Afro-German Cultural Identity and the Politics of Positionality: Contests and Contexts in
the Formation of a German Ethnic Identity
Author(s): Tina M. Campt
Source: New German Critique, No. 58 (Winter, 1993), pp. 109-126
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/488390
Accessed: 24-09-2018 07:55 UTC
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Afro-German Cultural Identity and the Politics of
Positionality: Contests and Contexts in the
Formation of a German Ethnic Identity
Tina M. Campt
Black women's everyday acts of resistance challenge two prevailing
approaches to studying the consciousness of oppressed groups. One
approach claims that subordinate groups identify with the powerful
and have no valid independent interpretation of their own oppression.
The second approach assumes that the oppressed are less human
than their rulers and are therefore less capable of articulating
their own standpoint. Both approaches see any independent consciousness
expressed by an oppressed group as being not of the
group's own making and/or inferior to the perspective of the dominant
group. More important, both interpretations suggest that oppressed
groups lack the motivation for political activism because of
their flawed consciousness of their own domination. As a result,
emerging work in Black women's studies contends that Black women
have a self-defined standpoint on their own oppression.
- Patricia Hill Collins,
"The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought"'
This essay seeks to examine a series of quotations from a discussion
between three Afro-German women, Katharina Oguntoye, May Opitz,
and Laura Baum, published in the collection Showing our Colors: AfroGerman
Women Speak Out.2 I would like to begin by posing a series of
1. Patricia Hill Collins, "The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought,"
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 14.4 (Summer 1989): 746-47.
2. Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out, ed. May Opitz, Katharina
109
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110 Afro-German Cultural Identity
questions: What "position(s)" do these women occupy in German society?
What are some of the effects of the dominant conception of German
cultural identity on members of this population? How does the
position that these women occupy in their society affect their formation
of a sense of ethnic consciousness and cultural identity? What are
the broader implications of this position for the study of other
"marginalized" groups?3
I will argue that these Afro-German women's individual and collective
strategies of everyday resistance force one to rethink and redefine
the dominant conception of German cultural identity. More generally,
by calling into question dominant definitions of cultural identity (as
well as social and ideological constructions of both "culture" and
"identity"), the study of the histories and experiences of members of
ethnic groups initiates a process of reconceptualization and clarification
of such definitions and provides an additional tool of resistance to
the oppression of ethnic peoples. Perhaps more importantly, it is the
politicization of the lived experience of members of ethnic groups
which forms the basis of this process. My goal in the following pages is
to examine the social, political, and ideological implications of the
ways in which one group of Afro-German women construct their identities
as a German ethnic minority. The situation of Afro-Germans in
contemporary Germany is one site where the struggle for the
redefinition of cultural identity is currently being waged.
Afro-Germans are German-born individuals of African descent. Estimates
vary as to the side of the present Afro-German population.
May Opitz estimates that out of 100,000 blacks currently residing in
Germany, 30,000 are Afro-German, whereas others estimate the total
number of Afro-Germans anywhere from 50 to 300 thousand.4 The
contemporary Afro-German population traces its twentieth-century
origin to African immigrants to Germany throughout this century, as
Oguntoye, and Dagmar Schultz, trans. Anne Adams, with Tina Campt (Amherst: U of
Massachusetts P, 1992) 145-64. Subsequent references to this volume will be provided
parenthetically within the text.
3. My analysis is based upon the statements of these three individual Afro-German
women and is not an attempt to make more global statements regarding the experiences
of Afro-Germans. Their statements should be seen as one of a number of different
expressions of cultural identity which cannot be reduced to a single, more
generalizable conception of Afro-German cultural identity.
4. Karin Obermeier, "Afro-German Women: Recording Their Own History,"
New German Critique 46 (Winter 1989): 172-80.
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Tina M. Campt 111
well as to the African and African-American troops used in the occupation
of Germany following the First and Second World Wars. Some
Afro-Germans trace their roots back to the nineteenth century.
In their discussion, Opitz, Oguntoye, and Baum exchange personal
experiences, observations, and interpretations of the impact of race on
issues such as popular conceptions of beauty, cultural identity, ethnic
identification and consciousness, marginality, and their notion of"belonging."
