JENNIFER
Hello, everyone. Welcome to IWS Radio, a podcast on the migrant women experience. It feels good to be back. I am Jennifer, one of the moderators and participants for today’s conversation.

NGOC
And I’m Ngoc, also moderating and participating.

JENNIFER
Last time, we talked about the inhumane conditions built by the EU border and asylum policies in Greece and in Germany. This time, we will discuss the situation of migrants and refugees in South Korea, and look at the parallels and differences between South Korea and Germany specifically, but also the European Union.

NGOC
Yes, and I think this is something so important for us to have as a topic because according to a report, South Korea only accepted 4% of people who are seeking asylum in 2020. So that’s 4% of the 4000 or so who applied and in neighboring Japan, the acceptance rate was even lower and has consistently been less than 1%.

So here, we really want to understand what is going on, and also where this issue intersects with the feminist movement in South Korea. So we’re really excited to have Young and Aram with us for the program. They both are from South Korea and live currently in Berlin. And they will talk with us today about feminism, racism, and asylum border policies in South Korea.

So Young and Aram, would you like to start with introducing yourselves?

YOUNG
Hello, I’m Young, originally, Young-Rong. I was born, educated, socialized, and have studied and worked in South Korea. Since 2012, I’m living in Germany as a feminist and anti-racist activist, and creating various forms of political and cultural content.

ARAM
Hi, this is Aram and I’m also from South Korea. I was also born and raised and educated and worked in South Korea. Since 2014, I’ve moved to Berlin. Currently I’m studying urban sociology and focusing on migrant women and their spatial mobility.

JENNIFER
Thanks to both of you for being here. It’s so exciting to be around and listen to more about the work that you’re doing, which is so important. First, I would like you to say something about the Korea Forum Feminism Reboot and probably introduce the magazine that you’re working on.

YOUNG
Yes, our Feminism Reboot is the 28th edition of the German magazine Korean Forum. Aram and I had worked as editors, and this edition is about the new wave of feminist and gender discourse since 2006 in South Korea. It raises other related issues on the Korean peninsula, which means around South and North Korea.

ARAM
And the term “feminism reboot” tends to explain the certain phenomenon and was originally defined by South Korean culture critics Sohn Hee-Jung, and this term is mostly used in film language, like “Spider Man Reboot” and things like that. And this English word “reboot” is used for the new creation of a work of fiction based on the basic features of previous work, but without maintaining the continuity of the plot. So we saw that the new feminist movement since 2015 is very unique and in a different phase compared to the feminist movement of the last 100 years in the Korean peninsula. But it’s still in history, a current continuation of the previous movement.

YOUNG
Yes, and we picked up some important incidents, events and movements from 2016 to 2020. Then we rearranged this chronologically, such as femicide in Gangnam, Gangnam Station 2016 May and #MeToo movement 2018 January, and spy cams 2018 May, and then Women Against Yemeni Refugees on the Jeju Island 2018 June. Yeah, and then 2019 April, about abortion issues and 2019 autumn suicide of two young Kpop singers and 2020 about trans women and 2020 about the new way of sexual exploitation on the web for Telegram, and this one is highly organized by just ordinary men mostly.

ARAM
Before we talk about the main topic and our main discourses, I can briefly introduce the Yemeni issue in Korea. So since the beginning of the Civil War in Yemen in 2014, many Yemenis have tried to apply for asylum in Europe. But as a result of the triggered tightened European immigration policy as of 2018, which was also triggered from the German side. Southeast Asian countries became more and more the destination of refugees seeking asylum. So they did toward the route to south or Southeast Asia.

So with tourist visas, around 500 Yemenis arrived on Jeju Island alone in 2018 to apply for asylum. At the time, 700 million people signed an online public petition against Yemeni asylum acceptance, and constitutional amendment on asylum law in Korea. This led to a fierce backlash in South Korean society from both nationalists and also women who understand feminism only for biological women.

So in addition to an already widespread xenophobic atmosphere that looked down on migrant workers from poorer countries, some women used a racist and islamophobic prejudice and fake news to add fuel to fire. Under the slogan, “our nationals first, stop the hate against asylum seekers”, not only the right wing left sided, but also radical feminists and intersectional feminists aligned themselves for this issue.

So we found an active voice Bomyung Kim who organized a Facebook group “borderless feminism”, together with other intersectional feminists right after the Yemeni issue in 2018. And the texts gathered on the page, later were published as a book ‘Borderless Feminism’ in Korea. And the author of the article who we invited for this, “Frauen demonstrieren gegen jemenitische Geflüchtete auf der Insel Jeju (Women demonstrate against Yemeni refugees on Jeju Island)”, and she works in women’s studies with the focus of feminist history and radical politics. So that’s how we introduce her article and her opinion to our magazine.

YOUNG
We picked this article for this podcast, this episode, because this incident or movement was kind of a turning point for a new wave of Korean feminism in the 21st century because before that, most of the young feminists in South Korea were concerned more about domestic violence or sexual harassment in the public sphere, like working space, or schools and so on and body politics, for instance, body sovereignity or abortion issues mostly, and also “Me too” movement. The “Me too” movement was huge after the US. But then, after the arrival of Yemeni refugees, most of them were male refugees, this movement, this new, huge movement, was somehow divided into two branches also. The one was solidarity with Muslim male refugees, and the other one is against them. So we picked this issue because it has huge meaning, not only for South Korean feminism and also the nation itself, but also here in Berlin and EU politics because the two countries are so apart, I mean geographically, but they are so deeply connected.

NGOC
So, I just want to pick up on what you mentioned, Young, about this deep inter-connection between here and also South Korea. So I want to ask you both, what intersections and links do you see between Germany and the EU more broadly, and South Korea in terms of the situation and conditions facing migrants and refugees?

ARAM
Before we answer, I can also play the rhetorics, mostly used in the protests against refugees in Korea. Here they say “before becoming like a failed Europe, the government should wake up”. So definitely, you can see the protesters make a lot of reference to European countries.

YOUNG
So, which means the people who protest there, they interpret the EU border politics or the opening the door of 2016/15 in Germany, and also other countries, they see this as fail. So, they demonstrate, Europe has failed because of refugees, so we shouldn’t go the same way.

JENNIFER
When they talk about the failure of the European Union. The failure of the European Union is on purpose. They discuss everything, but they refuse to discuss the basic living conditions of people in transit. It’s on purpose, this is chaos they produce on purpose, so that they can have something to politicize about. It can outline clearly, they are able to use the images of the chaos they have produced, which of course, are from very certain and very particular communities. The other thing is that, here we can say what it is, it’s outright racism. And this racism is something that people, from the onset, they do not acknowledge that they are being racist or saying statements that could, of course, affect the other people. But I would be much more also interested in hearing what are the anti-racist slogans that people counter-reacted.

