what i'm focused on him is you know what i'm with what i'm organize you don't know where it's at them went up by mackenzie it is as if to say yes it can i've only said but i caught it going on where they're being funded. crime fighters the new season of radio current thrillers begins. for investigative cases that will keep you on your toes. in crime fighters stories of the best idea ever so every young person needs to listen to crime fighters and share a tell a friend tell a friend tell a friend. cried fighters don't miss it. beat the germans new and surprising aspects of noise and culture in germany. us american kid music takes a look at drumming idiosyncrasies of their traditions everyday lives and language i can just come out of my lungs on a song so i'm ok i'm groucho. like

a fish because i am going to d.w. dot com the germans. the perception that germans are white fish head and blue eyed has never been true and will never be two it's and. people always ask me where i'm from. it's not possible to be german and black.

from the moment i get up and leave the house in the morning i'm confronted with racist views images and styria types of people. as a child our us wanted to have white skin because i've heard bed being black and not being able to blend in and i was kind of sticking a hold of the group and being you know different than the rest i didn't want to be different. i am traveling around germany to talk with other black people about or experiences with racism my first stop this ham that's where i was born into.

i had absolutely wonderful parents and that helped me a lot in difficult situations. i mean i always had a lot of friends about what i do remember. that we played these funny games like who's afraid of the black man and tender little worlds that's called in german so and i remember that sometimes they ran after me and said yeah nothing can hurt in something like younus an effort kenyan as an african and the problem is that african men something bad. i first met sammy looks when i was a teenager and have today's one after german east most. successful event first in

hip hop on. the voice make it might. be an action that may could soon banishment a guy. with a lot to. look things over usable his own thing. i've come to see semi in this is doing well as you. say the way. but he's had a number of top ten hits and all the a million records. like today he also produces other musicians. but as a kid i wanted to be white and he you know. yeah as a kid white and as a teenager i really wanted to be black. only the only thing to not have this ambiguity it seemed so clear cut like on the white sides and white people just knew who they were black people did to me i felt like i was in the middle i grew up in a white family in a white neighborhood it was definitely

a challenge. and the challenge of distance vision for me the feeling of being caught in between is something imposed on you from the outside i mean people always say don't you see tall until conscious black and why do you feel. the fact this yourself don't find it unusual why should i have to choose whether. i'm fucked by me against you one thing that caused me a fair amount of confusion right from the start was that i have straight hair on justice by me and was involved in machine in one shoot as in which he could sneak going on top of the stand in grade school if some kid called me the n word and i reacted defensively or aggressively they'd say he's a lousy you're not really a nigger because your hair is straight with me so for me that was like ok i'm dark enough to get called the n. word but my hair isn't frizzy or curly enough for me to have the right to get upset about it because to me that was the first contradiction that was imposed. on me

from the outside world that's evoked a song play a sound about humans didn't you it's often in song of the show so i told him i wrote the song in two thousand and eight at the time i was reading a harry potter book to my son in the evening at bad times and one night he said he wished he were white and because then he could be like his friends in the moment and all you have to do is paint that thing on his forehead and wear around glasses and he'd look like harry potter was still need to be loved that's in the else we have reports and. that made me realize that there's an acute shortage of dark skinned superheroes so i wrote the song and made a really nice video to go along with it. his issues with us would. have. advised you to. think that kind of. thing that if i went to. the mall for that.

i might as well like you and i don't like it i don't like that's. why the last guy. did not like a long time that's a long maybe long. time itself but i don't like. much money. like that i'd like to be frank's taught. hi i can remember when i was thirteen alice into novena and that's when i started going to parties and the other kids would say vanna you why you listening to that and the should be listening to black music i did and i liked it more and then it was the best music scene whatever that means hip hop and r. and b. album from the school on down and is a c. in the end then all of a sudden yes a black person a part of the majority of i'm up on my. and then with these positive associations it's who's it's evil us it's who got us a club with us fell from

a single i think that's one of the main reasons i became who i am been lots of going with this rep thing this yes to the rap was the first thing that gave me a home court advantage so to speak i'm for tight houses i just had to let my pants hang a little bit lower paying less in this case for my cab to the side and move like this. and everyone was into it it looked authentic and it fit well with my exotic status those clothes if i did graffiti deejaying collected records started producing rasping and and beatboxing all the hip hop disciplines except breakdancing that was too much work so you're telling me i. just body type of it. only with words. as a journalist i don't have a home court advantage. when i decided to become a journalist and when i became an anchor i was actually i think the first female

black anchor and germany i didn't have any role model is. not a big deal of it. for me it's really important that children you know when this watch on the t.v. that might see me and think oh quite i can be on t.v. and read the news and i don't have to have a job which was filled to the face the stereotypes for me that would be great if i could help bring dump areas in that sense. that people have been living in germany for four hundred years today they numbered about one million from me in cologne i've come to see. do support them yeah. he was born in one thousand twenty five and belin.