As these quotations are themselves part of the dialogue, they
are themselves attempts to articulate and specify their experiences in
relation to others. For this reason, I find this text to be a particularly
provocative expression of these women's sense of their cultural identity,
given its context in their collective attempt to theorize their experiences
as members of this unique German minority.5
These Afro-German women's conceptions of their cultural identity
reveal the inadequacies of traditional models of cultural and racial
identity which posit an either/or choice between opposing categories
of cultural or racial identity (i.e., foreign/German, black/white, Black/
German). Their situation between a number of different "identities"
has led them to develop an alternative form of identity. The concept of
an "afro-deutsche" cultural identity incorporates the contingent and
fluctuating texture of these women's plural identifications and destabilizes
both ends of the dichotomous conception of German cultural
identity which opposes "German" to "blackness" and is hegemonically
imposed upon Afro-Germans in German society.
As women of African descent, the experiences of Afro-German
women are conditioned by the issue of race. The experiences described
by the three Afro-German women participating in this discussion
center on responses to what they refer to as their "skin color." It is
on the basis of skin color that assumptions are made as to their national,
cultural, or racial identity. The women describe a common experience
of being denied affirmation of their German national and cultural
identity based on their skin color. They frequently experience a reluctance
on the part of Germans to recognize them as German. Their
5. It is important to emphasize that the remarks made in Showing Our Colors were
made at a specific historical moment in each of these women's lives. In the five years
since the publication of this conversation, these women have in many ways changed
how they conceive of and articulate their identities as Afro- Germans. Thus the statements
made in the text must be seen as expressions of an ongoing process of identity
formation.
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112 Afro-German Cultural Identity
physical appearance as women of African descent is immediately perceived
as "blackness," which in turn is constructed to mean African (or
African-American), as foreign or external to German culture. The idea
of a Black German ethnicity seems almost an impossibility.
M.O.: It often happens with me that people have their own expectations
and ignore what I say. When I tell them that I grew up here
and have spent my entire life here, the question might come afterward:
"Yes, and when are you going back?" Idiotic! Now and then I
have the feeling of not belonging anywhere; on the other hand, I've
grown up here, speak this language, actually feel secure here and
can express myself as I want. I share a background with these people
even if they don't accept me. "Yes, I'm German," I say, perhaps
for spite, to shake them up in their black-and-white thinking....
I often used to think I had to justify my being here. In the meantime,
I've come to realize that I am who I am and now I ask quite boldly if
there's something wrong when somebody looks at me doubtfully.
Often the person will realize his rigid way of thinking. (150)
In the United States, African-Americans grow up with a history of
their cultural heritage and the struggle of Blacks and other people of
color as the basis of very strong forms of community. In contrast, AfroGermans
have no popularly acknowledged or recognized place in German
history, few role models of African or Afro-European descent,
and until recently, no real sense of themselves as a community. Because
these women often have no direct relation to their African or Atrican-American
cultural heritage, laying claim to or identifying with
"blackness" as constructed in German society (that is, as foreign) is
neither a self-evident nor an unproblematic form of identification.
K.O.: I wouldn't call myself white, but then again it's not correct
to say I'm black. But sometimes I feel like a white person.
L.B.: I don't actually consider myself white, but there are situations
in which I'm not conscious of, or nobody makes me conscious
of, being colored. (155)
In this passage, Oguntoye comments that she is uncomfortable with
the separate, opposing racial identifications of "black" and "white,"
for she finds each to be in some way inappropriate for her. Both Baum
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Tina M. Campt 113
and Oguntoye describe themselves as feeling more often "white" than
"black," but Baum concludes that this is more a result of her social interaction
in a predominantly white culture. Thus she is made aware by
others of the issue of "racial identity." Baum indicates that she would
prefer beingjarbig (colored) to having to choose between the rigid identifications
of "black" and "white." May Opitz comments: "My color
only registers when people mention it to me" ("Ich regestriere meine
Hauttarbe nur bewulit, wenn mich Leute darauf ansprechen."). These
statements attest to the socio-ideological construction of racial identity.
For in German society, the "racial identity" of blackness is imposed as
a set of socio-ideologically constructed meanings, which equate blackness
with exteriority to German culture, marginality within German
society, and the status of "foreign/er" in social relations.
