it's all about george chance to discover the world from different perspectives. join us introduce sponsored by distinctive instagram others at g.w. stories topping each week on instagram. fake hair and real story. where i come from a lot of women like me have fake hair sometimes the hair style takes up to two days it's a lot of time that needs to be filled so people at the salon talk about what's happening in their lives. to get a journalist's to be a storyteller and i always want to find those real authentic stories from everyday people who have something to share. with all the time i spent at the salon i know a good quality here when i see it and a good story when i hear it. my name is elizabeth saul and i work at steve's.

the perception that germans are why their head in 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 alice wanted to have white skin because of her 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 happened 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 but i do remember. that we played these funny games like who's afraid of the black man and tender little negroes that's called in german so and i remember that sometimes they ran after me and said yeah nothing can hurt me in something like an african man as an african and the problem is that african men something bad. i first met sammy did looks when i was a teenager and have today's one after germany most successful reface and hip hop artists. fredricka. mean

i should be could have any money to buy. a lot of things over usable is one thing. i've come to see semi in this doing world as you. say the way in which 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 cute. yeah as a kid white and as a teenager i really wanted to be black. that's nice only still need to not have this ambiguity it seems 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 mission 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 wide which do you feel of. effect this yourself don't find it unusual why should i have to choose sides inflicted 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 you know when shooters and where she 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 yes and hey how is it you're not really a nigger because your hair straight couldn't know what's new 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 to me that was the first contradiction that was imposed on me from the outside world to dress you go to song play a song about heroes didn't you. didn't sign up to shimon. 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 and one night he said he wished he were white and because then he could be like his friends i mean 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 mr mimic a blouse that's lindsay else we have reports of and i wish him good but 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. a musician most of us would. have. advised to. doesn't have the time but. i'm doing that that will be fun when they. have the money for that. i might as well like you and i don't like and i don't like. the last

guy. this guy was long time that's a long maybe a long long time so we don't like. much money like. right now i'd like to be frank's talked to it's a high i can remember when i was a teen i was into novena and that's when i started going to parties and the other kids would say. why you're listening to that and 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. i haven't done as cool on them and as a c. in the and then all of a sudden yes a black person a part of the majority of i'm up on my money and i mean and then with these positive associations it's who's it's you must it's who got us a club with a swell from single i think that's one of the main reasons i became who i am in that sort. and with this rep thing this rap was the first thing that gave me

a home court advantage so to speak i'm for tired houses i just had to let my pants hang a little bit lower paying less in this case my cap to the side and move like this. and everyone was into it it looked authentic and it did well with my exotic status this caused i did graffiti deejaying collected records started producing wrapping around and beatboxing all the hip hop disciplines except breakdancing that was too much work so you're telling me you're not just body type. 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 gemini i didn't have any role model is.

not the baby alfie. for me it's really important that children you know when this switch 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 that force fields 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 but today they numbered about one million you from me in cologne after come to see. do you support them yeah. he was born in one thousand twenty five and belin. well why did your father come from chemical into germany back then come a one by

a dog cameroon was a german colony. we'd run for you. just as people used to dream of going to america. at that 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 the 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 the imprints in the name onset the following way. 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 we're showing spectators what their homeland was like this in. basically it was just a big show. as good and going to good numbers as show evidence how crazy istead us a german was supposed to imitate us will perceive. africa which is such a huge continental us and he's a consummate. with a high trot so i was and i'm a black man so of course i should be able to do that as 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 that was 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 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 i'm still not like the fact that the shot a close up of me. to these events and everyone who was in black was in that film. on its plate 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 us as both the good and the thought weighed very heavily on me this. is good thank god i never came to promise but in the we were too few in number to matter to the nazis that. when i die before you know all contact with white women with the pharaoh have been horrible home. i would have been sterilized. and i might also have been charged with racial defilement being a passenger and. you say that you took great care not to get too close to white women or girls. was it like how you being all trying to become invisible how can we

imagine that while the first see men the sleestak that's the right word invisible i mean could it be coming on the of course with a face like this i could never completely disappear. but i tried. i think of sense i really did have some smoke 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. yeah i started turning away. of them and also listening to the difficult often horrible things you experienced. how did you find the strength to go on one of the double c well i have to say with god's help. i became a religious person the league as i mentioned above. that's what you go.