ARAM
Let me point out that the slogan from the site of pro-refugee, it was more compared to the anti-racist slogans, it might sound a bit more abstract, but they aligned themselves with “stop hate against asylum seekers”, “welcome refugees”, but like they get a lot of accusation from the other side: what if they do these things to our country? What if? This is all based on this, not based on fact but based on this kind of imagination, that all the worst case possible, which we heard happened in Europe. So this is also linked to the policy topic that by saying the numbers in Korea, unlike here, there was like 500 refugees or Yemeni refugees arriving on Jeju Island, right?

JENNIFER
Only 500?

ARAM
Only 500 right! And people freaked out and Korea is not the country, we never had refugees in our history. So Korea always was kind of proud that we are one of the first countries in Asia to enact asylum law. And we are also the first country in Asia to sign up in the asylum committee worldwide and then when it comes to this real, the case of accepting refugees and taking care of the organization or housing etc. They are really reluctant to make any more detail or more concrete policy or solutions.

JENNIFER
So we can conclude it is failure, failure by the policymakers to organize properly that people have the basic human needs they need without creating the commotions that comes up with people being in dire need of survival.

YOUNG
Yeah, Aram also before mentioned about it, the Korean society exactly, specifically South Korean society has never experienced refugee issues as a host. So after the Korean War in the 1950s, South Korean society only remembers its own experience as a refugee, so not a host. So this country was so destroyed after the war, it was only seventy years ago. And this country achieved massive success. I mean, economically and also politically.

ARAM
Because of this fast growth, at the same time, this yearning to become aligned with other Western wealthy countries. So they sign this refugee committee and policy and also enact this law, asylum law. But inside, they are not ready actually.

JENNIFER
They’re not prepared.

ARAM
Not prepared, but they want to be in this kind of alignment with other wealthy countries. And there’s also a very complicated issue of this reproduction of accusation of refugees as a sexual perpetrator in Korea, because usually Korean media exclusively showed the cases in Europe, especially, when they accept the refugees and “see? what happened in Europe, they are raping the people, there is a lot of sexual harassment going on”. But this only focuses without showing how people are welcoming and how the refugees themselves really strive themselves to live in the new society. I think this bias outlet of newspaper really triggered this reproduction of the image of Islamic men.

NGOC
Yeah, and I think what you both are bringing in, there’s so much here, but I think just to start with that, you’re pointing out the ways in which this racist, nationalist discourse is being created everywhere, no matter if we’re in Europe, if we’re in the US, if we’re in South Korea and we can see so clearly from what you’re sharing, how South Korea, the discourse that you’re bringing out here, is made possible by bringing in this example of Europe and Germany. I think there’s a lot here that we want to continue going into, but maybe, it could be a good time for a break. So I know you brought a song, Young. Do you want to talk to us about what this song is and what it means to you?

YOUNG
Yeah, I brought one of the common protests songs in South Korea: 바위처럼, means, like a rock, stone, so let’s live like a rock, let’s stay together like this. By Kkot-Da-Gi, this group, and this one was released in 1994, and its poetic lyrics remind me of always the atmosphere on the street.

[SONG: Kkot-Da-Gi – 바위처럼” 꽃다지 ‘Like Rock (Stone)’]

JENNIFER
What a song, that was a very interesting song. And I wish I could hear what they were saying, but from what you said, it projected even the energies and the times and the strength in this time, when this song was being played. I am really interested in knowing what the words are about. Now we can dive into the next question where we have one common history of being colonized. We are all countries that have been colonized at some point. But why is the topic of racism still so eminent, even though we share this kind of discourse of being colonized?

YOUNG
We all share the experience of being oppressed, colonized, and we have experience of violence as a victim, but why are we oppressing other oppressed people? And the question you brought up, we see still that so many marginalized groups and communities are marginalizing, reproducing other violences against other marginalized groups and communities – such as anti-Black racism in Asian countries, anti-Muslim in Asian countries. I mean, in white Western countries we see it everyday. But yes.

ARAM
Like we are hearing Young say, I also always think, why are we finding this leveraging – leveraging me between someone I want to find as inferior, so that I can kind of have this kind of fake feeling of – I’m going towards these hierarchical steps forward. And in that sense, I also think when people say, “good migrants and modern migrants,” this rhetoric is produced. So I think this makes sense to see how people try to leverage themselves with the inferior without raising question against the superior, so to say.

JENNIFER
Don’t you think this, I mean, it’s the same divide and rule concept that was used by the colonizers that is being reproduced? At what point were you able to give it a name, this is racism. At what point were you able to understand that, I was socialized wrong, for example?

NGOC
And to maybe also add to that question, not just for you personally, but also, you kind of talked about it as well – that this was a shifting moment for the feminist movement in South Korea. So do you feel like there was this rising awareness, as well, of this racism within the feminist ideologies and beliefs and within the feminism in South Korea? And if not, then how can you see this awareness being built within South Korea and your context?

ARAM
Yeah, I think after 2014 / 2015, when these feminist reboots just started and mostly mobilized through online first, then really people think – Oh, we have really common ground, we have common reason to fight for. And then through the issue of the Yemenis and the refugee issue, people realized we are not talking about the feminism we projected, but within us, we have such a diverse understanding of feminisms.

And in Korea, as Young also pointed out, we have a country of migration, but people tend not to see the reality of this. And we also didn’t give a ground and platform for the migrants to talk about their real stories and their real experiences. So people always say, Korea is such a homogenized, one-race country, but it is not actually.

So I think people are not ready to see the stratification between different feminisms, also possible feminisms within incorporating the race in different countries into their discourses. I think we are still in this kind of phase of change. But at this moment, at the center, we confirmed – Okay, we have very different feminisms within our feminist movement.

JENNIFER
While you’re still on the topic of racism, because we saw what happened during the Corona time and how the Asian community, for example here experienced the racism. And then on the other hand, in Asian countries, the Black people are the ones who are being told they’re the cause of the virus. How was your experience in this time of the racism that was propagated to the Asian community here?

ARAM
After Corona, people were all talking about something really different happening to the Asian community. But what I personally experienced was actually, it’s not. I mean, even before Corona, I’ve always felt racism against Asians. Also, I always hear on the street that “ching ching chong” or saying any “bla” that sounds like Asian words towards me. And of course after Corona, it’s more frequent, so to say, and it’s also shifted the topic more related to COVID. But I think this racism against Asians was present already. I think this COVID issue kinda triggered to finally tell Germans that – Oh, there is such racism against Asians, but which also existed. And in that sense, also within the Korean and Yemenis issue, how this became a trigger. Actually there is racism persistent within feminism movement, definitely. But this kind of triggered and brought it to the surface, I think.

JENNIFER
Thank you very much, because we know how hard it is to talk about these issues on racism, how we are affected, and how much it gets into us. That’s the reality. But now I’m more interested to hear on the divisions that were there where the concept of feminism in this time when the Yemeni men were there, that the feminist movement divided itself on this concept of racism. And then we can also kind of bring that shift to white feminism here, which only wants to talk about sexism, but doesn’t want to talk about racism.