The dominant notion of German cultural identity posits an intrinsic
opposition between "blackness" (or ethnicity) and "Germanness." One
effect of such a homogeneous conception of German identity is the
conflation of "German" with "white," by implication rendering German
cultural identity a form of "racial" identity. Thus constituted, German
cultural identity excludes any form of ethnicity as "other" in relation
to itself. Hence the choice imposed upon Afro-Germans is less between
"black" and "white" than between "Black" and "German" - a
choice between claiming either their Black ethnicity or their German
national and cultural heritage, each exclusive of one another. Never
theless, these Afro-German women lay claim to both heritages, con
structing their identities less in terms of a single racial identity than as
plurality of mutually inflected ethnic and cultural identifications.
The dialogue in Showing Our Colors destabilizes dichotomous notions
of ethnic identity as "black" or "white." Rather these women describe
themselves paradoxically as neither black nor white and as both bla
and white - contingently, in different situations. The refusal of these
women to accept a single racial identification is a form of resistance t
hegemonic forms of cultural and ideological domination which seek to
impose an essentialized form of "racial identity" on the basis of ski
color. The inadequacy of bipolar racial categorizations which woul
assume a transcendent "essence of blackness" based on skin color, f
these women, necessitates a reconceptualization of the traditional n
tion of "racial identity," forcing the development of a more inclusive
and heterogeneous conception of this element of their identity.
The comments of Oguntoye, Opitz, and Baum indicate that the exter
nal perceptions of others have profoundly shaped their self-definition
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114 Afro-German Cultural Identity
For the construction of their identity is thoroughly conditioned by the
responses of others to their color and the meanings they attach to it.
Thus it appears appropriate that throughout their discussion these
women speak of the effects and implications of "skin color" rather
than "racial identity," inasmuch as it seems that it is their skin color
more than a sense oft "racial identity" which conditions the nature of
their interactions in society.
K.O.: Until I was about ten, I didn't perceive myself as either
white or black. I felt like a normal German little girl; in Africa, too.
There I did see the African part of me, but also the difference
from people in Africa - for them I was "Eubio," the European because
I looked different. In Africa I felt like a German, because I
didn't connect German with skin color ...
The first reactions came in Heidelberg: to white people in Heidelberg
I was something different. Then I began to worry about what
I actually was. ... I gradually moved from preferring to consider
myself German to being an Afro-European. In the meantime, that
has changed also: there's no Europe where I can feel at home.
L.B.: Because you're always viewed as a foreigner?
K.O.: Yes, I think my consciousness as an Afro-European doesn't
compensate for the feeling of "belonging" ["Da gehore-ich-hin"].
For this reason, I can still be pushed out ["vertrieben werden"]. (156)
Several times during their discussion, the women describe a lack of a
sense of "belonging," a teeling fraught with conflicts and contradic
tions. On the one hand, the experience of being denied acceptance as
Germans based on their color leads them to teel that they have no
place in the society of their birth. Thus they experience a form of
socio-ideological marginalization in German society. On the other
hand, the fact that these Afro-German women were born in Germany
and brought up in its culture and traditions makes it impossible for
them to deny the German elements of their identities, despite the various
forms of cultural rejection they often face. Hence in addition to the
position they occupy as women of mixed heritage between conceptions
of black and white racial identifications, the sense of "nirgendwo
hinzugehiren" ("not belonging anywhere") relates to a similarly inbetween
position that Afro-Germans occupy culturally, in a society
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Tina M. Campt 115
whose traditions they share but a society that rejects them on the basis
of their color.
The "in-between" position is one of the most significant aspects in
the construction of identity among these Afro-German women. It is
this position which has necessitated their development of a complex
sense of cultural identity as a form of resistance to attempts to relegate
them to a position of pure marginality (as yet another group of "outsiders"
within German society), allowing them to claim parts of their
identity which are denied them - their German cultural identity.
K.O.: In my experience, people of mixed race always have special
positions ["besondere Positionen"] in groups. I think that's because
we bring it upon ourselves, because we are more noticeable
and have to come to terms with our African and German parts. As
a result, we develop a flexibility ["Wendigkeit"] that's otherwise
not recognized in a white child. (150)
The notion of Positionen, a plurality of positions, as well as the capacity
of Wendigkeit, translated here as "flexibility" or "versatility," are crucial
elements in the construction of identity among Afro-German
women. Positionality is the most immediate and fundamental issue
raised by the individual and collective attempts of these Afro-German
women to analyze and theorize their experiences as women of color in
a society whose dominant conception of cultural identity is defined as
homogeneously white. The term "positionality" refers to the plural
cultural, political, and ideological subject positions occupied by individuals
in society.6
The position of Afro-German women, simultaneously on the margins
of German culture and thoroughly permeated by it, and between
traditional conceptions of black and white racial identifications, has
lead to their developing a cultural and ideological "agility." By "agility"
I mean a capacity for movement among a variety of cultural and
ethnic identifications, a versatility which enables these women to resist
6. In her essay "Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in
Feminist Theory," Linda Alcoff articulates a feminist notion of positionality in relation
to the concept of "woman." She writes that the position women occupy is in fact a site
which can be "actively utilized ... as a place from where meaning is constructed, rather
than simply the place where a meaning can be discovered." The importance of this conception
of "woman as positionality" is that such an approach offers a potential tool for
politically interpreting and constructing our own histories and experiences, rather than
passively accepting an "already determined set of values." See Alcoff, Signs 13.3.
