Dear readers,
Due to the racist attack on my 17-year-old son, and because I am not the only one who has noticed the dramatic increase in racism in our country, I would like to collect case studies from all over Germany in this article and ask you to send me your experiences: info@gngberlin.de. We can publish these examples anonymously or with your name as the source; photos can also be added. Physical violence doesn't have to have been involved; the point is to highlight the many everyday racist situations and to make clear the pressure people live under when they are constantly, subtly or even openly, told they are inferior!
We often encounter this racism speechless and feel powerless. We must break free from this paralysis. At least there is already a school anti-bullying officer for students and parents. Saraya Gomis. There is also a network against discrimination in daycare centers and schools. BenNeDiSK You should definitely report any form of discrimination in daycare and school there; this is very important in order to bring about change at the political level. And this page here can also help you: KiDs – Protect children from discrimination!
Please stand up for yourselves, you mustn't and shouldn't just swallow this!
This list on our homepage is intended to serve public relations purposes, possibly to draw attention to the seriousness of the situation in documentaries, films, newspaper articles and the like, and to appeal to the political level.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Sonja Prinz
board
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Anonymous:
With my fourth child, of German-Senegalese descent, we've unfortunately reached the same point in terms of schooling as with my now-adult "children." We've chosen a private school that describes itself as 'intercultural'.
That was the new version, right in my son's face.
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Female student, 19 years old:
Today at school, the teacher put out some chocolate-covered marshmallow treats and said, "I'll leave your chocolate-covered marshmallow treats here." I asked her, "Did you just say chocolate-covered marshmallow treats?" She laughed and said, "Your chocolate-covered marshmallow treats—you're not even allowed to say 'Gypsy schnitzel' anymore, it's called 'Roma and Sinti schnitzel' now, hahaha," and then she left the room.
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Sylvia:
I too can tell many stories that have happened to our family; here are three of them very briefly.
When my son was in primary school, there were only two Afro-European children at his school. He experienced discrimination constantly, both at school and outside. At one point, he said to me, "Mom, I don't want to be brown anymore." That really hurt. He stopped using lotion on his skin (because it took on a whitish tint when he didn't); he wore his baseball cap everywhere he went so he wouldn't be asked about his hair anymore. Of course, that didn't help him escape the discrimination. And so he got into trouble at school because he wouldn't take off his baseball cap... no matter how often we talked to the teacher about it, she said he was like everyone else and was treated that way. But that wasn't entirely true, because only two students at the school had brown skin, and no one else was called the N-word, etc. It's likely none of these other children hid from the older students at the neighboring school (because they were constantly frightened and threatened because of their brown skin) and ran part of the way home through the bushes. My son did, and we tried for a long time at school to get understanding for his situation and the changes he was going through. We hoped the teachers would address the issue of discrimination more openly. But it was only downplayed and trivialized. The fact that the gym teacher called him "Bimbo" wasn't a huge problem (for the school), and yet we were assured it was "certainly not meant seriously." Eventually, it all became too much, and when my son sat at the window at home one day and said he didn't want to live anymore, we gave up and transferred him to a different school. Things were better at this school, and at least he found support from his homeroom teachers. Nevertheless, there were incidents there too that I don't understand... when other boys called him a "N-word" and wanted to beat him up, he fled to the toilet and held the stall door shut... when the door broke due to the pressure from the intruders following him... guess who got punished? We were told he shouldn't have held the door shut until it broke!
