Table Of ContentShowing Our Colors : Afro-German Women
title:
Speak Out
author: Opitz, May.
publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
isbn10 | asin: 0870237594
print isbn13: 9780870237591
ebook isbn13: 9780585163932
language: English
Women, Black--Germany--History, Blacks--
subject Germany--History, Race discrimination--
Germany, Germany--Race relations.
publication date: 1992
lcc: DD78.B55F3713 1991eb
ddc: 305.48/896043
Women, Black--Germany--History, Blacks--
subject: Germany--History, Race discrimination--
Germany, Germany--Race relations.
Page iii
Showing Our Colors
Afro-German Women Speak Out
Edited By May Opitz,
Katharina Oguntoye &
Dagmar Schultz
With a foreword by Audre Lorde
Translated by Anne V. Adams,
in cooperation with
Tina Campt,
May Opitz &
Dagmar Schultz
The University of
Massachusetts Press
Amherst
Page iv
Original title: Farbe bekennen: Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren
ihrer Geschichte © 1986 by Orlanda Frauenverlag English translation
© 1992 by The University of Massachusetts Press All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America LC 91-17062 ISBN 0-87023-
759-4 (cloth); 760-8 (pbk.) Set in Linotron Sabon by Keystone
Typesetting, Inc. Printed and bound by Thomson-Shore, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
[Farbe bekennen. English]
Showing our colors: Afro-German women speak out / edited by May
Opitz, Katharina Oguntoye, and Dagmar Schuhz: with a foreword by
Audre Lorde; translated by Anne V. Adams, in cooperation with Tina
Campt, May Opitz, and Dagmar Schultz.
p. cm.
Translation of: Farbe bekennen.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-87023-759-4 (cloth : alk. paper)ISBN
0-87023-760-8 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Women, BlackGermanyHistory. 2. BlacksGermanyHistory.
3. Race discriminationGermany. 4. GermanyRace relations.
I. Opitz, May. II. Oguntoye, Katharina. III. Schultz, Dagmar.
IV. Title: Showing our colors.
DD78.B55F3713 1991
305.48'896043dc20 91-17061
CIP
British Library Cataloging in Publication data are available.
"And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures With You" © by Jo
Carrillo is reprinted from This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By
Radical Women of Color, ed. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa
(New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983). Used by
permission of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, P.O. Box 908,
Latham, N.Y. 12110.
Page v
CONTENTS
Foreword to the English Language Edition vii
Audre Lorde
Preface to the English Language Edition xv
Editors' Introduction xxi
Racism, Sexism, and Precolonial Images of Africa in 1
Germany
May Opitz
Precolonial Images of Africa, Colonialism, and Fascism 3
The First Africans in Germany 3
The Middle Ages: "Moors" and White Christians 4
From "Moors" to "Negroes" 6
"Race": The Construction of a Concept 9
Sexism and Racism 11
Notes 15
The Germans in the Colonies 19
"Cultural Mission" and "Heathen Mission" 21
German Women in the Colonies 27
Colonization of Consciousness through Mission 30
and"Education"
The Colonial Heritage 34
Notes 37
African and Afro-German Women in the Weimar Republic 41
and under National Socialism
Defeat and Occupation of the Rhineland 41
"Black Rapists" and "Rhineland Bastards" 44
Protection of the Family and Forced Sterilization 49
Notes 53
Our Father was Cameroonian, Our Mother, East Prussian, 56
We Are Mulattoes
Doris Reiprich and Erika Ngambi Ul Kuo
Afro-Germans after 1945: The So-Called Occupation 77
Babies
May Opitz
The Self and the Other 82
Scientific Studies on the Status of Afro-Germans in the 85
1950s
Notes 96
Page vi
An "Occupation Baby" in Postwar Germany 101
Helga Emde
"Aren't You Glad You Can Stay Here?" 113
Astrid Berger
"Mirror the Invisible / Play the Forgotten" 119
Miriam Goldschmidt
Racism Here and Now 125
May Opitz
Everyday Racism in Books for Children and Youths 127
Afro-Germans between Self-Assertion and Self-Denial 133
Identification and Self-Valuation 140
The "In-between World" as Opportunity 141
Notes 143
Three Afro-German Women in Conversation with Dagmar145
Schultz
Laura Baum, Katharina Oguntoye, May Optiz
"What Makes Me So Different in the Eyes of Others?" 165
Ellen Wiedenroth
Old Europe Meets Up with Itself in a Different Place 178
Corinna N.
"All of a Sudden, I knew what I wanted" 191
Angelika Eisenbrandt
"I Do the Same Things that Others Do" 196
Julia Berger
Mother: Afro-German / Father: Ghanaian 199
Abena Adomako
The Break 204
May Optiz
What I've Always Wanted to Tell You 212
Katharina Oguntoye
"I Never Wanted to Write, I Just Couldn't Help Myself" 218
Raya Lubinetzki
Recapitulation and Outlook 228
Translator's Afterword 234
Anne V. Adams
Literature and Addresses 238
Page vii
FOREWORD TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
EDITION
In the spring of 1984, I spent three months at the Free University in
Berlin teaching a course in Black American women poets and a poetry
workshop in English, for German students. One of my goals on this
trip was to meet Black German women, for I had been told there were
quite a few in Berlin.
Who are they, these German women of the Diaspora? Beyond the
details of our particular oppressionsalthough certainly not outside the
reference of those detailswhere do our paths intersect as women of
color? And where do our paths diverge? Most important, what can we
learn from our connected differences that will be useful to us both,
Afro-German and Afro-American?
Afro-German. The women say they've never heard that term used
before.
I asked one of my Black students how she'd thought about herself
growing up. "The nicest thing they ever called us was 'warbaby,'" she
said. But the existence of most Black Germans has nothing to do with
the Second World War, and, in fact, predates it by many decades. I
have Black German women in my class who trace their Afro-German
heritage back to the 1890s.
For me, Afro-German means the shining faces of May and Katharina
in animated conversation about their fathers' homelands, the
comparisons, joys, disappointments. It means my pleasure at seeing
another Black woman walk into my classroom, her reticence slowly
giving way as she explores a new self-awareness, gains a new way of
thinking about herself in relation to other Black women.