but why did your father come from cameroon to germany back then come a one by a dutch cameroon was a german colony. we run for you. just as people used to dream of going to america. at the time many young africans wanted to come to germany. says there was no such thing as what we now call racism. at least not as we know it today. you see it only started to take shape when the young african started asserting themselves for instance by marrying german women oh. and the reaction was there taking away our women. in quincy in the name onset the following way. and now you appeared in ethnographic exhibits also known as humans zeus what was it

like stan's affordably imagine human being. being exhibited like objects literally exhibited earth present from what they supposedly represented of namely africa with vast skirts and drums dancing saunas. didn't and the idea was that people under splay were foreign exotic. and were showing spectators what their homeland was like this and. basically it was just a big show. me i am a good i'm going to good numbers show evidence how crazy istead us a german was supposed to imitate this will receive in. africa i was just such a huge continent. and he's a consummate. widowhood trott's i was and i'm a black man so of course i should be able to do that that's how it is it's in my

blood and let's talk about the nazi era it's so hard to imagine because black people would obviously attract attention in every genre there were so racist that's right as a mom both to kind and. we didn't need to wear yellow stars. everyone could see we were aliens. did you know a lot of other black people in germany where you know sure everyone knew everyone and there were so many colonial films made back then that many of us would meet up as part of the cast. yet that's me. this is mine and that's my closest and it's not like the fact that the shot a close up of me.

and everyone who was in black was in that film. and but it is a good thing i was sixteen at the time. and it struck me that my god we're all here together. he can take us away without anyone noticing or not that's his oath they did that and that thought weighed very heavily on me this. is good thank god that never came to pass but then. we were too few in number to matter to the nazis that. when i die you know you know all contact with white women with the fellow had been horrible whom. i would have been sterilized. and i might also have been charged with racial defilement being the ass and shunned . you say that you took great care not to get too close to white women girls.

was it like having all trying to become invisible how can we imagine that well that was that see men the sleestak that's the right word invisible i mean could it be counted on the of course with a face like this i could never completely disappear. but i tried. i think of sense i really did. look and skipped as i and the main thing was to keep your head down can your mouth shut. i made sure i did that as well. to the point that i started to start or this. yeah i started terribly. well been understood listening to the difficult often horrible things you experienced. how did you find the strength to go on one of the w.c. well i have to say with god's help. i became

a religious person the league as i mentioned above. thank you that's what you owe. to you don't you michel always says there's nothing in the german constitution that states what the german is supposed to look like but some people haven't gotten the message for them we asked the exciting. when i was a child complete strangers would touch my hand say it feels like a bird's nest. right oh my god it's good to see you says. i watch breakfast t.v. every morning i turn on the set and think and afro german woman on german public t.v. be as we're so proud of you. oh you do such a wonderful job does one thousand two months the story to your mate look at your

hair and to talk about that yes we do. that will work in some coconut oil. like many. thanks a lot to me is that i have to say that it is enough i love your curls ok and then i would always wake up this. is a good these are the hurdles. right now i'm really happy to be talking to s. that don't call out the founder of cause and look at all clearly had mega xena's how sometimes i think that black people's has really politicized it's like a political statement whether you have your head down very naturally the stereotype

is that they have is messy and wild that doesn't go all the bun in the professional but also how the afro hair just isn't acceptable. our society still doesn't comply with our ideals of beauty. look at beyond saying she's a black woman she's a performer of the she's the embodiment of empowerment but she still wears a straight blonde we thank you for the shop you know i've met women who work in law offices in places like that we get into trouble if they wear their hair naturally. not to mention hot off to the south can you tell us about the natural hand movement does is sort of fell into it look at what. it's about allowing people with afro textured hair to wear it naturally without causing a fuss or having to feel self-conscious. that's what life is about accepting yourself and i'll be a good set of names as absence of times. change and. you can just feel

comfortable in your own skin that's the goal but it's not so easy. i think the problem is that if you see all these stereotypes about africa about tribes about being primitive of that barrier a native underdeveloped. it hits you. part of the problem of the images from the days of colonialism and the lin dance to streets named after german nice and colonialists. and berlin in one thousand nine hundred four that european nations had a conference when they carved up f.a.q. and took on a nice. was. bought. by me at a street festival aimed at forcing the city to change the name from the us. i