YOUNG
The core problem of this incident – the arrival of Yemeni Muslim refugees in South Korea – and also the racist reactions led by so-called radical feminists and all the other stuff… I mean, marginalized groups against marginalized groups – they have common ground. The key lies in how you understand feminism and how you understand your own struggle. How you understand feminism affects completely how you are practicing your feminism, and also struggle as well. We can just switch the word feminism to struggle. So whether it is a refugee, a Yemeni refugee, or a Yemeni male refugee, if you’re against their migration and their settlement, in the name of feminism, then I’ll say your feminism is not my feminism. And your struggle is not my struggle.

JENNIFER
I think now, there is the term that was coined by Kimberly Crenshaw, ‘intersectional feminism.’ And that’s where everybody has a space in this concept of ‘intersectional feminism,’ so that no one feels superior over the others. We all intersect from some point. I think that was very smart of Kimberly Crenshaw… You had another song?

ARAM
This might be a bit abrupt, but this song is kind of like a new generation of protest song, unlike the previous song. It’s actually K-pop. I think it’s already a 10 years old song, but because the lyrics also into the new word, by Girls’ Generation. It’s sung in Ehwa University’s protest against the university’s conspiracy. And this new generation of young feminisms, also feminists, they kind of refuse to use old generations’ protest songs. They want to make their own new way of their new world through the protest. At the same time, this also shows some glimpse of how this is dividing feminism within the feminist discourses, because they really want to focus on their self-development, their position in their life in comparison to the man’s. So you’ll hear it first, and then we can come back.

[SONG: Girls’ Generation – 소녀시대 ‘다시 만난 세계 (Into The New World)’]
[AUDIO: Protest song sung by Ehwa Women’s University students 2016 (from 4:00 min)]

NGOC
I’m a big, big fan of Kpop. But to also see it from this perspective, it is also political. So I really appreciate it.

JENNIFER
Yeah, maybe to come to a conclusion, what would be your final statements as we come to almost the end of this program? I wish we had more time. There’s a lot we could have discussed. But what would be your closing statements for the program?

ARAM
I think as we also talk a lot about how everyone has their own different ways of understanding feminisms, that it’s not about thinking my feminism is contrary to your feminism. It’s also that we all have to understand where we intersect, and where to find our common understanding of each other – not just in the way of exclusion. That will be the lesson I learned through this Yemeni issue, also living in Germany, seeing all these different feminisms.

YOUNG
What I would love to demonstrate is to be intersectionalist and also to be internationalist. Because the main reason why we picked up this article for this episode, and also why we took this issue very seriously, was that this incident wasn’t just a trigger for many other problems in that country, in my home country, but also from that point, so many young feminists started to think of their situatedness in a geopolitical ring. So they started to reconstruct their own subjectivity in relation to others. That’s why it’s very important, and I hope that we didn’t give all the others the wrong impression that the struggle of South Korean young feminists somehow is not important. It is very important, because real violence is going on there. But let’s not forget that other entanglement is also important.

JENNIFER
It’s very interesting how you put it that we are not belittling the struggle of others, we acknowledge the struggle. And we have very common struggles when it comes to femicide. It’s everywhere, everyone is just being killed because they are women. There are so many commonalities we share. But in these commonalities, let’s also embrace the differences. There is power in the differences. Our strength lies in the differences that we have.

NGOC
Many, many thanks to you, Young and Aram, for the very interesting discussion and for being here. I’m sure that we will continue to have these conversations and we will continue to be in organizing spaces with each other.

ARAM
Thank you.

YOUNG
Thank you so much for having us. And I wanted to say this: Thank you so much for your existence in Germany in Berlin, you both and your struggle. I’m admiring, seriously. Thank you so much.

ARAM  
Also that really motivated me to speak out about my personal experiences and at the same time, try to make common grounds with other women. Thank you.

JENNIFER
Hi everyone, you are listening to IWS RADIO, a podcast on the migrant women experience. Today we will talk about the dimensions of structural racism in Germany. We know that to understand today’s structural racism we have to look at the history of racism in Germany – not only since the second world war like it usually is handled in Germany – but way before in the German colonialism. So we will discuss the history of structural racism and then draw the connections to the present and how the structural racism is manifested in Germany today.

This podcast is brought to you by IWS the International Women’s space. We are a feminist, anti racist group of migrant women, refugee women and women without this experience and with the IWS Radio. We want to both shed a light on our lived experience and also on the general situation of migrant women living in Germany today.

My name is Jennifer Kamau and I am here with our guest for today’s show, Natasha A. Kelly. Welcome, Natasha!

NATASHA
Hi, welcome. Thank you for the invitation. Yeah, it’s great to be here.

JENNIFER
I will shortly introduce you to the listeners who maybe don’t know you yet.

Natasha A. Kelly has a PhD in Communication Studies and Sociology. She is the author and editor of five books. Her first art installation “The Poison Cabinet” dealt with racism in/and language and was shown at the German Historical Museum Berlin in 2016/17. Based on this idea, she developed a “Cabinet of Curiosities” during a visiting fellowship at the University of Virginia in 2019, in which her students could banish objects of everyday racism. With her award-winning and internationally acclaimed documentary “Millis Awakening”, she made her film debut at the 10th Berlin Biennale, winning the Black Laurel Film Award for Best Documentary Feature in San Francisco in 2018. Film installations and screenings followed throughout Europe, in India, Australia, Brazil and the USA. Based on her book “Sisters & Souls” (2015) the sequential theater performance “M(a)y Sister”, in commemoration of the Afro-German poetess May Ayim was staged under her artistic direction at the HAU Hebbel am Ufer Theater in Berlin from 2016 – 2018. However, her directorial debut was with the theater performance of her dissertation “Afroculture. The Space between Yesterday and Tomorrow” (2016) in three countries and three languages in 2019/20. Her forthcoming book “The Comet” is a documentary of the Afrofuturism symposium of the same name which she curated at the HAU Hebbel am Ufer Theater in Berlin in 2018.

So welcome, Natasha. We are very happy to welcome you to our show!

NATASHA
Thank you. Thank you very much.

JENNIFER
I will start with our first questions. I’m sure the listeners are very much anxious to listen to this show. And our first question would be:
We see that here in Germany there is a lack of knowledge about the history of Germany when it comes to German colonialism. But as I said, in the introduction, we need this knowledge to understand where we stand. So we would like to know the historical dimensions of structural racism in Germany.

NATASHA
Well, first of all, I think it’s important to consider two things. First of all, it’s the history of racism in Germany – that’s one side of the medal – and the other side of the medal is black German history. These things are very related and they go hand in hand. They can be seen independently, but I think it’s important not to look at them separately. Because like you also said in the introduction, people usually see the beginning of black German history after the Second World War. Where the Allies, especially black US American troops came to Germany and the children from their relationships with white German women are usually considered the first generation of Afro Germans. But they’re not. Black German history goes hand in hand with the building of the German nation. And I would even say that African German history or Germany, as we know it today, didn’t even exist in the borders it does today, it goes even further back. So African European history needs to be taken into consideration when we talk about racism in Germany, as well.