Well, and then there were other situations: Once we were staying at a hotel in Brandenburg. When a Christmas market was being held on the grounds, we went there too. We waited in the queue for cotton candy. I noticed the looks on people's faces and didn't know whether to be pleased or angry when a mother standing in front of us with her child turned around and, with what I believe was a kind gesture, looked at my son and said to me: "Excuse me, we don't see this sort of thing around here very often!"„
…and finally something that always annoys my son (and that I've often observed myself when we're shopping separately): the security guards in supermarkets… he always has them on his tail (at least in northeast Pankow)… perhaps others are happy about that, who are actually filling their pockets in the meantime…
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Female student, 19 years old:
During my internship at a children's recreation center, a little kid just asked me if I was dirty or if I had poop on my face! Of course, I corrected him. But unfortunately, there are so many insults, constantly: "Do you have Ebola? N-word, fucking foreigner, bimbo, etc."„
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Sonja:
When we had just moved from Paris to a small town in Rhineland-Palatinate, I went to church on Sunday with my first two children, who were five and four years old at the time. We were showered with all sorts of looks from all sides, and I thought, "Yay, we're aliens!" So I was all the more delighted when, after the service, an older couple came up to us. The woman immediately started chattering, "Oh, how cute they are, and those curls!" And then she had her fingers in my daughter's hair. "We adopted some like that once, they were from India—where are yours from?" I was speechless. I had never heard anything like it before, and it stayed with me for the rest of the day. I was annoyed with myself; I should have said something clever. Instead, I quickly said goodbye and made a hasty exit. But it wasn't long before I got the chance to give a clever reply. During our trip to the open-air museum, another woman approached us—this one from Russia—and thought my adorable "chocolate babies" and their hair were so wonderful. She wanted to know if I had adopted them. "No," I said, "I made them myself, and it was really fun!!! You should try it sometime! Then you'll have your own 'chocolate babies.'" Embarrassed, she left. I've used this answer every time someone has asked me about adopting my children since then—and that's happened quite often.
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Singer, 19 years old:
Racism? We experience that every day.
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Anonymous
At my workplace, the N-word comes up every now and then, and afterwards they say, "Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it." I always pretend I didn't hear it, but I still feel kind of bullied.
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Anonymous
Although it was "only" verbal racism that I, as a teenager, had to overhear unintentionally,
I still can't get it out of my head: it always overwhelms me with horror when I think about it, and it feels like it was only yesterday:
Two young men, who otherwise seemed quite okay, were discussing something:
One man was ranting about Jews and what should be done to them…. then the OTHER man replied: No, the N….r are the worst, they should be…etc, etc…“
I was frozen, and all I felt was sick. (Unfortunately, at that time I was in love with the OTHER guy…God forbid!)
The „OTHER“ guy practically idolized Elvis Presley, was practically a copy of him in terms of appearance.
Nothing against Elvis, but WHO was it who composed the best songs, was an outstanding musician, and yet remained relatively unknown to the masses, while Elvis achieved fame?
RAY CHARLES….
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Anonymous:
A colleague once asked me how big my husband's... (you know what) is, whether it's true that African men have bigger ones, and whether that hurts during sex. I simply replied that I wasn't going to comment on that and that she should go and see for herself!
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Female student, 12 years old:
I went to the Gustav Eifel School, and the kids there were incredibly antisocial and bullied me every single day. One of them asked if she could have my binder, and when I got it back, it was covered in insults and completely wrecked. Some of them even ambushed me after school to bully me even more.
Once I was outside and these men insulted me because of my skin color, for example calling me a fucking foreigner, the N-word, etc.
Anonymous:
In a company in Potsdam, there are two break rooms for the cleaning staff. One is for German employees, the other for foreigners. As if that weren't enough, the dining table and chairs were removed from the foreigners' break room, with the explanation that they were needed elsewhere. They suggested we could just sit and eat on the floor or go to the company cafeteria for our break. My husband thankfully no longer works there, but what a humiliation!
Mother of 9-year-old boy:
My son started complaining of stomach aches, always before school, until after constant conversations with him I found out that he was being bullied by older kids at school because of his skin color… comments like: „You’re brown like shit, that’s why you stink“ and he was pushed around.
Mother of 14-year-old daughter:
At school, my daughter was repeatedly called a 'slave'.
