Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out

by Katharina Oguntoye (Editor), May Ayim (editor), Dagmar Schultz (Editor)

Showing Our Afro-German Women Speak Out is an English translation of the German book Farbe bekennen edited by author May Ayim, Katharina Oguntoye, and Dagmar Schultz. It is the first published book by Afro-Germans. It is the first written use of the term Afro-German.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Poetry, German Literature, Race, Germany, History

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[leynes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Farbe Bekennen (translated title: Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out) is a book written by different Afro-German women about their lives and experiences in Germany. Personally, I wouldn't use the label 'Afro-German' for myself (I will elaborate on that later) but these women have claimed it for themselves (this is the first written use of the term Afro-German in German literature), so I'll respect their decision when referring to them.

Farbe Bekennen is a compilation of texts, testimonials and other secondary sources. The collection focuses on the acts of racism and sexism that Afro-German women (and people in general) are exposed to in their day to day lives. The book draws on themes and motifs prevalent in Germany from the earliest colonial interactions between Germany and Black "otherness," up through the lived experiences of Black German women in the 1980s.

This collection was groundbreaking due to its bold and unapologetic portrayal of Blackness in Germany, and since it gave voice to a group of people that have until then been overlooked. This book gave them a platform where their stories would be heard. Up to this day, it is hailed as a classical and iconic text of the Afro-German movement. Unfortunately, it is currently sold out / out of print.

Through Farbe Bekennen a lot of necessary and vital community work could be done. One of the main themes and aims of this collection was to bring Black women together, to help them share their differences and similarities and start connecting to people with similar experiences than them. It can be grouped with Audre Lorde's efforts in Germany (notably Berlin) to bring Black German women together through hosting read-ins and discussions. Lorde is even credited with coining the term "Afro-German".

now i'm telling you as your afro-german sister, that by choosing to see me as a woman without color and without her own heritage, or as a puzzling being, somehow exotic, somehow an object you are ready to leave me hanging in a similar desperation. – Katharina Oguntoye

By virtue of expressing their frustration with their marginalization in German society, these women affirm their identities as transnational and intercultural beings. Farbe Bekennen is a testament to black German women's struggle for recognition of personhood.

The collection is split into three parts that are chronologically organised: 1) the historical origins of German perceptions of Africa and Blackness during the time of colonialism and the time leading up to the two World Wars, 2) the Brown Babies and accompanying social problems immediately following World War II in Germany and 3) anecdotes and narratives contextualized in lingering modern racism in Germany (the time of the 70s and 80s). Some of the chapters were part of May Ayim's dissertations, others are written as essays or poems by different Afro-German women, some of which are simply conversations written down or critical biographical profiles.

The first chapter of the novel describes pre-existing opinions and ideas of Africans in pre-colonial Germany. May Ayim focuses mostly on religious ideas, particularly the idea that anything Black is a mark of evil in the Christian faith. In this chapter Ayim also discuss the root of the word Moor and its subsequent switch to the word Negro. Moor served in the Middle Ages to "differentiate between Black and white heathens". The word was not necessary tied to a negative idea of skin color. However, in the 18th century Negroes became the more come term that was especially negative with the expansion of colonialism and slavery.

Following the first segment of Farbe Bekennen is the testimonial of Doris Reiprich and Erika Ngambi ul Kio as they talk about their experience being Afro-German in Germany both before and after World War II. Hearing these elderly ladies talk (both of them were 65+ years old at the time of the interview) was by far my favorite portion of the entire book. It was interested to hear how their parents met in the early 20th century and that they recall their childhood as being quite the happy one, even though they were excluded from certain activities (eg. they weren't allowed to join a gymnastics club). However, as adults they struggled to find jobs.

During the war the women faced mounting discrimination. Erika survived with her husband, who was able to find roles as an actor in colonial films about Germany. Doris, however, stayed at home in Danzig. In one incident she talks about nearly being sterilized, because of a Nazi forced sterilization program of all colored people in that area. I was incredibly shocked to hear of the hundreds of Black Germans who had to undergo a forced sterilisation in the Third Reich. I am angry that we never learned about this at school. Moreover, I also found it interesting to get a look at the entertainment industry since many of the participants in this book have at one point or another worked on movies. It was eery seeing the pictures of that time.

