Reflection – It’s A Thing!

I understand that your self-conception says “antiracist”. I like that.

That’s one of the reasons why we’re friends.

I say this without sarcasm: I think it’s great that you want to educate other white people about racism, and that you voice your opposition when yet another public, racist “incident” happens. Things get a lot less horrible when you don’t feel left alone.

I’ve said many times that it is infuriating to be seen as the only person responsible for countering racist “arguments” due to one’s skin color, so I do appreciate the support. I’ve also written that people should Say Something instead of awkwardly gawking at racist incidents, and I still stress that. I am thankful for your antiracist commitment and your efforts for me and others.

But there’s a problem. There’s a difference between commitment and putting on a show.

And the difference is that actively interfering against discriminatory behavior towards a person, and feeling responsible for supporting PoC in fights against racism, and publicly speaking up when some BS is happening does not equal doing so by pushing to the front of the line and being the loudest one.

It is quite similar to the dilemma of male* feminist allies who mistake desired support for secretly desired leadership. Being structurally entrenched in the discriminatory structure you are trying to fight can only go so far.

I am happy about the fact that many more white people are speaking up in the recent throes of racist shitstorms. And yet, there’s that slightly bitter aftertaste at times (…which is not to say this is the case with *every single person* who is white and speaks up in such incidents, but rather with a – let’s say – trend).

People of Color have written about white privilege and white defensiveness publicly and academically for more than a century. The “invisible knapsack” of white privilege has been described in great detail, so have mechanisms of racist defensiveness, and problems with discriminatory language and ensuing physical and psychological violence.

That thing called racism has resulted in the marginalization not only of People of Color, but, consequently, also of their writings. Moreover, PoC scholarship has been labelled as “emotional” and “subjective”, as non-scholarly and as exaggerated. Only through perseverance, massive grass-roots campaigns and the decency of certain white publishers have the intellectual products of Black Studies, for example, come to the fore more than they used to (…which is not to say that they don’t still have to linger at the discursive fringes, and are under constant attack, see the latest example here).

The voices of People of Color are easily silenced, is my point, as is their knowledge through lived experience and research. People of Color have to live with the fact that their findings are ultimately validated only through the recognition of someone who is not a person of color. People of Color have to live with the fact that the working knowledge they have had and tried to communicate for years is then magically “discovered” by white people, and thus gains mainstream credibility and comprehension.

It is within this context that the trend I am denouncing is situated in, namely white anti-racists taking to the stage in anti-racism debates and taking up the role of The Explainer of racism without reference to the works of actual People of Color. They do so without acknowledging that their “discoveries” and oh so impressive self-reflection is the actual work of people who are not white but whose contributions are either ignored or ridiculed. The only people these white anti-racism Experts give credit to, however, are (at least primarily) other white anti-racism Experts – it is a circle of self-congratulatory posing.

This is essentially all what People of Color are left with, sometimes in addition to the charming, unspoken expectation of being entitled to PoC’s gratitude.

That might not  have been many white anti-racists’ intent. But intent isn’t magic.

I appreciate the support, I need the support, I demand the support. But somehow, some way, some white people create opportunities to construct their anti-racism as a means of making it all about them again, to retell the tales of their personal racism purge, to show off their theoretical knowledge, to further their political and/or academic credentials, to stay the focus of attention, to alway be the “expert” – all on the backs of PoC.

I want your support – but you haven’t discovered antiracism. You are using language that People of Color have developed. Your revelations aren’t news. You are paraphrasing what you have learnt from People of Color without naming your source. You are appropriating. You are failing to contextualize your knowledge and to give credit where credit is due.

You are, thus, perpetuating white privilege.

That is annoying.

Stop it.

At Least They’re Not Pretending Anymore…?

A couple of weeks ago, the Koblenz’ administrative court has handed down an interesting decision:

“Officers of germany’s federal police are allowed to inspect travellers without suspicion, at least on rail routes that serve foreigners for unauthorized entry or serve violations of the Residence Act. In sampling, they are not prohibited from also selecting people due to their outward appearance.” ["Beamte der Bundespolizei dürfen Reisende jedenfalls auf Bahnstrecken, die Ausländern zur unerlaubten Einreise oder zu Verstößen gegen das Aufenthaltsgesetz dienen, verdachtsunabhängig kontrollieren. Es ist ihnen bei Stichprobenkontrollen nicht verwehrt, die Auswahl der anzusprechenden Personen auch nach dem äußeren Erscheinungsbild vorzunehmen."]