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116 AJro-German Cultural Identity
both complete marginalization and assimilation within German society.
It is a strategic capacity for movement between a number of subject
positions, a mode of survival and resistance in the face of various
forms of cultural and ideological domination.
M.O.: I actually find the term "Afro-German" or "Afro-European"
quite good. I am declaring that I look different, perhaps move differently
too, also in some repsects think or feel differently based on
my background and the life situations conditioned by it. But I
don't want to be put back into a black or white compartment.
K.O.: I used to have such a strong desire to consider myself "normal"
white that I just acted as though that were the case. This
need to fit in still remains subliminally with me. ... I have now
come to terms with my blackness and place a positive value on the
word "Negro" ["Neger"]. (156)
These Afro-German women insist upon a plurality of identifications.
For the notion of a single, primary identity, or even distinct multiple
identities seems inconceivable to them due to their position between
ethnic and cultural identifications and the configurations of meaning
attached to them in German society. The term "Afro-deutsch" is an attempt
by German-born blacks to define themselves against such negative
categories as Mischling ("half-breed") and Neger. Throughout their
discussion, the three Afro-German women refer to themselves asjarbig
("colored")7 and "Afro-German," emphasizing the mixture of their
ethnic heritage.
The position of Afro-Germans between a variety of identifications
also destabilizes the opposition between dominant and marginal
socio-cultural positioning. For rather than constructing their identity
simply in opposition to German culture, passively accepting a marginal
position or, alternatively, attempting to assimilate and deny their
African heritage, these women insist on laying claim to both elements.
They do not deny the social pressures they feel toward assimilation
and marginalization. Rather they attempt to include seemingly conflicting
ethnic, national, and cultural elements by weaving them into
the larger fabric of their lives. The result of this process is not a smooth
7. The term farbig is seldom used today, since it also carries racist tones, whereas
"Schwarzer" or "Schwarze Deutsche" has come to be the predominant contemporary
term of identification among Germans of African descent.
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Tina M. Campt 117
or flawlessly integrated whole but a mixture of elements which vary
across time.
In the field of feminist theory and criticism, the provocative critiques
of the "white women's movement" of the seventies and eighties have
led to similar rejections of the notion of a unified subject. Teresa de
Lauretis characterizes this shift within feminist criticism as a movement
toward understanding the concept of identity as "multiple and
even self-contradictory." She writes:
What is emerging in feminist writing is, instead, the concept of a
multiple, shifting, and often self-contradictory identity ... an
identity made up of heterogeneous and heteronomous representations
of gender, race, and class, and often indeed across languages
and cultures; an identity that one decides to reclaim from a
history of multiple assimilations, and that one insists on as a strategy:
"I think," writes Elly Bulkin, "of all the women [of mixed
heritage] who, told to choose between or among identities, insist
on selecting all."8
I would use the term "textured identities" to describe the diverse
and fluctuating constructions of identity described both in Elly
Bulkin's statement and those of Afro-German women. "Texture" connotes
multiplicity and plurality without fragmentation. It is not a static
construction but shifts and changes contingently in relation to the various
subject-positions and locations which these women occupy in
their social interactions. In addition, it allows for flexible and versatile
configurations of a range of depths within a larger surface, but without
the rigidity of a forced reconciliation of contradictory or conflicting
identifications. Moreover, the notion of a "textured identity" provides
a sense of continuity within one's sense of selfl/identity often lacking in
the notion of "multiple selves" or identities. For it is a sense of continuity
or "wholeness" (the capacity to have a plurality of identifications
simultaneously, without prioritizing or hierarchizing these elements)
that seems to structure these women's attempts to construct a form of
identity and consciousness that incorporates the plurality of their cultural
and ethnic identifications.