That’s the one thing and… But if we start in the borders of Germany, as we know them today, then we’re already in a discussion on colonialism, as you mentioned. With Otto von Bismarck, who created the German nation or built the German nation in the late 19th century and the actual constitution of the nation itself was built on colonialism. So building and growing Germany, as we know it today, was only possible through colonialism, through racism, through the effects of enslavement as well. This is why we cannot separate these two stories, these two approaches from each other. I think that’s really important.

And if we think of the question what is structural – and I think this is what is very misunderstood in the present debates on racism – people reduce it to interpersonal communication. So for example, if somebody calls me the n-word or something, then that’s… well, maybe that’s not even considered racism because only the other day German law ruled the n-word as not being racist. So we could even think of (laughs) – have to even maybe question if interpersonal racism is understood.

But structural racism, I think can be separated into different categories: First of all, it’s like I mentioned, the interpersonal racism – so if somebody racially discriminates you on a personal level. Then there’s institutional racism – that’s racism in different institutions, it could be a school, it can be an university, and it can be the police. Everything that’s institutionalized, that’s when we speak of institutional racism. Then there’s also internalized racism and that I would say is when black people, but also people of color, really internalize racist thought patterns, which actually leads to self destruction, eventually. Yeah, and there’s everyday racism – what we call “Alltagsrassimus”, or everyday racism, that’s the effects of racism on a social level: how it affects living conditions, working conditions, getting a job, etc. So these are different dimensions of racism. That’s I think the first thing that’s really important to understand, that these different dimensions all together make up the structural dimension or the structurality of racism.

Then I think that it’s also important to mention that there are different forms of racism. So racism targets different groups. What we know is anti-black racism or anti-muslim racism, anti-Roma-ism against Roma and Sinti people, but also anti-semitism is also a form of racism. And they differ through the different histories of how racism affects these different groups.
I think what’s also often misunderstood is that racism and discrimination are often swapped wrongly. So discrimination is like the umbrella term, and there are different forms of discrimination. And racism and the different forms of racism are a form of discrimination, alongside sexism, alongside ableism, alongside adultism, alongside transphobia, homophobia, and the list goes on. And we also have to include the intersectionalities of all of these discrimination forms. So it’s like, how they intertwine with each other. And so as a black woman, I always experienced racism and sexism. Which is not just seen as additive. So half of me experiences sexism, and the other half experienced racism. But it’s a singular form of discrimination, racism and sexism, which we call intersectionality. So this also has to be taken into consideration.

And structural racism is – I think what’s important to understand also – is that it’s based on racist ideology. And this ideology goes all the way back or can be traced back to Christianity. So I think that’s really important to consider – what I’m also missing in the debates right now are the role of the churches, the role of Christianity, missionaries are actually the mode of how colonization on the continent could even take place, through the role of the church’s missionaries. As they say, the Europeans brought the Bible and left with the land. So I think that this hasn’t even been taken into consideration yet, the role of Christianity and the churches and so on, which have a great responsibility in this debate. So I’m missing their voices right now. And we actually know that back then the Pope – I don’t know which number Pope it was at that time – but when enslavement began, the Europeans actually had to get the permission from the Pope. Because there was always slavery, but back then it was not dependent on skin color, on racial ideology. And the Vatican also actually had enslaved people.

So they differentiated. This is when the whole racial idea was implemented. And the permission given by the Pope, actually to colonize Africa and on the basis of racism. So there’s another important point why churches actually have – especially the Catholic Church has – a bigger role in all of this than we actually understand. And the structural reality is that this whole Christian idea of black being the devil and death and everything negative, whereas white is positive and pure and holy – this whole Christian color symbolic was transferred to human beings, which brought up the idea that dark skinned people – to use that term – need to be christianized, they need to be culturerized and they need to be brought closer to God and closer to the goodness in this whole Christian racist idea.

So, this is what actually legitimized missioning in Africa and going to the continent and saying, Oh, we have these devilish people, we have to make them more… come closer to God – if you put it that way. And this whole idea was then transported into different societal systems. This is how institutional racism came about, for example. Then this racism was transported into universities in Europe, where races as a category was created and inscribed and became the backdrop of science on top of which further philosophy, etc., pp., even medicine was built upon.

Even right till today technical data, for example, is built on racist ideas. So the programming of computers and I think this is really an important topic in the day and age that we’re living in, because on the one hand we have a digital revolution going on but at the same time this digital revolution is still based on racist parameters.

And it was inscribed into politics, for example, there were the so-called mixed marriage laws that were implemented first in Samoa, that was a colony in the Pacific, and then later in Namibia were white European colonizers were then forbidden to marry African women. And before this law was passed their children were legitimate, that’s the term that they used. And then, when the law was passed, they became illegitimate. So that meant that literally the children from these relationships were not allowed German citizenship. And the other way around, when a white German woman would marry an African man, her citizenship was taken away from her. So we have a gender aspect in there as well. That white men and white women were not on an equal legal basis at the time. So we’re talking about a period of the women’s movement, where women, white women, did not have equal rights to white men. I mean, we still don’t – I mean, white women don’t – but black women don’t either. But it was a different period of time, where at the beginning white women weren’t even allowed to go to Africa.

So after that opened and changed, and white women started going to the colonies, their actual task was teaching, they went as teachers or as nurses. So it was actually the white women who had the so called “Erziehungsauftrag” – so this whole educational idea that was implemented in colonialism was put in place by the women and not by the men. So I think that this is also important to mention. So there’s a lot of details in this discussion that’s actually missing. As you see, I can go on and on. But to come back to the whole structural idea, what we’re also not allowed to forget is that colonialism and enslavement in themselves were economic systems, it was about economy. It was about, on the one hand, where cheap labor practically was gained through enslaved people, on the other hand, the resources that were needed were literally stolen from the continent. And I think this is also important to connect to the Fridays for Future movement, why we are now in climate change is the effect of industrialization, and industrialization could only happen through colonialism and through raping Africa and her people. So it goes on and on and on.

JENNIFER
It would be good if first we understand the role of Germany in the history and the continuity of colonialism until today – which brings us also to the topic of the Berlin Conference. And the other question is about the history of black movement in Germany, connected to the black women’s movement.

NATASHA
It’s quite interesting because I think Black movements also go back to German colonialism. The first Black movement was during colonialism. When different Africans literally got stolen from the continent to be put in so-called human zoos – “Völkerschauen”. This is what brought a lot of Africans to Germany, or so called “colonial migrants” at the time. And on the other hand, there was also colonial migration because the German government at the time needed translators and language teachers. So this is also what brought a lot of Africans to Germany, to fulfill the colonial cause at that time.

