: 0-87023-759-4
Likely out of print.

Edited by

May Opitz [Ayim]
Katharina Oguntoye
Dagmar Schultz

Translated by Anne V. Adams

Foreword by Audre Lorde