Mother of a 3-year-old daughter:
My daughter is of German-Senegalese descent and her hair is very voluminous. People constantly and quite casually touch her hair, without any sensitivity, often just as they walk by, as if the hair were ownerless… even a dog gets more respect…
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Female student, 14 years old:
Yesterday I came back from France and my father (who is white) and my great-aunt picked me up. We drove for a while until we saw a police car on the opposite side of the road. I looked over a bit strangely because I was curious about the make of the car. Suddenly we saw the same car behind us. We pulled over to the side of the road and the policeman said, "Good afternoon, this is the Schönefeld police. Please show me your vehicle registration and ID." He checked my father, who looks like a "tick," for drugs. Dad also had to take a test. My great-aunt said to the police officers, "You only stopped us because we have a foreign-looking child."„
One of the police officers then said, "You're treading on very thin ice," and he completely lost it. I was sitting in the car shaking like crazy because I've had total paranoia about them ever since France. My father asked, "Why are we being checked?" He replied, "Professional intuition." We were so angry. Luckily, they let us through. My father feels very discriminated against.
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Anonymous:
My grandparents live in Lower Saxony, and my husband was never mentioned, as if he didn't exist. I was invited along with the children, but their father was never allowed to come and was never invited.
I was asked if I had adopted my children…and my daughter was told by the teacher that, given her skin color, he did not see her in a grammar school upper grades.
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Ronja:
I was at the doctor's with my Afro-German baby. He said: "What am I supposed to name your child now? You're not allowed to say N* anymore!" (in a tone as if it were a great loss for him or something)
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Anonymous:
Handover meeting in the nurses' station of a mother-and-child unit: A white mother had just given birth to an Afro-European child. During the handover, the following sentence was uttered: "Don't be surprised if there's a woman in the room... the father of the child is African. That's why the child looks so different." Believe me, I exploded inside that day!
Romy:
Example from my family: My grandfather (in Saxony/Bautzen, where the right-wing scene is very prevalent) forbade me from coming to Bautzen with my husband because he was so dark-skinned and the neighbors noticed. The children were allowed to visit him because they weren't quite as dark-skinned… . Until my grandfather died, my husband and my grandfather never met. And my grandmother didn't want anything to do with me anymore.
My daughter was badly bullied during her time at kindergarten. She was about four years old when all the other kids in her group suddenly refused to play with her anymore. At first, she didn't show any signs of it, but eventually, she started coming home from kindergarten only sad. When she finally told me what was wrong (after about three days of prying), I immediately went to the teacher. It turned out that one parent had forbidden their child from playing with dark-skinned children. And all the other children went along with it. The children were given an explanation of how skin color develops, and the child's parents were also reprimanded.
My daughter was checked for lice more often at her daycare than the other children in her group.
Due to our daughter's bilingual upbringing, she had pronunciation problems with some words, as she was learning two languages at once. She was promptly sent to a speech therapist because she supposedly couldn't speak properly and other children were already better at it. She was only four years old at the time.
And how often do people look at you on the Potsdam tram with your kids/husband as if you came from another planet!
In the hospital after the birth of my second child, a nurse didn't believe me when I said my son had jaundice and insisted it was because of his father's skin color. After two and a half days, he was bright yellow, did nothing but sleep, and then I took the initiative and insisted on having him examined. And what did he have? Jaundice. At home, I had to keep him in the light all the time to make him feel better.
Sonja:
My daughter, of Afro-European descent, had only been in school for three months when she suddenly started getting stomach aches every morning and refused to go. I had to tie her hair in a tight braid, otherwise she would burst into tears. During a parent-teacher conference, the teacher remarked that I should be careful to tie my daughter's hair back, as this type of hair is much more susceptible to parasites and dirt.
Anonymous:
I just had to take my eldest daughter out of the grammar school in Karow after a year because she was subjected daily to racist remarks like, "Your Ebola is like our flu, isn't it?" and "Do your children get chocolate milk to drink then?" She didn't tell me anything about it and became increasingly reluctant to go to school because of her teacher, who ostracized her due to her growing absentmindedness. She's now happily attending a grammar school in Mitte, a school with students from 51 other nations. In Karow, she was the only brown-skinned girl. After a five-page letter of complaint to the Senate, we were offered a new school—Pankow is, of course, full—and the school in Karow now has to attend training courses on the topic of discrimination.