am here with just a crazy akins political scientist an activist why it's important for you to rename districts the term is one of the oldest german words. person but look at the root of the term it has a latin in the greek groups morris and morris and guess that means dark or black but it also means stupid heathen and primitive and so we see already in the origin of the word that there's this idea of black inferiority but then we look into the history of the street name if we see that the street was named quiet its name in the context of the brandenburg involvement in the transatlantic and slave meant and to prize how would you say that's germany to deal with this colonial history i think as a huge problem. a lot of aspects of german korean history are not widely known we can't even begin to understand national socialism without looking at the colonial

and to see that it's because we find that they are ideological political but also personal continuities linking german colonialism and national socialism. please and i set off to uncover some of the traces. soft colonialism in the german capital. ok i think i moved to berlin ten years ago but this defer sometimes this fresco can explain what i'm seeing so we had out of the house and this here shows us the trail of tobacco so you see and slaved african men harvesting tobacco then enslaved african women packaging the tobacco then it is sorted and weighed you know as a white overseer and then it's package further it's made ready for shipment and you see one of the white overseers is already lounging and having a smoke but then you see the ship departing for that they're not releasing its

burden because you see the silhouette of the german and the french don't so it's clearly explains the source of the wealth that was used to build this place right but of course it also implicates the people that frequented here and the suffering but it's also depicted here. people often defined by this skin color so when known south african artist robin wrote place with the stereotypes he experienced apartheid in south africa now he's been living in berlin for fourteen he's. bought. it to you to see you i could see you working on a new p.c.'s. i have a work in process and it's a world guy some knowledge in this is about myself african i did. and of course the

african is a strong some bull it's interesting that you chose here of course i can identify with that but let us and mean what what role detail f. or have play for you he became a way to to classify a place been sold to a place through he to. who did you pick to kind of the stand and before the racial category. saying that if they go for my hair they say it's f. i have i am exactly black on the public categorized as colors has colored always mixed race. so if the goal waned we invaded to find you here because you guys as white how were you classified as on a farm classified as scarlet as if it is a person of mixed race and so on might be and so my grandparents and. in many ways my cultural background is quite complex because i know you know we don't associate

ourselves with black and neither white. sorry if you view it as black. german content what i think is in the german gone pics i'm viewed as out of oh really so that's actually pretty interesting. i use off as a way to subvert but also to to play with. on the valvoline what these kind of cultural labels off. this particular piece really expected me to painting everything needs to be defined it's going to be categorized and i'm trying to knob explore the notion of something that is completely in this something that is completely undefined.

i was born in one nine hundred eighty one and in the early ninety's we had a serious awful lot of basis to take see in germany and also and highest to get it and so willing it must be backed by stand this kind. during the attacks. it was really heartbreaking to see and it frightened me so much as a child. and i think that's something that is also very scary if you look at the recent vice and racist attacks on refugees in germany and so few of the people who take them were caught and put on trial and i think that's a very dangerous message to everyone who experience racism because it means ok you

can be a tete but you know you can attack people but you can get away with it in that it gives us the message ok people can do to you whatever they want they won't be put on trial. and that scares me a lot. about us an apprentice rufo working in the eastern german state of six an eon height he hasn't been living here for very long in two thousand and thirteen he fled book enough fossil for germany his job gives the twenty eight year old some stability was but otherwise his life is often difficult recently he will speak not by of right wing fuck i mean he send the town of war where he lives as a hero eight months ago you were beaten up right here tell us about that. should get right i went into the stall and saw a man and if with a woman and child. and he said in my didn't look at that he sure does using the n.

word for us to look at this black piece of trash didn't. i didn't say anything that . i went to the counter to pay this call and he went like this. and i said this is what do you want from me and he says i'll show you a school i went over there and he hit me three or four times like this. you know muscle history of how bad the way you hurt when a boa less due to the i felt a lot of pain in my stomach and i come down the block for about two months. and we're not holding. on but how does it feel when no one steps in to help you when you're being beaten up and often treated with hostility and it's hard to get and i'm at how do you cope. with it in a cause you're so i'm always afraid when i go out now in a sort to see who can i go to work i'm afraid of what might happen along the way. people make just just like i'm going to cut your throat that is seeing and they

shout go back to where you came from shocking people do that to me every day shopping like. this is the courthouse in the town of stand up it's where the man who beat up he says on trial. how do you feel knowing you're about to see the person would take you as he has shown above and i'm not afraid. i can't wait to see him again fuck and look into his eyes dizzy and fall saddam is you. the attacker who has a long criminal record was found guilty of assault and sentenced to ten months in jail but he appealed was just a reason for this hearing. the. cameras aren't allowed inside the courtroom.