Now both sisters still live in Germany and feel happy. Doris states, "After the Nazi period the hostilities toward us quickly tapered off. I can't forget everything from that time, but I'm no longer miserable either." Hearing their experiences and that their faith in their own Germanness was never shaken was truly inspiring. Even though I never faced similar hardships, I felt like I could relate to them, especially when they rejected Africa as their home (Doris says: "After the war we wanted to get out of Poland and go back to Germany. The Russians offered us free passage to Africa."), since it has nothing to do with them. They're German. End of the story.

In many of the women's accounts they express the sentiment of being an otherness despite not knowing anything else. In their minds, they were German: they spoke German, read German and even were habituated to believe the conditioned racism that was asserted in children's books. They knew nothing else but the German lifestyle and culture, but for some reason unbeknown to them, they were outcast and ostracized.

I feel exactly the same way. That's why I reject the label Afro-German. I have nothing to do with Africa. Unlike most African American, I have the privilege of knowing where my ancestor came from. I am not stripped from my history. My father is from Cameroon. Why on earth should I claim the whole of Africa for myself now? What do I have to do with Ghana, Zaire or Libya? Just as little as you do, probably. Here in Germany, white Germans don't differentiate between themselves and, let's say, a French German girl or an Italian German boy. They're just Germans to them, as long as they have white skin. So, there's no logic in labelling me any differently. One part of my parents is German, I was born and raised here, I'll probably never leave. I'm German. No hyphens needed. End of the story.

After the interview with Doris and Erika, the book resumes Ayim's history of racism in Germany, picking up in the days after World War II. Ayim quotes newspaper articles and government reports to show how the German public conceived of the so-called "occupation babies," children born of German mothers and African-American soldiers stationed in Germany after the war. Ayim uses the prejudice against both the babies and their mothers to show how racism and sexism are often intertwined. "Since loose morals were always ascribed to the mothers, Afro-German girls were not only subjected to racist preconceptions, they were also accused of being inclined toward the mother's 'aberrant behavior,'" she writes. This is further illustrated by the next few chapters, which include interviews with Afro-German women such as Helga Emde, who grew up facing that double prejudice in the aftermath of World War II.

Farbe Bekennen is an incredibly important and interesting document in time. I appreciate and respect all the hard work that has been put into it. However, you might be wondering why I "only" rated this book 3 stars. First and foremost, I want to clarify that a 3 star rating is a pretty good rating for me. It means I've enjoyed the book. Nothing more, nothing less. But let me elaborate on the three issues that I've had with this collection:

1) This book had the worst lectorate I've seen in a while. There were spelling errors, grammatical errors or just errors with the printing in general on almost every single page. I had the feeling that the book was formerly printed in a different format and they didn't bother to look through the text again, since they were many hyphens to be found where they didn't belong (on words in the middle of a sentence that formerly probably were at the end of the line and therefore split by a line break). I don't fault the writers for this. Many of the women featured in here aren't even professional writers and errors happen. However, that's what a lectorate is for, removing these errors. Unfortunately, I am extremely nit-picky when it comes to things like this and every error pulled me out of the narrative.

2) I didn't enjoy May Ayim's sections of this book. Like, at all. Her sections were part of her master's thesis, so the writing is more on the academic end. However, it felt extremely unauthentic and just poorly written to me. Her writing style annoyed me, and even though she was writing about extremely interesting and important subjects (her sections always provided the context and historical facts), I didn't look forward to reading them. I enjoyed the personal testimonials of the other women much much more.