to you know when you're 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're still exciting. when i was a child complete strangers would touch my hair and say it feels like a bird's nest. right. way to my god it's good to see you says. i watch breakfast t.v. every morning i turn on the set and think like an afro german woman on german public t.v. be as we're so proud of you. oh you do such a wonderful job just would doesn't do much the story but here i may look at your hair we have to talk about that yes we do.

i will work in some coconut oil. like many. thanks a lot to me is that you have decided that it is enough my love your curls ok and then i would always wake up using the movies a good these are being hurled. right now i'm really happy to be talking to s. that don't call out the founder of cause a knuckleball clearly had magazine that's how sometimes i think that black people's has really politicized it's like a political statement whether you have to have. it naturally the stereotype is that the head 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've made it 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 that kind. of not to mention hot off the. can you tell us about the natural hand movement does is this 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 to get seven limbs eps of times. change. to 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 on the images from the days of colonialism and the investors streets named after german nice and colonialists it was c.n.n. berlin in one thousand nine hundred eighty four that european nations had a conference when they carved up f i can't economies. was. bought. by me at a street festival aimed at forcing the city to change the name from the us. and here was just a crazy akins political scientist an activist why it's important for you to remain

districts the term is one of the oldest german words. but person box should look at the root of the term it has a latin and the greek roots morris and morris i guess that means doc or black but it also means stupid heathen and primitive and so we see already in the origin of the word that there is this ideal black inferiority but then if we look into the history of the street maybe if we see that the street was named quiet its name in the context of the brandenburg involvement in the transatlantic and statement and to prize how would you say this germany deal with this colonial history i think is 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 this because we find that they are ideological political but also

personal continuity. 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 defers time i'm seeing this fresco can you explain what i'm seeing so we had a 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 oversea has already lounging and having a smoke but then you see the ship departing for them not you see it's berlin because you see the silhouette of the german the french dome so this 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 it's a well 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 it's you know you 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 older ministers about myself african i did thirty. 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 what does i mean look at what role of detail at

a for have played 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 through my head they say it's f. i have i am sorry let all the public categorized as colors has colored always mixed race. so if the goal when we invaded to find you here because you guys is white how were you classified as on a farm classified as it does 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 quiet complex because i know you know we don't associate ourselves with black and neither white.

sorry. i know you view it as black d.c.'s 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. and on the valve will watch these kind of cultural labels off. this particular piece reading speed of mean 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 off budget of basis to take c. in germany and also and highest to get it and selling it must be backed by stan the stephen king. 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 attacked but you know you can attack people but you can get away with it

in it that 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 truffaut working in the east end german state off sex and the on hot he hasn't been living here for very long in two thousand and thirteen he fled took enough awesome for germany his job gives the twenty eight year old some stability but my but otherwise his life is often difficult recently he will speak not by a right wing fact i meet isa and the town of pool where he lives as a few eight months ago an upright tell us about what you should get right i listen to this little one saw a man and if with a woman and child. and he said my didn't look at that shit dish using the n. word for us to look at this black piece of trash didn't. i didn't say anything

about ownership i went to the counter to pay this guy and he went like this. in the i said that's what do you want from me and he says i'll show you your school i went over there and he hit me three or four times like this and i you know muzzle history of how bad the way you hurt any boa i listen to i felt a lot of pain in my stomach and i calmed down the block for about a month. 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 you often treat it with hostility and it's hard to explain 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 to see when i go to work i'm afraid of what might happen along the way some people make just just like i'm going to cut your throat and they shout go back to where you came from should do that to me every day like. this is the courthouse in the

town of stand up it's where the man who beat up he says i'm trying. how do you feel knowing you're about to see the person would take you to just shape up or i'm not afraid. i can't wait to see him again flop and look into his eyes dizzy and fall saddam is you're. 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 four i'll ask the conscience.