after a four hour last the conscience. and how was it for you today to assure me i never expected it to go so well and a blessing plus and very pleased to. see turkey. the conviction is upheld but the attack intends to appeal again. once you wake up in the morning and you switch on the radio or you switch on the t.v. you're confronted with all these stereotypes about africa and. it's really difficult to talk about racism in germany because once i experience it when i talk about racism people say oh you're too emotional you're overreacting that comfy true

i'm sure the person didn't mean it that way so they don't really take it serious and that it's really hard because i feel like i am not taking serious with my experience it's. girls girls were into the super. nice girls where is. without regret because he should all is. and listening in the author of this play is the artist and writer. the story she's originally from particle but has lived for many years a billion. for me it took a lot of effort to research black german history had to go out because there was nothing that was presented to me in school for example what all of us silence seeing play in your ads i think in the last words that i've been doing i'm very concerned with this question of silencing and speaking and with the with the

fact that it's not that we have not been producing no words or have not been speaking but we believe in a system that constantly silence or make these knowledge is invisible racism is really with the for equally for me a ghost that our society never took care of and never cared because we live in these very white narcissistic society that don't want to deal with it and then says well that for me you are not black i don't think that you are like. that in a way as a. souse do me a favor when did you. start feeling that no i don't believe this dominant narratives you just talked about when did you figure out a set now now this can't be it there must be something else.

i don't know if i can tell you. but i believe it has always been there. now as a mother i when i am with my children and i hear them bringing the topic of racism even though they are two and four five it's just time five. it is still i see that up. where that is not right and it's extremely complicated to explain such a brutal history and this is the trauma of black people and people from many other the aspirants who went through similar experiences collective experiences that you cannot explain and apply any logic to something that is so absolutely love illogical and not aggressive because this is aggressive i comb i do not want to be. let's now turn to a question that i've hurt more times than i can count how come your parents of

white the and suck my biological father came from zimbabwe but actually the mother from germany directly after i was born in hamburg i was adopted by a german swedish couple. and for me they attacked. this indian our parish she too was adopted i grew up in best germany she grew up in the east but we're inside an old guard tower from the days of communist east germany the war divided berlin until one thousand nine hundred eighty nine in the us biological father is from guinea he was studying at the university of leyte see how many met her biological mother but she was married and her husband was in jail nevertheless he said he could imagine raising the child. star bunny but he didn't know that i was going to look the way i look at it as if that i would be a black child. aunties a man who died. and this man was

a hard core rightwinger. and. he got out of jail soon after i was born. it was obvious that i wasn't a white child. and had hired and he tried he attempted to kill me for. my left him with my biological mother saw him dangle. me out the window so in all likelihood she said before the child is killed i will send her away. if he had and at some point she decided to put me up for adoption. out of hundreds of. ally in the last move wardens i think that subconsciously in any case you never forget that you were abandoned by a biological parents you were born and were unwanted you take that with you to your

grave because here in kin to me it still seems unfair to just give away a child like that. kinde over to him. now oh yeah joyce oh. wake up in the other works as a doc trainer and has adopted several neglected dogs. we bought and how was it for us to play school. yard the problem might be vast dustin's thought one problem was the teachers who thought we shouldn't eat with the other kids to finish with an argument as. we were supposed to wash our hands really thoroughly as if something could rub off on the other kids. we have all complete scene for months and has moved. into the country and we weren't allowed to nap near

the other children. a minute on board should see my parents did everything to protect us so. they gave up everything they had to be there for us kids they fought for us they did what they could and i think it was the right thing that they may have to east berlin. and the hospital is another thing you hear so often oh adoptive parents can never be the real parents but that is complete nonsense you really feel the love they have for the children just like any other parents. ever be ate and absolutely they protect you and do everything for you and your family whether someone gave birth to you are not absolutely for me blood relationship is meaningless. behold no dupes for months after for me too and for me it's immaterial and fragmented and as my parents told me about how they drove to the children's home in life to say where i was. and i crawled

straight into my papa's arms hit me so for me it was clear that's my papa and that's really great but this might impact your and yard as well today as to tire sharon and that's how it was until the end we were really close. best resuming a father no i didn't. it wasn't until the age of seventeen that india met her biological mother. jones and you had no one to go off and. we went for a walk and she sat in and i didn't want you to turn out so black that was the very first sentence i heard from my biological mother. and. and i sands. oh ok well as of what did you expect.