It is a "paradoxical continuity of self;" asserts Chandra Mohanty, which
underlies the process of "reterritorialization" - a process of rewriting
8. Teresa de Lauretis, "Feminist Studies/Critical Studies" 9.
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118 Afro-German Cultural Identity
and reclaiming one's identity through struggle.9 It is this reclaiming of
seemingly contradictory elements of one's identity which Mohanty
identifies as a potential site of agency at the individual level. The AfroGerman
women participating in this discussion are engaged precisely
in this process. Moreover, the process is a struggle which goes beyond
the discrete boundaries of categories such as dominant and marginal,
or oppressor and oppressed. These women also describe a sense of
"competitiveness" in relation to other Afro-German women:
LB.: When I meet African women on the street, they usually smile
in a spontaneous and friendly manner; but not so with Afro-German
women; first comes an appraising ["abschatzende"] look and
then maybe some other response. I often have mixed feelings,
possibly out of competition, I don't know....
K.O.: When I meet Afro-German women, something else happens:
I sense a pull there, I think we could really have something
to offer each other, but then we go by one another. ... In Heidelberg,
for a while I constantly used to run into a colored woman
with fascinating green eyes. She always kept her distance. I was
afraid to initiate an acquaintance with her for fear of competition.
D.S.: Over what or whom do you compete?
K.O.: Primarily it's about affinity and recognition, maybe about
your own identity also. (161-62)
The ambivalence, insecurity, and competitiveness that characterize
these women's initial responses to meeting other Afro-German women
appear to be an attempt to distance themselves from others who
share a similarly complex and conflicted position in society. Although
this shared position is one of potential identification and solidarity, it is
also a tenaciously guarded place of individual security. For the sense of
consciousness which these women have attained has been achieved at
considerable emotional cost, in resistance to hegemonic social, cultural,
and ideological forces. But such an oppositional construction of the
self can also function to exclude potential allies: individuals in similarly
contested positions in society, or even those sharing the same or
9. Chandra Mohanty, "Feminist Encounters: Locating the Politics of Experience,"
Copyright 1 (1987): 42.
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Tina M. Campt 119
similar ethnic and cultural background. These individuals can be perceived
as a threat to the tenuous sense of security or stability achieved
through the complex constructions of self and subjectivity which these
women have attained.
The late Audre Lorde discusses a similar tension between recognition
and acknowledgment of self among Black women in the United States.
In her essay "Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger," she writes:
I think about the harshness that exists so often within the least encounter
between Black women, the judgment and the sizing up,
the cruel refusal to connect. I know sometimes I feel like it is
worth my life to disagree with another Black woman. Better to ignore
her, withdraw from her, go around her, just don't deal with
her. ... Why do Black women reserve a particular voice of fury
and disappointment for each other? Who is it we must destroy
when we attack each other with that tone of predetermined and
correct annihilation? We reduce one another to our own lowest
common denominator, and then we proceed to try and obliterate
what we most desire and love and touch, the problematic self, unclaimed
but fiercely guarded from the other.'0
The sense of social alienation and isolation of Afro-Germans within
German society is complicated and intensified by their limited contact
with other Afro-Germans and a lack of community among the members
of this group. Until the recent emergence of the Afro-German
movement, this has had the effect of alienating Afro-Germans from
themselves, making the formation of a sense of community difficult.
For the process of cultural and ethnic identification among Afro-Germans
involves continually negotiating and confronting a "self' constructed
in German society as "other," one from which these individuals
are socialized to distance themselves at all costs. Lorde writes:
We are drawn to each other but wary, demanding the instant perfection
we would never expect from our enemies. But it is possible
to break through this inherited agony, to refuse acquiescence in
this bitter charade of isolation and anger and pain. ... It means we
must establish authority over our own definition, provide an attentive
concern and expectation of growth which is the beginning
10. Audre Lorde, "Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger," Sister Outsider
(Trumansburg, New York: Crossing, 1984) 159.
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120 Afro-German Cultural Identity
of that acceptance we came to expect only from our mothers...
knowing that such power is relative within the realities of our lives.
Yet knowing that only through the use of that power can we effectively
change those realities. (172-73)
Being "Black" in Germany has a paradoxically double dimension
which relates directly to Lorde's statements. On one hand, blackness is
the site of constant conflict and struggle tor positive cultural affirmation.