3) The book was, in part, too unreflected and assuming for me. It felt like the editors (Ayim, Oguntoye & Schulz) wanted to speak for all Black German women, assuming that all of them would be comfortable with the label "Afro-German", assuming that all of them experienced similar things to them. That annoyed me since I'm a Black German woman as well who really didn't connect and relate to most of what they said about their own identities and outlook on life. I'm aware that the book is just a product of its time, and a differentiated look on Africa (as a continent with 50+ countries and even more cultures) wasn't common yet, but I was annoyed how these Afro-German women continued to lump the whole of Africa together as if it was just one big thing. Similarly, I couldn't quite understand their frustrations when it came to visiting Africa and being seen as "white" over there. Like, what did you expect? That these people would just welcome you as their own even though you have like zero connections to them? It was pretty apparent that a lot of the biases that these women were complaining about, they themselves had internalised... which, again, is human and not a problem, I just hoped that would've been addressed as well.

So, like I said, it's an important book that everyone should read, especially if you're German, but I personally appreciated it more than I enjoyed it.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

1986 verfasst eine Gruppe von jungen deutschen Frauen eine Textsammlung und veröffentlicht sie. Ihre Gemeinsamkeit: Sie sind schwarz (Afro-Deutsch, wie es die meisten von ihnen nennen) und leiden seit ihrer Geburt unter Diskriminierung und dem Gefühl, nicht zur deutschen Gesellschaft zu gehören.

Das Gerüst dieses Buchs, das mehrfach und zuletzt 2020 neu aufgelegt wurde, bildet die Habil-Schrift von May Ayim. Darin rekonstruiert sie das rassistische Erbe Deutschlands, das bis in die Aufklärung zurückreicht, aber auch noch weit nach 1945 Niederschlag in pseudo-wissenschaftlichen rassischen "Charakterbestimmungen" fand. Außerdem untersucht sie die bestimmenden Faktoren im Leben von Afro-Deutschen, die vor allem ab 1918 durch die nordafrikanischen französischen Besatzungssoldaten geboren wurden.

Das ist höchst erschreckend, gleichzeitig klar strukturiert und so objektiv wie nötig, um das Thema in all seiner sozialen, psychologischen, politischen etc. Dimension zu erfassen. Lediglich aktuell sind die Daten natürlich nicht mehr. Auch ich hätte, gerade in der Neuauflage, einen Vergleich mit aktuellen Daten sehr gefeiert.

Zwischen die Habil-Schrift sind Erfahrungsberichte von einzelnen Frauen montiert. Ein Misch-Verfahren, das ungemein intensiv ist, weil man nun in der unmittelbaren Lebensschilderung all das präsentiert bekommt, was May Ayim zuvor wissenschaftlich, also objektiviert beschrieben hat: Die fehlende Zugehörigkeit in den 30er wie in den 80er Jahren, die Probleme, sich selbst zu benennen (Afro, Mischling, Mulatte...), die oft unbekannten oder fernen Väter, die Blicke der Nachbarn, den Ausschluss in Schule und Job, die verwehrten Bildungschancen. Ein Kleinod ist dabei der Text von zwei Schwestern, die in den 1910er Jahren in Danzig aufwachsen. Auch wenn ich mir kaum vorstellen kann, dass Günter Grass vielleicht eines Tages den beiden Mädchen beim Spielen begegnete: sie schreiben, dass sie in den Jahren bis 1933 eine schöne Kindheit ohne Ausgrenzung erlebt haben.

Insgesamt ein großartiges Buch. Man merkt ihm die Schwierigkeiten der Suche nach der richtigen Sprache und nach der gemeinsamen Vergangenheit des schwarzen Deutschlands, auch nach der Leserschaft deutlich an. Viele gesellschaftliche Räume und Tatsachen, die für uns heute selbstverständlich sind, mussten von diesen Frauen erst gefunden und ertastet werden. An keiner Stelle finden sich zum Beispiel die heute fast obligatorischen Forderungen an die gesamtdeutsche Bevölkerung, an die man sich bitte zu halten habe oder eine Auflistung der akzeptablen und inakzeptablen Behandlung des Themas und der Beteiligten.

Gerade weil Ayim, Oguntoye und Co. nicht in ein schon bereit liegendes Megafon der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung hineinrufen, sondern ihre eigene Stimme erheben, ist dieses Buch so speziell.