But after the First World War, when Germany lost their colonies, under the Treaty of Versailles, this led to where we can actually see political action coming from these people, these African migrants living in Germany at the time. They would write different petitions, there was also a Black magazine, different Black magazines, actually, at that time already. But I think what is missing – and this is a problem that we have today as well, because we have so many gaps – we have so many knowledge gaps in questions of what did the women do at that time? What did Black women do at that time? This is actually research that I’m doing now for my new book, to mention it at this point, because I don’t think that there weren’t any Black women who were active. I think that we just don’t know. We don’t know what was the role of Black women at that time. We know that white women and white men were not not equal, so where did Black women stand in society? This is a question that I’m really looking at, trying to trace Black women movements right back to the beginning of the German nation, practically.

So, sorry I can’t answer your question right now in more detail, but this actually shows how racist ideologies also show their effect on an institutional level when it comes to academia, because there are so many knowledge gaps. There is no anti racist research, independent research, there is no Black Studies research, independent Black Studies research. As academics, we always have to log on to something else, either Gender Studies or Ethnology, or whatever disciplines they have. But this is something that is really desperately needed, so that we can work independently and fill these knowledge gaps. So this is a form of epistemic violence, because what we know about colonies, what we know about Black German history is usually from a white perspective and I think that there’s a lot of work that definitely needs to be done.

JENNIFER
Thank you very much. Maybe touch something small on the Berlin Conference, and the effect it had during colonisation.

NATASHA
Yeah, the Berlin Conference was… well to go back a step to understand why the Berlin Conference even took place, I think that it goes hand in hand with nation-building. Because Germany used to be all these little dukes and duchesses and all these little feudal states. And in order to combine these states – the states were actually chosen by language, so language also plays an important role in this, as well. So whoever spoke German in these little areas were allowed to become part of the nation, based on language – so whilst Otto von Bismarck, first Chancellor, was busy trying to bring these states together, maybe he didn’t really realize that now he became part of Europe – so this is another thing that we have to take into consideration when European politics comes in, that colonialism was a European project. It was not necessarily only a German project, it was a European project and I think Europe, the European Union, is doing nothing right now apart from closing borders. So I think this is also an important point.

But getting back to the Berlin Conference: He (Bismarck) was concentrated first of all on inner politics and strengthening the nation, but then realizing that he was now in the middle of Europe, and he had to compete – and I’m not justifying what he did, I’m just showing you the process of how this happened – so he had to compete with the UK, with France and other imperialist states that were already in Africa and in different parts of the world, colonising the people. So he called the Berlin Congo conference, which took place here in Berlin, and invited all European states, the leaders of all European states, but also the USA and the Ottoman Empire at the time, so today’s Turkey, were also at the table. And it was literally a game of Monopoly, if you so will. Whoever brought enough money to the table, were able to buy mountains, seas, islands, land, whatever was for sale, so to say. And there were also for example, countries like Poland, were also at the conference, but Poland didn’t have enough money. That’s why Poland didn’t have any colonies of its own, but as a European country profited from colonialism anyway.

So I think that we often hear that because Germany wasn’t involved so long, or because certain European countries didn’t have colonies, that they can take themselves out of the responsibility, but they can’t, because everybody in Europe profited from colonialism. So during this conference, the so-called scramble for Africa took place here in Berlin, not far from here, actually. And where the European states literally divided the African continent among themselves and became colonial rulers of these different territories.

JENNIFER
Okay, this is very powerful. Now, we will make a short break and listen to a song that you chose, Natasha. And we would like to hear a song by Nuuki called Perspektiven Zählen [ENG: perspectives count].

NATASHA
Nuuki, Perspektiven Zählen. During the whole George Floyd movement, a lot of music has come out from different musicians and artists and I saw her on Facebook and I fell in love with this song. And I’ve been stalking her since, I’m her number one fan, so shout out to Nuuki at this point. And thank you for the song.

[SONG: Nuuki – Perspektiven Zählen]

JENNIFER
Wow.

NATASHA
Yeah, always gives me goosebumps.

JENNIFER
I see why, it’s powerful. Okay, we are back. And we just listened to Nuuki “Perspektiven zählen”. And it’s a good song. In the first part of the show, you spoke about the historical dimensions of structural racism in Germany. Looking at the present, how the structural racism manifests itself today, we have to talk about the structural racism of the whole asylum system, including the laws and of course, the German border politics.

We have known you since the time of the school. So we would like to ask you to explain first what your role in the school was and what was your impression of the Gerhart-Hauptmann occupation?

NATASHA
Yeah, it was, well to tell you the truth I don’t like looking back at that time. It was really emotional and when I think about that time, I always have to think of Mimi, Sister Mimi, who for me became really a symbol of that phase of the movement. And at that time, I was the representative of the European Union, in the Integrationsbeirat, the Landesbeirat für Integration und Migration, I don’t even know if that is translatable into English to tell you the truth. But it’s like an organ of the Berlin senate where different migrants are elected to represent the different groups of migrants in the city. And to be elected, you have to be born in this area. And because I was born in London, I became the representative of the European Union. And because asylum politics is European politics, that’s what we’re not allowed to forget – it’s on a European level and not on a national level. And I just claimed my vote during that time, it wasn’t that the politicians asked me to do anything, it was no way in there. I’ve been elected and it was an Ehrenamt, so it was a nonprofit organised function and I tried to claim space literally for refugee voices. That’s how it literally started, I used this position that I had at the time to enable refugees to speak, to be heard. I think that was more my overall role. I was the messenger, so as they say, don’t shoot the messenger.

And what was difficult at that time, because nobody was allowed inside the Gerhart-Hauptmann Schule. So it literally started when they were standing on the roof. I remember that day where, I mean, it shut down Berlin and Kreuzberg, I remember that. I’ve seldom seen so much police on the streets. everything was shut down. You couldn’t get through Kreuzberg at all, at that time. And the refugees living in the Gerhart-Hauptmann Schule, or some of them, were standing on the roof, because the house was supposed to be evicted and they were protesting that they wanted to stay, and they said that if they’re fighting for their rights – I mean, you know this better than me because you were on that roof too, girl! – and so I can only say it from my perspective standing on the ground practically and trying to do what I could in my position to help. So yeah you wanted to jump off the roof and I was like hell, nobody’s jumping today! Not on my watch, anyway!

So yeah, I did lots of different things, I remember being on the phone with some of you who were on the roof and trying to formulate your demands, why you were on the roof, just writing everything down, what you wanted, what you needed, what it was, and then this way we managed to formulate a letter that got sent to the Senate. A lot went wrong, let’s put it that way, because a lot was promised that literally wasn’t held from the side of the politicians. I remember that.

I can’t even hardly remember – maybe you remember better than me – how it actually calmed down, the situation, but after it did, I was one of very few people who were allowed in the school, due to this mandate that I had. So I was in and out of the school, I was supporting different people in the school, be it going to doctors, going to the optician. I remember one who couldn’t see without his glasses and his glasses broke – going to doctors, all sorts of different social things that I did on that level, going to different Ämter (offices), doing different paperwork – all the signing, and we know that Germany loves their paperwork, and I have a doctor title, and I sometimes don’t even know what the hell they want in this paperwork. So for somebody who doesn’t even speak German, I don’t even know how they’re gonna understand it. So I supported doing all of that and I negotiated, I remember having meetings with Mr. Panoff, who was still alive at that time, he passed in the meantime as well, sitting at the table trying to negotiate different things, different demands at that time.