On the other, these women also acknowledge certain advantages
to what they call their "Besonderer-Status"' in German society. Katharina
Oguntoye relates her reflections on a similar experience:
K.O.: Yesterday as I was passing by three guys, one of them said:
"Hey, look out: Black!" Immediately I was aware of the rejection of
Black[ness] on the one hand, and then on the other hand, there was
also an idea of "Hmm, how about that!?" I didn't react to it at all,
because I was too busy trying to understand this two-sided thing....
Since we're not perceived as European, we develop a feeling of being
different.... African women don't fit the European ideal of
beauty; for them, there's only the role of "exotic beauty," and I
didn't want to be viewed that way. ... There are no words for me to
describe African looks with regard to African women and to myself
without this inferior standard of evaluation. It's not my brown skin
that is considered beautiful but my light-brown skin. (147-48)
In their comments on such responses to their physical appearance,
these women challenge eurocentric conceptions of beauty and the socially
constructed meanings attached to it as a form of exoticism. In
contemporary Germany, this eurocentric notion of beauty rejects
women of color as "other," while paradoxically giving positive value to
"otherness" as "exotic," and thus exterior to this ideal. These AfroGerman
women experience the adjective "schooon" both in terms of
a rigid European beauty standard which excludes many ethnicities and
as a category which includes them, albeit as marginal or extrinsic in relation
to this standard.
Moreover, the "exotic beauty" of Afro-German women is also valued
over that of African or other darker-skinned women of color, based on
their lighter skin color. For their lighter color is perceived to be "not as
foreign" as the "blackness" or darker color of other ethnic groups.
Thus one effect of a homogeneous conception of German cultural
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Tina M. Campt 121
identity is the production of"taxonomies of difference" - in this case,
a construction of blackness which is hierarchically organized and differentiated
internally. In this way, individuals are valuated in relation
to a domniant population's conception of their own cultural identity,
producing hierarchies within the category of blackness. The result is a
process of "differentiating within categories of difference" and consequently
of the valuation of Others in relation to the dominant conception
of cultural identity. But the women participating in this discussion
also acknowledge their own complicity regarding their status as "exceptions"
within German society and to dominant European standards
of beauty.
K.O.: Walking a tight-rope between making fun and exploiting an
advantage! On the job I flirt with the fact that I'm of a different
color and kind of pretty, in order to get what I want or because it's
simply the most pleasant way for myself and others.
LB.: Yes, at my job I've often consciously pretended to be naive,
in order to avoid being bothered with things that didn't have to do
with my being colored. At school in the GDR I had a definite advantage
over my schoolmates.... I was something different and
wasn't taken as seriously as the others. "She's different ... there
are other expectations of her; she is also more intelligent." "She
has to struggle with her environment more, thus she is more critical
and more argumentative." (157-58)
The advantages of being an exception also have a critical dimension
which reveal some of the ways that these women participate in the
practice of differentiating within categories of difference, and their own
potential agency in this process.
M.O.: I'm also reminded that my lighter skin was an advantage
when I was seeing a black guy. I can do without people finding me
beautiful and interesting because I'm dark but not too dark. With
him, I rarely got into a disco, where as alone I'm a little exotic attraction.
On the street, people stared at us shamelessly, and I got a
bigger share of comments than otherwise. They also thought I
didn't understand the language. In general I experienced the environment
as much more hostile and had a much stronger feeling
of being black. (159-60)
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122 Afro-German Cultural Identity
May Opitz's remarks attests to her more pronounced recognition of
the reality of "blackness" and racism in Germany in her interactions
with other people of color. She acknowledges the forms of privilege to
which she has access being "light brown" rather than "black" and her
relation to those who do not enjoy such privileges in German society.
More significantly, her statements give an indication of some of the potential
dangers which underlie attempts to reduce the experiences of
individuals of different ethnic groups to a single, shared experience of
oppression. Collapsing such experiences significantly limits one's perceptidn
of the multiple forms which cultural domination takes, as well
as the ruptures and inconsistencies within it.
The contemporary Afro-German movement, along with other ethnic
groups throughout Europe, are engaged in a process of reappropriation
and rearticulation of the concept of blackness, redefining it
as a political position. The term "schwarz" is also used within the
Afro-German movement and in the German women's movement by
people of color from many ethnic backgrounds (Arabic, Turkish, and
African) as an attempt to construct a position of political solidarity, in
addition to redefining blackness as a positive attribute, a position of
strength and self-definition. Thus the term "schwarz" is rearticulated
with conscious recognition of its connections to colonization and to
the position these individuals occupy as postcolonial ethnic subjects.