how was it for you today to assure me i never expected it to go so well and abuser plus i'm very pleased to mysticism this secret. the conviction is upheld but the attack intends to appeal again. once you wake up in the morning and just 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 the company true i'm sure the person didn't mean it that way so they don't really take it serious and that is really hard because i feel like i am not taking seriously my experiences.

well those were asked to get up close to supers. ice floes racism we are regrets because of the shooting all kids. 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 election history because it was nothing that was presented to me in school for example what all of us silencing 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 nodes 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 she said well but for me you are not black i don't think that you are like. that in a way as a. souse doing 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 you know. 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 in four five it's just time five. it is still i see that the 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 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 call i do not want to be better. let's now turn to a question that effort more times than i can count how come your parents are 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 are not terrorists. this is india posh she too was adopted i grew up in best germany she grew up in the east we are inside an old guard tower from the days of communist east germany a 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 light c. when he 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. and 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. and at some point she decided to put me up for adoption. out of the influence of the. best. ally in the last move warden's i think that subconsciously in any case you never forget that you were abandoned by a biological parents one you were born and were unwanted you take that with you to your grave is she in kin to me it still seems unfair to just give away

a child like that. and enforce over to him. now oh yeah truth oh wake up in the works as a doc trainer and has adopted several neglected dogs. we've bought and how was it for us to play school. yard you probably madly valar 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 c. in vermont and thousands who are. into the country and we weren't allowed to nap near the other children. amanat and gordon should

my parents did everything to protect us so. they gave up everything they had to be there for us kids they thought for us they did what they could and i think it was the right thing that they may have to explain it. in 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. 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 boots for months after that for me to ring 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 reasoning of i've been wrong. it wasn't until the age of seventeen that india met her biological mother. jones and you had no one to go off. we went for a walk and she sat here 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 said. oh ok well as of what to 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 attempting. to. normalize a 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 on tissue it's put off sharon to do well sure it's holding us on taney a straight up disease and around two hundred seventy people have come to the initiatives and the only thing the group was formed over thirty years ago. to get jealous in the steering committee. it's a diet you tell me how was the initiative found it. 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 because over the course of her time there she met a lot of black women who came to her readings discovered 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 and everyone is welcome to read aloud at initiatives me when i look at a white man i mean the. reason why i'm. going in the during the night when i talk about. this is the theme of this meeting is somehow meant in south korea what does it mean. because i can paul meant to mention empowerment mean showing black people especially young people there was

a lot they can do themselves up 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 you as 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 or. the going to speak cheika give it a somewhat. go. and to two thousand and eleven he played in the german national team.

if you want to play for a stick. and a day in the life of someone. and give it in custody of us the very first black german national player but 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 to give up that's for distance i would have been possible by you so much for the cost it was more half an hour what does that mean and how is my year i want to be. let's just say i was the first really black was here she was the first black africa you know it. wasn't easy for me back then to decide. i could have played from ghana i was told off for going back to have decided to play for got the time of. the figure i was in uganda but then they didn't play music 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 sure but what wasn't easy is there are some people. who don't want to accept us and that was my big problem and i want also to see you do something for your country but you're still the black i thought i was six 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 to have a little. bit of a courtroom after hanging out this so-called with get someone became a household name and today he's the minutes off cyclists on the twenty suites he was going up in guyana. i have come back out of the no i'm from among five hours away from michael vick. it was

a small village where people didn't have much notice when after school we play soccer with balls made of sox moves on us for height when i look at my side as well as everything he does know what to do with it with money i had to struggle to get two square meals a day. so that was how i grew up and it affected me going to stop mitchell it made me said goals and saying i have to give my all to achieve something else with russian and i sometime over the coming where i honestly don't know that. i can no longer understand why as a child i wanted to be right 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 and where all the same i look first and foremost i'm a person with a yes at my age i wouldn't want to change anything about who i have these people about but i'll tell you one thing we blacks are pretty cool cool don't you think that they are. so wrapped up. and. entered the conflict zone confronting the powerful. all the guest is about staking out the deputy chairman for the paul. up to taking a beating at the polls in september many social democrats said the party needed to reinvent itself so really s.p.v.

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