Showing 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.