The politicization of the term "schwarz" has transformed it into the
contested ground of meaning among members of ethnic groups as
part of a process of reclaiming a positive conception of their ethnic
identities. Most significantly, these individuals are taking this process
beyond the discursive and ideological level to a more concrete sociocultural
level. For by reclaiming "Schwarzsein" in public and political
forums such as at conferences (for example the annual lecture and discussion
series organized by the Initiative Schwarze Deutsche commemorating
Black History Month), and within leftist and feminist political
coalitions among individuals of Arabic, Turkish, Latin American,
Afro-German, Jewish and other heritages, individuals of different
ethnic backgrounds draw on the collective strengths and commonalities
of their shared experiences of racism, oppression, and marginalization.
At the same time they are reciprocally compelled to confront
their own individual differences, thus disallowing the potential erasure
of such differences within their shared experiences of racism.
My own interest in the question of identity formation among AiroGerman
women is bound up with the similarly multiple and in-between
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Tina M. Campt 123
positions that I occupy both within and outside of the U. S. academy,
and the flexibility and movement that these locations necessitate in my
work and for my own survival within this institution. Cornel West describes
the situation of U. S. Black intellectuals as "caught between an
insolent American society and an insouciant black community, the
Afro-American which takes seriously the life of the mind inhabits an
isolated and insulated world.""' West advocates an "engaged insurgent
praxis" among an emergent class of "postmodern" black intellectuals,
based on what he refers to as a "critical 'sell-inventory'... that scrutinizes
the social positions, class locations, and cultural socializations of
black intellectuals":
Despite the pervasive racism of American society and anti-intellectualism
of the black community, critical space and insurgent activity
can be expanded. This expansion will occur more readily
when black intellectuals take a more candid look at themselves,
the historical forces that shape them, and the limited though significant
resources of the community from whence they come. This
"self-inventory" should embody the sense of critique and resistance
applicable to the black community, American society,
and Western civilization as a whole. (124)
The type of critical self-inventory which West describes allows for
both a form of critical distance and the interrogation of the Black intellectual's
relation to the academy, as well as to her/his subject of analysis.
An examination of the positioning of the Black critic or intellectual
must also address the specificity of the individual histories of black intellectuals
and black communities. For the history of Black Americans
is plural; a set of shared and mutually implicating histories, struggles,
and experiences, which is never reducible to the singular "Black Experience."
The relationship of the Black critic to her or his community is
also shaped and determined by issues of gender. Consequently, the
type of critical self-inventory described by West must address the impact
of differences of gender. For the multiple relations which Black
women critics have to the various African-American communities is
still more complicated than West's conception of these relations. The
position that I occupy as an African-American woman writing within
11. Cornel West, "The Dilemma of the Black Intellectual," Cultural Critique 1 (Fall
1985): 109.
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124 Afro-German Cultural Identity
the academy in relation to the U. S. Black community relates directly to
the "in-between" position of Afro-German women in German society. I
share a history with Black Americans of the post-desegregation generation,
who had to come to terms with the effects of growing up Black in
predominantly white, middle class neighborhoods or in predominantly
white or all-white schools. The consequent identification with white
role models or aspirations toward the privileges of whiteness often result
in the use of terms such as "white-identified." But such an attribution
oversimplifies the complexities of such a position at the crossroads
of race, class, and gender. Such identifications are often accompanied by
equally strong emotional ties and identifications with such vital institutions
of African-American culture as Black church communities and
family networks. The implicit opposition of the category "whiteidentified"
with that oft "black-identified" erases the complications and
contradictions, as well as significant difterences in the experiences of
African-Americans, in presuming an "authentic" form of Black identity.
Moreover, an attempt to categorize "Black" identity obscures th
hegemonic forces which shape and produce an individual's responses
to her/his situation in society, thus negating the possibility of individual
resistance or agency.