What happened? An Afro-german student travelled by train in Hesse, from Kassel to Frankfurt am Main (…and let me just add: having grown up in Hesse as an Afro-German person, why does that not come as a surprise…). Federal police officers entered his compartment and, unerringly, chose him as the one to ask to prove his identity. He, however, refused to, and repeatedly asked the federal officers why they singled him out. I presume this was done in german. Since that is no proof of someone’s “real identity”, of course, at least not when they look brown, eventually, the officers seized his backpack and searched it for identification papers. Having found none, they took him to the police station where, thanks to a personal search, they did find his (german) drivers license.

Not My Representatives.

Kristina Schröder, germany’s federal minister for families, seniors, women and youth (…ridiculously hard to translate: BMFSFJ), is a bad person. She has been constantly mocked as incompetent, stupid, overchallenged; yet, I do not think she is any of these things. I think Kristina Schröder is a conservative ideologist and activist, an anti-feminist and a german nationalist with racist tendencies – hence, in my view, a bad person.

Schröder refuses to amend gender-discriminatory fiscal policies (such as the german “Ehegattensplitting”) and is one of the few European politicians in charge of gender equality politics to outright decline any gender quotas/affirmative action, even though her “flexible” and “voluntary” models have led to no essential changes in the make-up of germany’s companies’ executive boards and male dominance.

She rather writes a book (…co-authored by one of her employees…), named “Thanks – but we’re emancipated!” (“Danke – emanzipiert sind wir selber!” – and I’m not even gonna get into the fact that, if only linguistically, that title makes my head hurt…). I won’t spend a penny on this drivel, so I haven’t read it, but what I gather from her interviews, guest articles, excerpts from her book, and other people’s book reviews, her writing seems to be in line with her rambling: an oversimplifying, anti-feminist treatise about the magic awesomeness of individual freedoms; negating structural discrimination and evoking the very tiresome neoliberal construct of unlimited personal liberty and agency, and that if you face resistance or are discriminated against, it’s simply your fault and there’s no non-individual remedy, and that it’s certainly not a political issue.

Yet, she is the one who will implement “Betreuungsgeld”, a monetary reward for every family that decides (and can afford) to not put their kids in daycare and either take care of the toddlers themselves (or rather: herself…) or hire someone privately, while selectively eliminating the additional financial support parents get within the first year of a child’s life (“Elterngeld”) for parents who are on welfare (“Hartz 4″). And while it is certainly no one’s business why or why not families put kids in daycare, the mere fact that some of them have no other choice but this costly option and “Betreuungsgeld” merely deflects the very important criticism that, despite the minister’s promises, there aren’t nearly enough daycare spaces for kids in this country anyway, shows that Kristina Schröder is certainly not shy when it comes to executing certain policies that do affect people’s personal liberties – as long as it affects the ones she doesn’t really care about.

Moreover, Kristina Schröder is not only a (ultra?)conservative when it comes to women’s rights, she’s also an Enthusiastic German, who tells fairy tales of the alarming rates of reverse racism [sic] and animosity towards german people in this country (germany…), of course: committed by “immigrants”. She was the one to not only cut funding for anti-racist and anti-fascist grassroots organizations, but to enforce the new ordeal that all of them now have to officially declare their love of the constitution. She chose to shift the focus of “anti-extremist” work to the extremely outrageous german left-wing terrorism of sabotaging army vehicles and smashing paint bombs against buildings, while right-wing terrorists could travel the country and execute people they deemed “non-german” (…but that’s the same!). Moreover, taking up the right-wing slogan of “germany for germans”, Schröder was so generous to fund a project titled “Dortmund den Dortmundern” where neo-Nazis and “normal” teenagers were brought together in a nice circle to discuss the city’s “democratic” future.

And yes, there is so much more…

Kristina Schröder is a bad person, and her politics can’t help but show that. Her book seems to have been the final straw for some of germany’s feminist activists, and, in the wake of Schröder’s publicity tour, germany’s Green Party and independent activists have initiated an Open Letter, called: “Not my Minister” that has been signed by 3,000 7,000 people at this point, asking Schröder to resign.

Personally, I think it has been high-time for public figures to counter Schröder’s ideology. I also think the letter is well-written and addresses many important issues in regard to Schröder’s blatant anti-feminism and her classism. However, it seems that the letter’s authors seem to be partially stuck in feminism’s Second Wave – which is ironic because that’s Schröder’s biggest pet peeve…

The letter adequately addresses Schröder’s ideological fallacies, the persistence of structural discrimination and the ridiculousness of having a person like her represent this country’s women. I also understand that Open Letters are compromises, that Open Letters cannot address every single issue, and that Open Letters have to be as broadly written as possible to appeal to as many people as possible. But here’s where you lose me, dear initiators: You have written a letter from white german women for white german women, a letter about white german women’s problems and how to fix these for this group. Not with one word does the letter even mention Schröder’s nationalism and racist tendencies, not with one word do you take the specific discrimination of women of color in this country, that Schröder not only perpetuates but exacerbates with her anti-feminism and “reverse racism” talk and action, into account.