I think one of the prior demands was also to create like a refugee center, social center out of the Gerhart-Hauptmann school. That never happened. Then I remember when Mimi died. That literally took the last bit of energy out of me. I remember when we – the night we heard that the school was supposed to be raided by the police. I remember being on the phone all night, trying to figure out, because Mimi was already really sick and we were trying to figure out how to get her out of that school, when we heard that they were gonna raid the school, and finally got her out. I’m not going to say too much information about how that happened but we got her out and took her to a friend’s where she literally passed that night. And if we hadn’t, she would have died in the hands of the police. So I remember organising her… Sorry… Organising her burial when we went to – because the last thing I had to promise her is that she was not to be buried in Germany, she wanted to go back to Kenya. I had to promise her this, so yeah, we organised her burial. And raised money, raised funds to… actually. Oh, sorry. This is…

JENNIFER
Yeah, that was a difficult moment and was actually the first time we worked together one on one with you, Natasha. Because I was in contact with the family in Kenya and you had the power of attorney because of the language and the bureaucracy of the system. And it was a difficult moment. It was a very difficult moment. The whole process was difficult. I understand the feeling.

NATASHA
Yeah, well, we managed to raise the funds anyway and get enough money and had her body transported back because she wanted to be buried next to her grandfather. And that’s where she is today. And I remember the family giving us a cow and saying that the cow is waiting there now for us. It’s getting old, this cow. We need to go back and celebrate and slaughter this cow. And that’s practically how my part ended in that fight, because after Mimi died, it broke me. I was like, no, this is like, this is way too much. And I pulled myself out of the movement and it’s how many years ago and it still affects me emotionally.

JENNIFER
Yes, that’s the part that was most difficult in this school and then Angela Davis came to the school. Do you remember when she came and said the refugee movement was a movement of the 21st century. We will shortly play the audio that we filmed when Angela Davis was here in Berlin and we walked to the school together. And then maybe you can bring in your perspective on this, from this audio.

[AUDIO: Angela Davis Visits Berlin]

So, first of all, thank you so much for telling us about your experiences here and about the struggle around the school here. We know that the demands were to create a community center, a cultural center that would be available to refugees. And of course, the demands of the refugee movement are far vaster. Because human beings deserve to be treated as human beings, all human beings deserve jobs and housing and health care. I want you to know that we are with you in your struggle, that we will take this information back to the United States and encourage people to support you, as you move forward. As I was saying in the other meeting, the refugee movement is the movement of the 21st century. It’s the movement that’s challenging the effects of global capitalism. It’s the movement that is calling for civil rights for all human beings. So thank you very much, and good luck with the movement.

JENNIFER
How do you see this?

NATASHA
I totally agree with Angela Davis, I wasn’t there at that time when she was here. I had already taken myself out of the movement at that time. But listening to this now, I can definitely say that there are so many layers of truth to what she says. I think, especially refugees are one of the most vulnerable groups of our society, because – and I’m not a refugee, I need to say that as well, to check my privileges as well, because I have presently, talking to you, two European passports actually. So speaking from a perspective of a Black woman who was born in Europe, in London, grew up in Germany and presently actually has two passports – I think that there are different types of human beings: those who count and those who don’t. And this is definitely tied to citizenship, and to who has a say and who doesn’t, who has access and who doesn’t.

This is strongly tied to the existing power structures which are a continuity of colonialism. And I think we’re witnessing this as we speak. We have over 10,000 people in Greece, being maltreated, dehumanized and who do not have access to human rights. So this is the level of where we should actually be having this debate. What’s happening right now is that we’re discussing human rights. And this is, I think, where I can definitely relate to what Angela Davis is saying because in the 21st century, we should not be discussing who has access to human rights and who doesn’t. But this is actually what’s happening right now. And people are coming over here, from the continent, from all different areas of the continent, but also from Syria and Iran and those areas. And especially following the food that has been stolen from them, to put it literally. If you steal somebody’s food, then people get hungry, then they’re gonna follow the food.

And so I think that Europe is definitely doing a miserable job, I don’t even know how the words to emphasize what the hell is going on in politics concerning that right now, it’s literally crazy that they’re sitting in their different cabinets and discussing who has access to human rights and who doesn’t, because it comes down to that. And yeah, we have to do better.

JENNIFER
We will take another short break and listen to the song “We are One” by the Antinational Embassy. And it was released in the time of the Oplatz movement, which was done also as a collective process. And Habet is one of them and is still active on many platforms to present.

[SONG: Antinational Embassy – We are One]

JENNIFER
It’s interesting how goods are able to find their way in Europe with a lot of ease, but not the people. And I found myself always [questioning] this mentality that white people have that Africa is poor and that’s why we are moving here without reflecting on all the resources coming from Africa. And I keep saying Africa is not poor – it’s the absence of money. And who decides the medium of exchange is money – and that’s where the power is. And as we come back to our program, it is also clear that history is repeating itself. What point are we in in history, considering the history of Afrofuturism?

NATASHA
Yeah, this relates to my new book that was just published: Afrofuturism 2.0. And I think that the times we’re in right now, we have a worldwide pandemic going on, which has opened our eyes to power structures. It functions like a prism or a lens to see how western societies malfunction. Who’s standing on which side, who’s on the power side, who’s on the privilege side, and who’s on the other side.
And after the death of George Floyd, it was just a chain reaction of this pandemic. Where through showing this video – but not only of George Floyd, but also of Amy Cooper, so can we please not forget about her as well – is why people are now literally exploding while they’re on the streets. Both sides of racism have become visible. Racism, there’s two sides to the medal, there’s racist oppression and there’s white supremacy. And these two things, they function together as well and this is what we got shown through these two videos. And this is actually why people took to the streets under the hashtag Black Lives Matter. Yeah, fighting not for all lives, but for Black lives as the most vulnerable lives on this planet.

And this is exactly where history repeats itself, because 100 years ago, after the last pandemic, which got known as the Spanish flu, although it had nothing to do with Spain, it broke out in the USA through soldiers who were serving in the First World War. And it was the last global pandemic where people were forced to wear masks, like we’re forced to wear masks today. And then, during this period, the so-called “Red Summer” broke out. That’s where, in the USA, also Black people took to the streets to fight against white racist terror, which also became visible through the last pandemic. So it wasn’t caused by the pandemic and I think this is important to differentiate, but it became visible through the pandemic, exactly like today. Things are not caused through Corona, but they become visible through Corona. Any qualities become visible, deep privileges become visible, access, non access becomes visible, power becomes visible.

And the book that I just published, relates to this because during the last pandemic, W.E.B Du Bois who actually is my academic hero. If there is somebody who would be an academic hero, then it’s definitely him. He was one of the first Afrofuturist pioneers. And Afrofuturism is like a genre, it is like a literature art genre. And I think the 2.0 movement has now also moved into politics, philosophy… So it’s 2.0 movement, because it has literally been broadened. It’s not only the arts and entertainment, where people see black people, but also gone into the intellectual, philosophies, etc. And he was one of the pioneers of this movement anyway.

