One of the most surreal things about living here in Germany is the fact that the civil rights movement never took place here.
Here in Germany, it's still perfectly acceptable (and commonplace) to refer to black people as "negroes" and "coloreds." I almost choked on a beer I was drinking when a person my age asked me if I had any "colored" friends back home. On the news, you'll see newsanchors reporting without hesitation about the "negro" that won such and such an award. It's incredible. This was, as you can imagine, a HUGE shock for us Americans, because these are words that are almost as offensive as the n-word. I've had to explain to several Germans that they can't use those words around us Americans because they are far too charged and considered very derogatory. I've also warned them that if they are planning on ever visiting the States, they CANNOT use those words unless they want trouble.
Germany is, in comparison with the States, a very mono-racial (is that even a word?) society. You don't see a lot of minorities or different ethnicities the way you do in the States. Here, the largest minority of the population is Turkish, which you probably see most often and which is a charged political issue here among some Germans, who feel that there is an "invasion of foreigners" going on. Looking around as a foreigner and seeing only what look like Germans to me, it's hard for me to see that. Moreover, coming from a country that is often referred to as the "salad bowl" or the "melting pot" of cultures and races, people tell me that there's a "foreign invasion" going on and I just shrug and go, "What's your point?"
However, Germany absorbs more refugees and foreigners than any other country in the EU, so it's easy to see why some people feel this way. But as far as race goes, this is probably the closest Germany comes to anything similar to what we went through in the States. The right-wing radical parties (which only receive small percentages of the vote and are dubbed Neo-Nazis by the vast majority of the population) have political platforms that call for "foreigners out!" and "making Germany German again." I've seen an advertisement (they're not televised, you have to watch them online) for the Republican Party (right-wing radicals) that, honest to God, looks like a modern-day Nazi propoganda film. It's freaky. These parties receive their strongest support, according to many Germans, out "in the little villages" where the people are "uneducated." This stereotype doesn't match up with my experiences in Neustadt, but in any case, I believe in the last election the right-radical NPD received less than 9% of the vote if I'm not mistaken.
I suppose that all this stems from the simple fact that there is such a thing as the German "race," whereas in the States we don't seem to have any real racial definition for what it means to be an American. I'm an American because I was born there and my family has been there for 3 generations, but my friends from Mexico who have immigrated to Arizona and become citizens are also Americans. So we're left without a concrete, easily definable prototype of what an "American" actually is. I mean, I've thought of it this way: if I were to marry a German girl and we had kids, what would we say the kids are? They're half German, half American? Or would we say, "Kids, you're half German, one-fourth Swedish, a touch of American Indian, a dash of Welsh, and a sprinkle of Irish?" I mean I honestly, like most Americans, can't even say what most of my ancestral makeup is. I know I'm near half Swedish (3/8), but that's about where my knowledge ends. I envy the Europeans in that they can easily say "I'm French," or "I'm German," or "I'm Portugese" and it's simple.
Maybe it's that exact ignorance (that's not the right word, I can't remember the word I need here) of our ancestral heritage is what one day might lead us to making "American" more of an ancestry instead of a citizenship label the way it sort of is right now. In any case, the United States of America and the Americans are without a doubt unique in that regard.
Anyway that wandered from one topic to another but I think it's time to wrap it up.
Thursday, February 9, 2006
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2 comments:
Hey Matt,
It was interesting to me what you said about labels people use for black people here. I've had a totally opposite experience: I've talked about this already with two of my German neighbors, and they both told me that Negro is considered totally offensive in Germany, similar to our N-word. And in the news, I've only heard them refer to "die Schwarze."
Also, I admit that if Germans say "colored" people, or when we see signs for "black music", it's a little strange to us, because we come from the culture of political correctness where no one is allowed to offend anyone. Even though I personally never heard anyone refer to colored people, I'm sure that those who use this term don't use it with any ill-intentions. Just because it's offensive in our language doesn't mean it's offensive in another. And sometimes, it also depends on the period of time in which you are living... in the past, queer was very offensive to homosexuals, and now they use it to define their own civil rights movement.
Like you, I find these cultural differences very interesting, but we have to remember not to impose our own culture on our interpretations of another culture.
This comment was way too long. :)
Well, you know, you will and do find some of that kind of "foreigners out!" attitude here sometimes. I even understand it to a point. When a good portion of our border states start putting signs up in Spanish and English I start getting wary -- I think that if you come to America, you should attempt to learn at least enough English to function in society. In California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona things are totally out of hand with illegal immigration -- and that hurts the whole society. And it's not just Mexicans either, everyone in the world knows that the Mexican-American border is a seive and all sorts of ill wishers from the middle east and elsewhere have found their way in by the hundreds or thousands because if it.
Now that said, I agree with you completely about America being America because of immigrants. I love the idea of immigrants pouring in from all over the globe to be a part of and make an impact on America. I think that they are very brave. My best friend all through middle school was a first generation Mexican immigrant -- and the great thing about America is that nobody cared. She was just an American like anyone else who's forefathers came over on the Mayflower.
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