talking with other effort germans about our experiences gives me strength that's one reason why i'm a member of the initiative of black people in germany every year they hold an annual meeting this is the first time i'm attending. your mother by the buzzy crowd through the chef in the kitchen zinah nests the pasta and so whole in the house and temperate too it's a control issue it's put off sharon to do well sure is holding us on taney is reading up disease and around two hundred seventy people have come to the initiative and the only thing the group was formed over thirty years ago. talk to dallas and the steering committee. if you tell me how was the initiative found it would. it was thanks to two happy coincidences the first lord

was in berlin because i'm who was i don't you know she was an american writer from the black feminist movement in the u.s. but she was teaching in berlin with the boy because over the course of her time there she met a lot of black women who came to her readings in discover that they didn't know each other. so she hit on the idea of connecting them so that they could exchange experiences and don't come she also brought out what i believe is the first book of stories told by black people about black people in germany. trying to get. into i am a black man everyone is welcome to read aloud at initiatives me to you and when i look at a white man i mean. really. knowing in the growing of the night when i think about it. this is the theme of this meeting is somehow meant in south korea what does it mean you know because i can paul meant to

mention empowerment means showing black people especially young people you know that there was a lot they can do with themselves from that they can take charge of a lot of things develop themselves and establish new perspectives of self care within a society influenced by racism entails ensuring that he was a black person stay healthy protect yourself and grow stronger in the mission it's a mixture it involves politics but also drinking smoothies or doing yoga or sports . but. it's i'm going to speak. give it a somewhat. go.

and to two thousand and eleven he played in the german national team. yes. and a day in the life of someone who could. not get out if in custody was the very first black german national player and you were also one of the first i know to give you that i started playing for germany in two thousand and one i was set and he loved us for distance on every possible way i was not for the cost it was more half an hour what does that mean and how it was by your i want to. let's just say i was the first really blackwater's was the first black africa and that's why. i felt it wasn't easy for me back then to decide. i could have played for john and i was told off for going back to i had decided to play for got the time of. the figure i

was in uganda but then they didn't play much on the go i went back to germany and germany was very insistent and at some point i said ok i'll play for germany was very rewarding very interesting it wasn't easy but it was nice but that's wasn't easy as some people. who don't want to accept us and that was my big problem i want to listen to see you do something for your country but you're still the black guy here's an example i was team yourself after the world cup in two thousand and six we came in certain people accepted us and then suddenly a month later you get the food and call the neighbor during a match and that was a moment where seriously consider no longer playing for germany it hurt. because i was a part of it after hanging out this so-called booth get someone became a household name and today he's the man a child cheick is under twenty three s. he was going up in guyana. i know i'm from among

five hours away from auckland like i was in class it was a small village where people didn't have much notice when after school we play soccer with balls made of socks moves on us for heights when i look at myself swimmers who knows everything he doesn't know what to do with it with money's worth and i had to struggle to get two square meals a day. and that was how i grew up and it affected me going to submit all that made me said goals and saying i have to give my all to achieve something buswell russian and i sometime over the coming where i honestly don't know if. i can no longer understand why as a child i wanted to be white even if it takes a lot of strength and energy to deal with racism and to hold your head up high i wouldn't want a different skin color but anything in the book. for

me being black means so many syrians it means me that i'm seen differently but what's going on inside that something else. is just me it's nothing more than a skin color and i hope my blackness blooms and becomes my beauty yagi and we're all the same i look first and foremost i'm a person but a yes at my age i wouldn't want to change anything about who i am this report about but i'll tell you one thing lacks are pretty cool cool don't you think you are. so wrapped up. in. every journey begins with the first step and every language in the first word i looked in the nick. he's in germany to find sherman but. business just why not

move him. in simple online on euro mile and train. to south. d w z learning course eco speak german made easy. your home. because of persecution and society starting from scratch in an unfamiliar country. house that's supposed to work. five lives five people who found a new home in a foreign land. with their stories books and music they've built bridges to the past. and the future. for the escape starting december seventeenth on t.w. .

this is deja vu news coming to you live from berlin a stunning victory for u.s. democrats and a major embarrassment for president trump doug jones claims victory in alabama a special senate election the first step.