And his short story, The Comet, was written during the last pandemic, where a comet drops and demolishes New York. And the last survivor is a black man named Jim, because he was sent down into the vault of the bank to get some documents. And when he comes back New York is just gone, literally the comet has destroyed New York. So he goes to look to see if there are other survivors and finds a white woman. No, her name’s not Amy, but it’s Julia. Sorry, but I like cracking this joke at this point. Because it literally shows how history does repeat itself on all levels on gender levels as well. So at the beginning Julia is – because we’re speaking about the 1920s now where we have literal racial segregation in the US – so we have this white woman who doesn’t want to talk to the only last survivor because he’s black. And then when she realizes, okay, she doesn’t have a chance, she doesn’t have a chance without him. They come closer to each other, and then start looking for other survivors. So she starts trusting in his humanity, which becomes part of the story’s topic. It’s a short story that he wrote.

So we’re back to that idea of Christianity and the role that Christianity plays in all of this as well. And then they go searching together for further survivors. And they find her white fiance and her white father, who were ready to kill Jim, as this black man, how can he be touching this white woman? And then she intervenes and says “no, no, no, he helped me, he helped me survive” and “it’s because of him that I’m here”. And so they let him go. And there’s this white mob, this crowd of white people who are ready to kill him. Then behind the crowd comes his wife, his black wife, holding the dead baby, and then they are reunited. And that’s how the story ends.

So for me, this whole story is really a repetition of what’s happening right now. Although it’s only as a short story, it’s a repetition, put into a literary context, of what’s happening right now. With another pandemic, with white, racist terror still going on, nothing has literally changed. And what he actually shows through this story is that nothing from above can change the situation. Only we ourselves as human beings, we need to act, we need to change. And as long as this doesn’t happen, nothing will change.

And this has been going on for the past hundred years, nothing has changed, the next pandemic. So we are kind of stuck in a loop. And as long as we don’t change our attitudes, our mindsets, our actions, we’re not going to get rid of racism. Because there’s nothing that’s going to fall from above that’s going to change things for us. It just manifested or strengthened and constituted the whole racist ideology even more since the last pandemic than it did get less. And I think this might be the message of the story.

[How the topic] came, literally, because actually it was a symposium that I did two years ago, and at that time there was no pandemic, so that wasn’t even the idea behind this whole symposium that I did. I wanted to reintroduce Afrofuturism and W. E. B. Du Bois to the German context because W. E. B. Du Bois was a black philosopher, educator, activist, journalist – I don’t know what he was not – and he actually studied in Berlin. So the most important phases of his life, where he was coining his most important anti-racist ideas, he was living here in Berlin. And this is what fascinated me about him so much. And he wanted to stay on and continue studying in Germany, but he didn’t get the funding. So we can only imagine why, there’s no proof but I expect a black man from the United States wanting to do a PhD during German colonialism was not going to happen, of course. So he went back and became the first black absolvent [graduate] of Harvard University. And he is well known, and what he did in Germany is well known, but nobody knows this here.

And this is what I wanted to reintroduce. And I wanted to reintroduce Afrofuturism, the second wave of Afrofuturism where we can, on the one hand, use Afrofuturism as a lens to see how history is repeating itself, as in the example that I’ve just given, but also at the same time, use it as a methodology to create futures. At the moment, when we’re out in the streets, when we’re demonstrating, it’s quite clear what people are demonstrating against. But what are we actually demonstrating for? What does this racist-free society look like? And this is actually an invitation. Afrofuturism is an invitation to free yourself from Eurocentric colonial imaginations and to construct ideas of what the future, what a black future, might look like. Will we have social justice in the future? Is intersectional justice the future? Will we even need an understanding of justice in the future? Or has it become reality? What does a racist-free society look like?

And I think that it’s important that we create ideas and visions for them to be able to manifest, because we are literally the living vision of our ancestors. They fought to be free, we haven’t reached this full freedom, but we’ve become more free throughout the centuries. And that was because for them, freedom was a vision. For them, freedom was utopia. For them, they didn’t know what this freedom might look like, what becoming human, for an enslaved person would look like. And we’re living this vision today. And a lot of us, I think, are not really aware of this. I think we owe it to them to create new visions. And we owe it to our children, and children’s children, to create new visions of where life, where this world, is really literally going. And that’s why for me, Afrofuturism allows, or offers, a basis to do this on, especially in an academic context as well. It’s nothing utopian anymore. We literally have a foundation on which we can work and create visions that no longer are just in TV, Black Panther, or science fiction.

JENNIFER
Yeah, that’s a very good perspective that you put it in, that I can almost visualize the process. We will now listen to the song: Lass mal Tauschen by Jeff, and maybe you can say why you like this song.

NATASHA
Yeah, this song struck me as well during the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement a few months back. Because he spoke in this song… it’s just my – it’s my experience, it’s my life, it’s my growing up as a black woman in Germany. Going to school here, right up to university, and my PhD. It was a lonely life as well, not only in school because I grew up in a small village in North Germany. We were the only black family in that village, and right up to studying in Münster, doing a PhD. I’m part of a generation who were the first to make it – first migrant generation, let’s put it that way, black migrant generation, to make it into university on this level. So I was always very isolated. It was always very lonely. And this song just, it just spoke out of my heart as well because I just totally felt where he was coming from. So thank you, Jeff at this point as well.

[SONG: Jeff Braun – Lass Mal Tauschen]

NATASHA
Powerful, huh?

JENNIFER
Yes, yes. That’s very powerful. I wanted to ask you: You have given your observations from the present and also the past. You mention the ADEFRA and the black women’s movements in Germany. How do you see the feminist movement in Germany today? And what is your vision of the future? And how do we go on strengthening the women’s resistance and fight?

NATASHA
I think the second wave of the Black German movement started in the feminist movement. So I always argue, if you’re a serious part of this movement, you have to be feminist. There is no way that you can seriously fight against racism, and not against sexism. And it doesn’t matter which gender you are because if it wasn’t for those women back in the 80’s, I think the movement definitely wouldn’t be where it is now. I think that this is something that everybody needs to understand who becomes part of this movement, that this movement is inseparable from women’s movements. I think it’s a lot different in other European countries, in France, or in England, or wherever, that especially black women have to fight for a space in these movements there. And I’m not saying that there is no sexism going on in the German movement, black movement, but there definitely is. But I think that we have to recognize that this movement is inseparable from the feminist movement.

