Racism & Berlin

This comment/request was posted on March 30th:
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Can you comment on this letter and talk about life in Berlin for a non-white foreigner, esp. someone who is Asian. Thanks:

Hallo David,

Nice to hear from you, glad you liked my Berlin review.

Yes, unfortunately there is a problem in Berlin and eastern Germany with racism and attacks on non-whites. Although violence can occur in both western and eastern Berlin, it is much more an eastern problem. Prenzlauer Berg can be dodgy at night.

But there are other areas of eastern Berlin which are worse, as I said, Litchenberg, the Ostkreuz area, Marzahn/Hellersdorf - not that you should have any reason to go to
these places though. If you did, you would be sure to find people who would hate you just because you are not white. Also be careful on the S-Bahn at night in the eastern part. I had several Japanese friends who were pushed around and had things thrown at them by skinheads.

Some months ago, german national tv news carried an item about a vietnamese kiosk which was attacked by skinheads with baseball bats, I believe it was in broad daylight - in, I think, western Berlin. I recall in the late 90s the japanese embassy in Berlin issued an advisory to their staff not to travel on the S-Bahn anymore,  but to take buses, taxis or private transport, because of the danger of attacks.

Yes, I think you would definitely be better off in Hamburg, far fewer problems - if indeed any compared to Berlin. Berlin is a great place to live, if you are white. Non-whites that I know have had many more problems, little things that build up to a bad experience. But if you want to move to Berlin, then I'd suggest the western districts, Kreuzberg is not far from Mitte (and Prenzlauer Berg), it's the western equivalent of Prenzlauer Berg, but much less problematic. Or, try Schöneberg, (a bit) smarter than Kreuzberg. Alternatively, go to Hamburg!! You will find the people much more tolerant, especially for an Asian, than Berliners.

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Hmm . . . although I'm basically a white dude (with enough Native American blood to look tan year-round), I find the idea that "Prenzlauer Berg can be dodgy at night" not very credible.  Although unfortunately racism exists absolutely everywhere (and Berlin is certainly no exception!), I've never gotten the impression that the skinhead crowd spends much time in Prenzlauer Berg.  The Litchenberg/Ostkreuz/Marzahn/Hellersdorf parts of the city do have a reputation for being more hostile, though I can't say that I've ever spent much time (if any) in those parts of town, so I'm not sure how extensive racist sentiment is there.

I'm interested in what others would have to say on this . . .

Comments

[Nicolas]

> Prenzlauer Berg can be dodgy at night

Totally wrong. Prenzlauer Berg is super safe, and I don't know of anybody, white or not, female or not, who should feel unsafe there at night.

[heather]

Sounds odd to me too. Maybe they meant the Pankow end of Pberg?

[sattva]

for people who come from cities that are actually lit at night, all of berlin is dodgy (and kinda country). since crime happens everywhere in berlin, it’s likely that pberg can get dodgy at night. the only place in the ENTIRE world i’ve ever had anything stolen from me is Prater.
when someone tells me some place is dodgy, it’s not really about credibility for me. it’s gathered personal and rumored experience to let me know to look out. there may not be high crime in Sachsen but i’m not planning my next vacation there. the opinion of white people is kind of mute (“it’s so pretty here, you should visit too!”) regardless of their rainbow of crayola colors acquaintances. "dodgy" is just comfort level. say, white people who get a dodgy feeling in any black neighborhood in the US. the difference being my feelings aren’t affecting property values.
i don't hang out in pberg all that much but like most trendy areas in major cities it seems like it's more likely to see one bean in the rice than to see groups of non-white people hanging out together. i’m assuming most people get a dodgy feeling when they are with their peoples or walking by themselves in an unfamiliar area. i don’t see how someone who is not living that experience can know what goes down in that situation, unless there’s some ethnic neighborhood watch surveillance program (which would hopefully be illegal, even in germany). if some guy gave me a heil hitler salute last friday in broad daylight, it’s not too farfetched to imagine that other dodgy things are happening in the city at night, and therefore pberg. i’m pretty certain that most white people in this city will never be on the receiving end of that experience, or my daily experiences for that matter. well, unless they are at some kind of NPD rally.

[Berlin Blogger]

Thanks, Sattva.

I think you've made a number of good points, but what I think makes the discussion more complex is that Berlin, with the exception of the Turkish neighborhoods, is pretty much all rice. Prenzlauer Berg doesn't strike me as being any more rice-dominated than Mitte or Friedrichshain or most of Kreuzberg, and it's kind of hard to imagine it being dodgier than anywhere else in Berlin.

That said, I think your point about "the opinion of white people" being "kind of mute" in this sort of discussion is really interesting.

Of course it's impossible, as a white person, to pretend to imagine what it's like to be a black person walking through any part of any city, but then the inverse is also true. Complicated.

I feel amazingly safe in (Ok, mostly the western)German cities compared to how I feel in the states. I guess that equates with my thinking that everyone else would feel equally safe, though that's obviously not the case.