Ob es veraltet ist oder ob Betroffene das Buch auch heute noch lesen und ihre Realität gespiegelt sehen, weiß ich nicht. Ich hoffe (und vermute), dass unsere Gesellschaft heute weniger rassistisch ist.

[Christoph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Translated into English as “Showing Our Colors: Afro-Women Speak Out”)

First published in 1986, this is seminal book that helped develop an Afro-German community and movement, The book is a combination of academic-historical work (based on May Ayim’s thesis) on the history of Black people in Germany, interviews with Afro-German women of many generations, and poetry. The book is also the publication with the first written use of the term “Afro-German”. As May Ayim puts it:

“Ich finde eigentlich den Begriff “afro-deutsch” oder “afro-europäisch” ganz gut. Ich bekenne mich dazu, dass ich anders aussehe, vielleicht mich anders bewege, auch aufgrund meiner Herkunft und der dadurch bedingten Lebenssituation in mancher Hinsicht anders denke oder anders fühle, aber ich möchte nicht in eine weiße oder schwarze Schublade gesteckt werden.”

“I actually think the term ���Afro-German” or “Afro-European” is very good. I avow that I look different, maybe move differently, also think or feel differently in some respects because of my origin and the life situation that comes with it, but I don't want to be pigeonholed in a white or black box."

The book is fascinating, enriching and frustrating for the same reason:This book gave us - and not only the Afro-German community but all Germans - early on so much experience, input and language. We could be so much further along if we had only paid more attention to and understood the work of the editors (or that of Audre Lorde, who was a great influence). The book feels - unfortunately - downright contemporary. A must read.

[Wiebke (1book1review) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting read for various reasons.

I really liked learning about the history of Afro-Germans, like when and how the first Africans came to Germany and how they were treated or regarded by society. And how that changed or evolved by time.
I also thought it super interesting how we use 'black' in our language and why.

The personal reports of Afro-German women were interesting, too, as it gave an insight into the personal experiences of various women of different times and ages.

For me, as a German,I could relate to many things that were said and compare it to my experiences and knowledge of the topic growing up and today. The book was published in a time when Germany hadn't been reunited and so mainly represented my early childhood and teenage life.

The question this book raised for me was if anything has changed in the past 24 years. I grew up in a small town where there were no Afro-Germans, I'm not sure if there are any today. Today I live in Hanover, and here the Afro-German community is bigger, although I can't say I really have any contact with it. So I can't say anything about it.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein wichtiger, erster Meilenstein in der afro-deutschen Feminismusliteratur. Gleichzeitig ist diese Neuauflage, die der May Ayim Förderung zugute kommt, eine tolle Idee. Bei der Umsetzung muss man ein paar Abstriche machen: Zahlreiche Tippfehler lenken teilweise etwas ab, das
Lektorat hätte besser sein können. Nichtsdestotrotz eine sehr aktuell, bewegende Lektürr.

[Dino · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Juliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Edited-- someone corrected the author information. Thanks!) Essays and other work by German women of color. It's an excellent read. This is available in English as _Showing Our Colors_, I believe. Also, May Opitz is a pseudonym for May Ayim.

[Ariane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm pretty much drawn to anything having to do with the African diaspora, so this was a must read for me.

[Tutankhamun18 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mein Lieblingsteil dieses Buches waren die Geschichten der Individuellen Frauen über ihr eigenes Leben erzählten. Schwarz sein in dem 2. Weltkrieg und während der DDR sind Themen von denen ich vorher nichts wirklich wusste. Es war teilweise sehr traurig wie doe Frauen behandelt worden sind und es war interessant zu hören wie sie damit zurechtkamen. Viele haben sich als Deutsche gefühlt und ihre Afrikanische Abstammung abgeleht, da sie nie dort waren oder nichts damit anfangen konnten.

Es war schade das die Ausgabe für 2020 nicht mit 1-2 neueren Geschichten ausgestattet war, welche die heutige Erfahrung darstellten. Die historischen Lektionen waren zwar interessant, aber ich hätte mich gern vertiefert - ich hätte gerne eine Version von Deutschland gehabt wie Black and British by David Olusoga für England. Vielleicht finde ich ein solches Buch noch.