When Audre Lorde came in the 80’s and reignited the movement, it was women who started it, it was women around May Ayim, Katharina Oguntoye, and a lot of others who were the motor of this movement. When ADEFRA was created, the ISD was created, two organizations that are still active today. So I think feminism or feminist theory, or feminist practice, has always been an important tool that’s been used during this movement, if people are aware of it or not. The fact that we are fighting for intersectional justice today is a result of this movement, how we’ve moved forward and are not looking at things separately, but looking at how things intersect. How injustices within the movement play out. How we, on the one side, might be de-privileged, but in other cases are very privileged. The example, just now, that I gave you with being born in Europe is nothing I chose, but this automatically gives me certain privileges. And so where as a black woman, I’m affected by certain power structures, when it comes to citizenship rights, I am still privileged. And I think that this understanding is definitely something that grew out of feminist awareness. And black feminist awareness especially. That’s what I would say so far.

I mean, I think seriously, if people don’t understand intersectionality, then they need to go back to the drawing board because this is where the movement is right now. They need to go back and do their homework. I think this is what’s happening in the past weeks that a lot of hobby activists are intruding – I would literally say intruding at some points. I think it’s really important that it’s never too late to start, to become part of the movement. It’s never too late to be anti-racist, or to be feminist, but I think what is sometimes interrupting the work that people like you, me, and others have been doing for decades, is when people who are just starting out, literally become “experts”. And they don’t even know what the hell they’re talking about sometimes. And this literally takes us back decades, where I’m sometimes like, “excuse me, but we had these discussions a long time ago, and the results are on the table”. Go back, read the books, and then become part of the debate where we are, because they’re literally hindering us from doing our work at certain points.

And when it comes to white people, especially in the feminist movement, I think that we have moved slowly forward, yes. I have to think, it’s funny because I remember when I published my last book on black feminism last year, it came out, where I literally traced the idea of intersectionality in this book. I wasn’t expecting this book to be so successful, because for me it was obvious that intersectional feminism is black feminism – for me it’s the same thing. And intersectionality, which is literally a tool and the strategy of black feminists, was literally stolen by white women – and they tried to run away with these tools. And through this publication, a form of reclaiming took place, where I think that the debate has shifted not only through this book, but also through people like Dr. Emilia Roig and the Center for Intersectional Justice. It’s amazing the work they’re doing there to really implement intersectionality into politics and society. So this whole shift has been taking place in the past three years, which is changing the women’s movement as well.

And what disturbs me a lot about the debate is that people only look very one sidedly, that racism only has to do with people getting sensitive or aware of their own role as white people in the context of racism. This is certainly something that’s important and that needs to happen: that needs to happen on an individual level, that everybody has to start understanding how racism affects their life, for better or worse. Because white people, they gain privileges through racism, and I think a lot of people were not aware about this. But, it’s not about all lives. So that [developing awareness] they can do in their free time, at home, wherever that is supposed to take place. But please, not in politics.

And this is where things are going wrong, because this whole white sensibility thing is taking place in politics. And I think that’s not the place for it. Politics should be about black issues and about black lives. And that’s what I’m missing. And I have a feeling that this debate is getting stuck in this white corner. Because white people are so involved with their own emotions and everything, they all of a sudden realize that they’re part of the problem. And that’s a dead end. So politics are going in that direction too. But I can only say get over it, and let’s get back to business, what it’s actually about, namely Black lives, black demands, and how to literally include black subjectivity into German politics.

We haven’t made that step yet. I’m missing that step. Missing that step, both in the women’s movement, which I think maybe is even a step ahead of general politics in that concern, but which was a long way that they went, if we look at Audre Lorde, who actually was the first black woman, maybe, to criticize white feminism back in the 80’s. And we’ve come to a certain point through the whole intersectionality debate where white women are now understanding their role in this. Politics has to keep going in that direction and I have a feeling that they’re kind of stuck. Everybody’s so sensitive about “Oh, she’s offending me.” And they’re not seeing racism through the structural lens that it needs to be taken into consideration, if you want to do politics. It can only be on a structural level, and not on an individual level. That will take us nowhere. And that’s kind of where we’re drifting away from what this whole thing actually should be about right now.

JENNIFER
Yeah, and I think we relate a lot to that. And we have our critique on white feminism. And that’s why in the process of trying to form alliances with different migrant groups, we started to organize our own demonstrations for the 8th of March, the International Women’s Day, and the 25th of November. Because initially we did these walks together with white feminists, because these days are international. But we realized in the process of doing our demonstrations together, that we got lost in the midst of white feminism, and we were not able to articulate our demands, which are quite different.

NATASHA
Exactly. And I think that’s the whole point. The problem is that the category woman, which is also constructed, a socially constructed category, is considered very homogeneous. So any demands coming from the women’s movement are white women’s demands, and always have been. They are demanding equal pay. I cannot demand equal pay if I don’t have equal access to work. So our demands really come from a different place, from a different space, from a different position in society.

And I think what white women especially have to understand, and then the general public, is that there is no such thing as “the” woman or “the woman’s demand”. Women’s demands are diverse demands. And this diversity needs to be taken into perspective. Like Nuuki said, perspectives count. So then I think that the women’s movement has a strength also. And this is maybe where allyship comes in. If we manage to continue these debates that have been going on for the past 20, 30 years – well, more than 30, 40 years now in Germany – and are able to stand shoulder on shoulder as women, with different demands, then maybe the general public can learn how multiperspectivity works as well. So in this sense, I think that the women’s movement, on many levels, offers strength through the processes that we’ve already been through. But we still have a lot of work to do.

JENNIFER
And that’s the point. And that’s where intersectionality…

NATASHA
I am not excusing anybody. This ain’t over until it’s over everybody.

JENNIFER
Yeah, yeah. And that is why intersectionality really comes in.

NATASHA
Yes, it is key.

JENNIFER
That’s good. Now we are coming to a closing but we have to listen to this song by Celina Bostic that you again chose. Would you like to say something brief about this song and why you like it?

NATASHA
This song spoke to me as well. Shout out to Celina at this point as well. I can only share her words “nie wieder leise” – “I will never be silent again” – and I think this is a motto for me that didn’t only start with the George Floyd movement, but it has always been my motto. People who know me, I am a big mouth and trouble maker. This song speaks really from my soul, literally. And I think it is a brilliant message to not allow the discussions that are going on to die down. We have to keep moving the movement forward.

[SONG: Celine Bostic – Nie Wieder Leise]

JENNIFER
Yes, I agree. “Nie wieder leise”. Now, we are at the end of our program. Thank you so much, Dr. Natasha Kelly. It was an honor to have you on this podcast. I wish we had more time. Your opinions, your knowledge, your experience of work is amazing. And we are very proud of you.

NATASHA
Thank you.

JENNIFER
To order Natasha’s book please visit her website natashaakelly.com

We are broadcasting from We Are Born Free! Empowerment Radio, and it is on 88.4 in Berlin and on 90.7 in Potsdam. You can listen to We Are Born Free! Empowerment Radio every Friday and Saturday from 1 to 4pm and on Sundays from 1 to 5pm. Make sure to visit our website iwspace.de and subscribe to our newsletter and podcasts. Check also the links and materials connected to the topic of this program and also a complete transcript and translated version to German will be available as soon as possible on our website.

Thank you so much for being with us through this program.

NATASHA
Thank you too, thank you for having me.