The form of ethnic identity described by these Afro-German women
offers an interesting counterpoint to the conception of blackness prevalent
among many African-Americans, which holds that individuals who
have any trace of Black African ancestry (regardless of how distant) ar
Black, implicitly negating any claim to a white racial identity, or any form
of ethnic identity which meditates these two extremes.12 It also challenges
a phenomenon such as "passing" as it is conceived in the United
States, which is rendered problematic in a cross-cultural context.'3 In the
12. F. James Davis, Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition (University Park: U of Pennsylvania
P, 1991) 5. Davis's book provides a very comprehensive analysis of how
"blackness" has been defined in the United States, in particular of the impact of how
the "one-drop rule" of defining blacks and the phenomenon of "passing."
13. Related to this point, Davis remarks: "It is the one-drop rule that does not permit
individuals to be classified as racially mixed and that instead defined as member
of the black community persons who actually have an extremely wide variation in ra
cial traits. . one black ancestor seems to resolves questions about racial identity surprisingly
well for most, but not for all." He writes that passing, as a path to equality, "is
barred for blacks by the one-drop rule, since a person remains a black no matter how
small the fraction of African ancestry, and the only option is the drastic step of passing
as white. For those who do pass, the anxiety about the risks and the sense of loss of
family, friends and the black community must be great, even for the relatively smal
number who are not 'black' on the inside" (149, 168).
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Tina M. Campt 125
case of Afro-Germans, the legitimacy of their claim to a position between
blackness and whiteness and their capacity for movement between
the two would in the United States be contested as an attempt to
distance themselves from the Black community and their "authentic"
Black identity, in order to gain or maintain privileges connected to
white identity. These Afro-German women attempt to incorporate the
seemingly contradictory racial and cultural elements of their identity
without privileging either as their primary or "authentic" identity. But
one of the most significant differences between the experiences of African-Americans
and Afro-Germans is the fact that in the United States,
there exists an established history of African-Americans that grounds
this community. It is this history that plays a decisive role in the construction
of a sense of ethnic identity among African-Americans. In
Germany the initiation of the process of writing and reclaiming the history
of Afro-Germans is only in its beginning stages, but the work of
Opitz and Oguntoye in Showing Our Colors is a significant contribution
to this process. The role that this yet-to-be-written history will play in
the construction of Afro-German identities will be no doubt as decisive
as it has been for African-Americans.
The necessity of a critical interrogation of one's position as a critic or
interpreter in relation to her subject has been strikingly revealed to me
through the resistance of these Afro-German women to such analytic
categorizations as "marginalized" or "assimilated" and the ways in
which their expression of their cultural identity contest attempts to
categorize them at one or the other end of such simple dichotomies.
More generally, the examination of the ways in which members of ethnic
groups attempt to integrate their own sense of ethnic consciousness
into a construction of cultural identity which encompasses the unique
texture of these elements reveals the efftects and inadequacies of dominant
and hegemonic forms of cultural identity. In particular, dichotomies
such as dominant/marginal, assimilated/marginalized, and minority/majority
reproduce hierarchical systems of cultural domination
by defining or classifying members of ethnic groups solely in relation
to those who fit the dominant conception of cultural identity of a given
society. The destabilizing effect of these women's constructions of
Afro-German identity on such categories illustrates the transformative
potential of the study of ethnic populations and communities. The status
of subjective experience in the ftormation of consciousness and cultural
identity among members of ethnic groups is significant in that
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126 Afro-German Cultural Identity
theorizing these subjective experiences (as well as the constructed
meanings resulting from these experiences) is a crucial part of the process
of politicizing ethnic identities. This politicizing is critical to
deconstructing sedimented constructions of race, gender, class, culture,
and ethnicity. Moreover, this process reveals counterhegemonic
conceptions of cultural identity, as well as strategies of resistance to
socio-ideological domination at microlevels of power relations. For the
examination of the experiences of these individuals' responses to
hegemonic cultural practices reveals the ways in which traditional notions
of "identity" and "culture" have become reitied as analytic paradigms.
Finally, my examination of the experiences of these Afro-German
women destabilizes my position as a historian, for my "objects"
of study are individuals attempting to create their own history, through
the construction of a uniquely encompassing tfrm of cultural identity.
Perhaps most significantly, the effects and implications of an Afro-German
identity challenges who we think of as German historically, for it
raises the question of who has been excluded from German history via
the category and concept of "the German."
WIDE ANGLE presents today's best scholarship
in film studies and examines a wide range of topics
from international cinema to the history and aesthetics
of film. Volume 14, number 2 features essays that
analyze the production and reception of gay and
lesbian film. Published quarterly in January, April,
July, and October by the Athens Center for Film and
Video, Ohio University School of Film.
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Journals
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