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich bin einfach nur sprachlos.

Das Buch „Farbe bekennen“ hat mich sehr sehr erschüttert, denn einem wird schnell klar, dass wir scheinbar (meiner Meinung nach) in den 31 Jahren seit Erscheinen des Werkes als Gesellschaft in Deutschland kaum weiter gekommen sind, zumindest sind viele Beispiele die gennant wurden auch jetzt noch Teil der Debatte.

In dem Buch wird zum einen Deutschlands rassistische Geschichte beleuchtet, aber es kommen auch persönliche Erzählungen mehrerer Generationen schwarzer Frauen in Deutschland zu Wort. Diese Beiträge fand ich besonders bewegend.

Leider ist es so nicht mehr verfügbar,ich selbst habe es über rebuy erworben und verleihe es gerne weiter.

[Thisistinkarella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eigentlich 4,
Toll wäre, wenn bei einer weiteren Neuauflage, die wissensvermittelnden Abschnitte um aktuellere Zahlen und Entwicklungen erweitert würden.
Mir hat tatsächlich etwas gefehlt zu erfahren, wieviel oder aber vielleicht sogar wie wenig sich in den inzwischen fast 30 jahren verändert und getan hat. Auch wäre spannend die Selbstwahrnehmumg etwa gleichalter Frauen in der heutigen Zeit direkt gegenübergestellt sehen zu können.

[L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

May Ayims Dissertation war sehr beeindruckend geschrieben und hat ein paar wichtige Dinge für mich in neue Worte gefasst. Die Erfahrungen von Afrodeutschen Frauen vieler Generationen waren ebenfalls sehr interessant, besonders kann man sich darüber freuen, dass sogar noch Perspektiven aus der Zeit des Kaiserreichs durch ein Interview mit zwei Frauen hier vertreten sind.

[Tamara (notvibing on storygraph) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein unglaublich gutes Buch auf allen möglichen Levels aber ich bin besonders glücklich darüber, dass es eine Mischung aus Sachbuch und Erzählungen aus den Leben afro-deutscher Frauen ist, da beides so unglaublich wichtig ist.

[George Tidmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the forward by Audre Lorde and some excerpts for my German class. Got to peek into a super important conversation on Afro-German-ness, visibility, beauty, language, microagression, and movement. :)

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eine Mischung aus persönlichen Texten, Lebensgeschichten und historischer Aufarbeitung, die dieses Buch zu einem extrem informativen Werk machen. Gerade die Erzählungen der Frauen fand ich sehr erschüttert und interessant.

[Anika Höfler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nach ca. 35 Jahren so aktuell wie nie zuvor. Berührend und aufrüttelnd. Ein Must-Have für eine rassismuskritische Person.

[Christian Holub · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still the definitive text on the formation of the Afro-German community. Love the mix of thesis paper on the origins of racism and colonialism in Germany with personal testimonies from many different Afro-German women of different ages.

[Fina · Rating 5 out of 5]

every black german person should read this book!!!

[Rachel Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this class for my race issues class in the context of France and Germany. It was really interesting, I loved the intersection of the history and personal narratives.

[Katrina Sark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foreword to the English Language Edition, by Audre Lorde, July 1990

p.vii – 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.

p.xi – In East Germany after World War II, communism suppressed fascism but it did not destroy it. Racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia were severely legislated against in the East, but never admitted not examined as a national reality. They remain an unaltered psychic time bomb in the national consciousness. These forces are now finding their physical expression in the sharp increase of attacks upon all people of color, foreign guest workers as well as Black Germans.

p.xii – Such attacks are also increasing in West Germany, encouraged by the same dormant neo-Nazi element and stimulated by the prospect of a unification that will provide an economic and political climate within which to express this element.

p.xiv – The first steps in examining these connections are to identify ourselves, to recognize each other, and to listen carefully to each other’s stories.

