Sooner or later I knew I would get around to writing this post, I have had enough experiences over the last 5 months here in Germany to be able to answer my question “is there rascism in Germany?”. Before we moved here, I scoured the ex patriot sites looking for posts about heath insurance, types of visas and so forth. Once in a while I would come across articles about racism in Germany, some people experienced little to none and others had negative experiences and shared their stories.

I knew when I moved here it would be like when I moved to Oregon, a very white state. It is as white here, of course, after all it is Germany, but living in South Florida, a veritable melting pot, I had forgotten how it felt to be different. I get the stares again now, I know some are because I am an immigrant, an American; but some are because of my skin which, is not all that dark, my mother was white and father was black/native american. I can’t explain the stare, I just know it when I see it. The kids especially will stare at me like I am from another planet; an alien from outer space for all they know, they probably have never seen a brown/black person in their entire life. Couple that with games that used to be popular here – “who’s afraid of the black man?” and there you have it, seeds of ignorance planted. Not knowing about someone because one has never had a chance to be around them is one thing, not liking someone because of the color of their skin is something totally different.

I have seen more black lawn jockeys with plates of bananas in their hands in 5 months than I have in the last 5 years. Coincidence? I think not! The thing that gets me the most is my reactions. I know how to deal with this, I have had these experiences all my life at one time or another since grade school, back in Schenectady. In Oregon, I lived near the small town of Drain and when I would go anywhere in town I would  sometimes get stared at, I was the only person of color around for miles, until people from Mexico started moving there. Alien stares run amok! Once in another small town, Cottage Grove, I actually had the cops called on me as I sat in my car outside the laundromat waiting for my cloths to dry. The lady working in the place told them I “was scary!”. For christssake leave me alone, I was just doing my friggin laundry! I usually just stare back until they stop staring or just ignore them, but every now and then I get these feelings of panic wash over me when I walk into a room where I am the only person of color. I just get really uncomfortable and want/need to leave immediately, which I do.

I had one such experience today, Susanne and I got invited to an election party (it is the German elections here today), the woman putting having it was the woman who lent me the German books to study for my A1 test and the name of my langage teacher. Both very nice women. We got to her house, I walked in and there are a dozen or so kids of various ages sitting in the living room and a huge group of adults sitting outside. The panic thing hit me, of course I am the only brown person there. I helped Susanne set up her massage table and sat down at a table near by. People would turn around and look at me (probably wondering who I was and what I was doing there) every once in a while, didn’t make me feel any better. I felt like a fish out of water. I left shortly thereafter.  As I was walking home I though about the people from Africa that live here. ther are quiet a few here in Muelhiem, Susanne said that when she lived here there were none. I really don’t fit in with them either. I am mixed, neither white nor black. I sometimes wonder just where I fit in. I know I am probably taking this too far, German people take a while to warm up to someone, so I will keep going when invited and see what happens.

I know it won’t be forever (thank goodness), we to eventually live somewhere warmer, even Susanne doesn’t fit in, she is more free spirit and dosen’t like to feel boxed in. So it has been tough to go back to this way of feeling, Susanne has had a difficult time trying to assimilate back into Germany culture; she has been in America too long! I noticed that she smiles much more than people here do and  is much more freer in body expression. So yea, I answered my own question, there is racism here but it’s also in America and lots of other countries where people are judged solely by their skin.

So here we be; the brown alien from outer space and the un-German German. For better or for worse, we are sticking it out, supposedly what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. We’ll see.