It was the summer I moved to Berlin. I was sitting in the backyard of a big club talking to people I’d known for a few minutes. A long-haired man sitting a little apart from the group beamed at me and said, “You look like jungle.” It was obviously a friendly attempt to make contact: You look like jungle. Irritated, I turned away, later I blamed myself for not telling him that it wasn’t possible. But once again I lacked the strength for a discussion.
The fetishization of black bodies is shaped by the prejudices of the colonial era. Black people were considered natural, primitive and uncivilized. The black musician Achan Melonda wrote in an article for the Berliner Zeitung: “Since the beginning of the colonial era, racialized people and their sexuality have been the antithesis of the white Civilization degraded and declared inferior.” This still has a major impact on dating today, almost every time for me.
My thumb stretches up briefly, dances from right to left on the smartphone’s bulletproof glass and wipes away one photo after the other. There appears a handsome whiter Guy with matted hair and a surfboard. I want to swipe to the right, i.e. give a “like”, but then I hesitate, my thumb buckles. Do I really want to meet him? I know from experience it will be a match, he will ask out. Well-travelled, dreadlocked, “a year in Africa” guys like him fall for me. Because I’m black, “but not really”, I’m obviously particularly interesting to them. I decide to go left this time and wipe it away.
The well builders
I only call men like him “well builders”. I know the term from the play “Call me Queen” by Thandi Sebe in Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Although most have not built a real well in Africa to save poor black children, they come across as someone who loves this kind of activism. I also know I’m not being entirely fair, because I don’t know him. But I also have to smile because I consciously reverse the pigeonhole thinking for a moment. It’s a strategy to deal with racism. You could also say: It’s black humor.
I find most of the “well builders” really likeable. After all, we have a lot in common: more than just the way we wear our hair. Or the places where we meet each other: at festivals, on trips, at concerts. We want a society where we help each other up instead of stepping down, and we resent the fact that our luxuries are built on the exploitation of other people and the environment. And then he asks the question “Where are you from? originally come from?” or tells me that “dancing is in my blood” or grabs my hair while getting to know each other.
In puberty, when I started dating, I had a queasy feeling about it, but I didn’t know why. In the meantime I can name it: This is everyday racism. It is “Othering”, i.e. marking the other person as different. And when men are explicitly into black women or “want to sleep with a black woman” that is exoticization and fetishization. Then I realize that every time.
Even though I can’t take it anymore, I still spend time with men like that. In such situations, I remember that they and I are all socialized in a racist way. That is why the “well builders” and others reproduce white Men and women racism subconsciously. Racism is our common enemy, and that’s why I try to sensitize them and myself to internalized prejudices. Sometimes I explain patiently, sometimes angrily, how I don’t want to be named and seen. Sometimes I remain silent and only come back to it weeks later.
Forgive racist sayings
Many “well builders” pretend to be interested in my culture – after I told them that I grew up in Germany. That seems strange to me. What should I tell about the small country I was in for a few weeks seventeen years ago? Or about a culture whose language I don’t speak? It is also not entirely clear to some that “Africa” is a huge continent with hundreds of cultures.
If I already like someone, I forgive such things. When I do point it out, I deliberately omit the word “racism”. Because many react sensitively when they hear the word, even more sensitive than I do to racism itself. It doesn’t fit their self-image. However, this defensive attitude prevents them from recognizing their racism as such. So, in our minds, Black people remain wild, impulsive, physically and mentally limited at the same time.
In my eyes, someone who says something racist is not a bad person. He only repeats what he has learned. It’s harder to forgive if the other person isn’t willing to unlearn racist attributions bit by bit. I would like a simple “I’m sorry” and “Thanks for the tip” as a reaction.
i’m not chocolate
So-called microaggressions in close relationships are particularly painful. One of my partners once said: “I just love chocolate.” I was briefly shocked and said nothing, at some point I asked what he meant and said very quietly: “That’s not possible.” The next day I braced myself internally and explained why: This spell reduces me to the color of my skin and turns my body into an object that can be eaten.
I was also surprised because we had talked about racism on many dates before. I had also told my mother about a psychologist who had compared me to cappuccino. Maybe he just nodded it off at the time and didn’t really understand it. At least he listened when it came to him, apologized and promised it wouldn’t happen again. He only briefly tried to justify himself: “I didn’t think about it and wanted to be funny.” I was very relieved because he didn’t say “I’m not a racist” or anything like that.
if white Men or women who like black people, it seems arbitrary to me: The selection in Germany is limited, so this physical characteristic seems disproportionately important. Sometimes there is an additional power dynamic in such relationships because it is linked to residency rights or other access to privileges.
I once found that my lover had slept with several other Black women. “I just don’t like these Lisas and Lenas,” he said. “Is that bad?” Many people have a certain “type”, certain characteristics of their partners are similar, he explained. “That’s different,” I said. “Black or Asian is not a guy.”
Should I date black people myself?
They are racial categories invented to dehumanize certain groups and elevate others. If sexual preference explicitly refers to such a category, I suspect that the associated stereotyping is the reason for it – even if people are not aware of it: When it comes to Black women, for example, men often think of an increased libido or Wildness, in Asians, in subservience.
Sometimes I think maybe I should be purposely dating Black people myself? And if so, wouldn’t that be just as racist? I think no, because it’s not about their bodies, it’s about the fact that they intuitively know what I mean when I talk about chocolate and coffee. At the office, in the pub or at the airport, a meaningful exchange of glances can be a saving anchor to better endure a situation. But everyday racism is just one experience of many here in Berlin. And also: The selection is really too small.
*Black is capitalized and white is italicized in this article. This spelling indicates that it is not a question of biological characteristics or the description of skin color, but rather a political positioning and social attribution.