Helga Emde (age 40) “An Occupation Baby in Postwar Germany” pp.101-111

p.101 – I was born in March 1946 in Bingen-on-the-Rhine as a so-called occupation baby. According to the few stories from my mother, my father was stationed in Germany as an American soldier at the time. That was all I knew of him. My father was very dark, and I came into the world as a so-called mulatto. Since my mother could say absolutely nothing about him, I don’t know him, and wasn’t able to have any contact with him. Nor do I know whether I have any American aunts, uncles, or cousins. It hurts a little that a whole part of my history is in the dark.

I grew up in a time that was still strongly marked by Germany’s National Socialist past. My childhood wasn’t very different from that of other children except for the fact that I’m Black. I’m the only Black person in the family. My mother believed in an awful saying: “If you say A you must also say B.” for her that meant that she had brought a Black child into the world and she now had to own up to it. It was practically a kind of self-punishment. She demonstrated her “owning up” by seeing to it that I lacked nothing. I was stuffed like a pig! Nothing was denied me. In retrospect I really hold that against her. Instead of stuffing me with food perhaps she should have fed me with something quite different. Love, for instance.

p.104 – People constantly said things to me about my differentness, and that used to make me feel pretty bad. As long as I was a trainee it was okay, but after my exam I worked in the Frankfurt-Höchst Municipal Hospital and was given only the dirty work to do. I had to clean up but was given no responsibility. They even had the audacity to assign me to frequent night duty, which almost nobody liked. But on the night shift I suddenly became responsible for several stations at once.
On day duty it happened now and then that a doctor on the station would see me and ask if anyone else was on duty. In his eyes I was nobody! So, am I really nobody? I am a German, I was born here, but yet I’m different. A Black woman. A mixture of black and white.
I felt degraded and discriminated against. As before, I had no contact with other Blacks, mostly because I would have preferred to deny my blackness.

p.105 – In my own life I repeated the story of my mother’s life in every way. My first boyfriend was a Black soldier, and I had a baby by him.

At twenty-three I got married – to a white man. A year and a half later our child came into the world. We are a very mixed-looking family, with very different shades of color. At last I felt that I belonged and that I had a bit of recognition out there in society. A white man by my side, this could certainly provide me with some security, even if it still meant that only white counts.
With my husband I sought something I was never able to find, namely solidarity. There was a lot he couldn’t understand, simply because he was white. He didn’t experience that many subtle abuses and hostilities that his company – and unfortunately my own as well – caused for me. Over and over I would hear from him that I was too sensitive.

p.106 – When my children were still small I began feeling unsatisfied, overburdened, caged in, hungry for education.

And every time the discussion came up about my needs, I encountered a lack of understanding. Nobody knew how to take what I was saying. Why did I wasn’t to further my education? Why go back to school? Why do anything at all to get away from my housewife’s existence?

p.107 – After a long search – don’t forget that I’m not white and for this reason most landlords turned us down – we found a nice apartment practically in the centre of town [Frankfurt].
The whole time I was at university, I worked at least two to three days a week and also during semester vacations. My husband couldn’t throw it up in my face that he had to finance my education. Plus, I had my household and my children to take care of. Of course there was no question of my husband taking on equal responsibility.

p.108 – I was getting deeper and deeper into a crisis situation, a marriage crisis and also an identity crisis. In order to give myself more clarity and distance from these unresolved issues, I decided after completing my teacher’s certificate, to take a trip to southern Africa. So I went. On 24 December 1983, I flew to Zimbabwe for the first time, to stay with friends for two months and share their lives.

p.109 – It was a long journey to find my “self” in this white system of relationships. Alongside my studies I began reading about all kinds of different ethnic minorities, and delved deeply into the issue of National Socialism and the Jews in the “Third Reich.” I felt then, and still do, very close to those people.

p.110 – It’s only recently that I have been able to feel more comfortable in my brown skin and come to terms with my blackness. After a long hard struggle through psychoanalysis, I can say, “Yes, I am Black.” I can accept the white part of me as well as the black part and without feeling any breaks between them.