I understand that activist nitpicking can be annoying and that, sometimes, some form of protest is better than none. But to me, this is not a minor detail – this is unacceptable, and it showcases a lack of awareness and an abundance of white privilege in certain “professional”, german feminist circles. It also makes this letter really “safe” and ensures that some of the more prominent undersigned won’t face any repercussions and/or disadvantages in case they’re looking for a “gender mainstreaming”-labelled job offered by a political party or related organization at some point and want to use this in their portfolio…

Kristina Schröder is not merely anti-feminist, she is a conservative ideologist. Her anti-feminism, classism and german nationalism go hand in hand, and it is this cluster of discriminatory thinking and subsequent action that affects people. The Open Letter was a chance to not only speak for certain women, but to address the discriminatory structures that Kristina Schröder creates, perpetuates and simultaneously denies, and that especially affect people who face intersectional discrimination. In my view, you cannot address one without the other, because Schröder’s ideology is as interwoven as reality.

Keep Right, Except To Pass.

Skin color is a funny thing. Despite the fact that we talk about it so much (yes, that includes me), explicitly and, much worse, implicitly, it is inherently meaningless. It tells you absolutely nothing, except for a vague ratio of pigmentation an individual can call his/her own. It is completely arbitrary, unreliable and unstable what kind of fictional “race” and its fictional meaning people have linked and continue to link to someone’s skin tone, and despite such delightful historical artifacts like “The One Drop Rule”, the concomitant construct of “miscegenation” and the fact that people still think of “mixed” “race” children as the progeny of two people “mixing” their “black” and “white” blood, for example, there is no inherent genetic marker of “race” other than what people have assigned to certain phenotypes. And yet… As always, disclaimers like this one simply have to be followed by actual experiences that show time and again that people cannot be bothered with logic or actual importance or decency.

I am a light-skinned Afro-german person. Not that this should matter, but it actually does. Having been raised in a white, small town family with middle-class aspirations, this proved to be somewhat of a problem. And what’s the german way of dealing with those? Right: denial! Denial in the form of years and years of not addressing the simple fact that I don’t look like the rest of this side’s family, of dressing me in super-frilly white dresses, of never allowing to let this “unruly” hair be unbraided, of teaching me poems of every dead white literary person one can think of, and of making sure this foreign looking kid is extremely well-behaved, to not stick out more than she already does.

The thing is: I actually believed I was white, or like everybody else, and would emphatically deny that I am also Black when people would ask me why I have all that pigmentation going on (…to somewhat paraphrase). Friends of mine would emphatically defend my whiteness, saying that I was not Black, but “Brown” (which is so much better, apparently), and others would give me “compliments” about being so light, because, obviously, things could have gone a lot “worse”… All in all, I was extremely embarrassed when being called out for that apparent difference from the enforced norm.

Black People Ruin Movies. Or Something.

Redundancy, repetition, redundancy. That’s what it feels like to blog about sexism and racism and, you know, all the other stuff, anyway. I keep repeating myself – and it’s not only I because I seem to have a tendency to do that, but because the world is not changing as rapidly as one might wish. Like, not at all… Did I say it’s not changing?

I have read the Hunger Games series last year while travelling. Apparently, it’s the New Hot Thing right now, and, despite the fact that it is a bit of a slightly altered version of other, more profound dystopian classics and, basically, teenage literature that is somewhat gloomy and yet, not gloomy enough for a scenario like this (for the sake of the kids, I get it), it also has all the mechanisms of pop literature that make you keep reading the books and entertain you well. Moreover, the one thing I really enjoyed about the books, is that they have a female lead for a change, that this female lead is described as having “olive skin”, “dark” hair and grey eyes, that there are multiple people of colour introduced as actual real characters (stereotypically portrayed in some cases, yes, but more endearing in others), and that things aren’t completely good v. evil, but more complex than that.

Now that we’ve entered the movie trilogy stage, guess what happened? We couldn’t possibly have a female lead that is also a woman of colour with “olive” skin, dark hair and grey eyes, so, naturally, the casting directors have given the role of “Katniss” to a white, blonde, blue-eyed actress who had to dye her hair brown to remotely resemble the actual protagonist. I thought she did a good job in the movie, but that does not change the fact that, again, characters have to be literally stripped of their colour to make them “majority-accessible”, and to make a film or book or whatever successful (and not an “ethnic” piece of art, whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean… oh, wait, I know what it means…).