[heather]

Sattva's points are well-taken... I'm also wondering about the original poster's suggestion that one is way safer in Hamburg. Seems to me that HH and outlying areas are having the same kinds of right-wing growth that Berlin has? And similar tensions ("dodginess") within the city?

[jared]

This is an article I found from a few years back. I doubt the situation has changed much since then.

SOUTH AFRICAN AMBASSADOR COMPLAINS OF "Nigger" SLURS IN BERLIN

South Africa's ambassador to Germany complained Tuesday of racist attacks and what he termed "Nigger" slurs on the eve of a visit to
Berlin by South African President Thabo Mbeki.

"What scares me is the aggression aimed at foreigners," said Ambassador Sibusiso M. E. Bengu in an interview with the Berliner Kurier newspaper.

"One of our black employees was almost killed in an attack and I am insulted in the streets as a 'N*gger'," he said.

Bengu said he believed racism in Berlin was aimed at all foreigners but that black were easy to identify because of their skin colour.

He called for more police protection in the German capital.

President Mbeki arrives for a one-day visit to Berlin on Thursday for talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and the country's mainly ceremonial president, Johannes Rau.

The main issues will be moves to bolster African regional cooperation and the battle against HIV/AIDS, said a statement by the German government.

[Michelle]

I could give a small compendium of 'dodgy' things that have happened to me or those close to me right here in Kreuzberg/Neukoelln. Including a Hitler-Gruess from a dreadlocked white guy right in front of my apartment on the Landwehrkanal. Go figure. I would therefore not rule out Prenzlauer Berg as a potential site for such experiences. I agree with Sattva, assessing dodginess is about heightened awareness. I also agree that most white people will never have to give a second thought to their meanderings around Berlin unless they have a friend of color in tow, or unless they choose to be engaged somehow. I also think the level of naivete about these matters is quite remarkable, especially among many white Germans, who frequently dismiss such occurrences as the Hitler-Gruess as "oh, he was probably high" or "oh, he was probably crazy" or "oh, that's nothing compared to how it used to be." Those are not things I want to hear after I just got a Hitler-Gruess in Berlin. Those remarks miss the point.

[Berlin Blogger]

Jesus. I think I'm starting to realize just how 'blissfully' unaware I am.

Since I've lived in Berlin, apart from rare encounters with nasty NPD marches, I've only ever really come across one dude who was clearly a Nazi (he had a small swastika on the back on his neck). When talking with my significant other about this last night, though, she mentioned that she routinely encounters a Neo-Nazi on an almost daily basis - near where my daughter goes to kindergarten.

In Prenzlauer Berg.

Of course "encountering the Nazi" has nothing to do with everyday discrimination or dodginess in less obvious forms, but perhaps the fact that this theme wouldn't even normally come up in our everyday conversations speaks volumes the complexity of the issue.

Since I don't have to face (racial) discrimination directly, I guess I simply try to minimize it in some way. For example, my experience via the experiences of "friends of color" in Germany has mostly been that they have to deal with the "exotic other" treatment regularly, but I haven't personally heard much(apart from the high-profile incidents) about more overt forms of racism in everyday life (meaning apart from the Neo-nazi stuff).

[jared]

How bad does it get for interracial couples in Berlin, with all these neo-nazis swarming around?

I doubt they'd do anything in public but glare and maybe curse at such things, but I'm curious if you find attitudes similar to the American deep south?

It also depends on the couple I'm sure. A German man with an Asian wife might get less flack than a black man with a white German woman.

I know, in the past, Germans were obsessed with racial purity and demonized the black male. Which seems to be have actually turned black men in a sexual taboo for German women to try out.

A Indonesian guy I know said he was smooching some German girl in Frankfurt, and the German guys there looked like they wanted to kill him. I can only think such behavior would get even worse of a reaction in Berlin.

[heather]

@Michelle: I went back to Sattva's original post about the salute and I thought, too, that "oh well he was drunk" is a tempting, common, but totally inadequate response. So, what, it's ok if these sentiments only come out when people are intoxicated? (It also made me think about what you do in that situation, because drunk /can/ mean more volatile, and if something comparable happened to me, as mad as I'd be, I'd get away as soon and as quietly as I could.)

I agree that, if you're white, you see more once you're sensitized; but you can also read plenty of stuff in the papers. Last week Jurabilis reported on an incident in Moabit in which two turkish(-Germans) who prevented a theft got set upon by the perpetrators, with the crowd rooting for the bad guys.

@Jared: I also guess I still don't understand the initial suggestion that Berlin was any worse than other large cities in the rest of Germany? Not a positive assessment by any means, but I fear that this is not a regionally-limited problem.

[jared]

My gut tells me it's probably worse in the east than west. The more east you go, the more racist things get. The epicenter is Moscow, where I know for a fact skinheads are pretty common and enjoy stabbing immigrants to death. They even attacked a black U.S. marine and killed a 6 year old Tajik girl. A Korean guy said old Russians would mutter curses at him if he got too close to them on the metro, and this happened pretty much every day. Russians are pretty racist people in general in my opinion.

So East Germans are probably a shade lower than that, and since they make up a big part of Berlin, I would think the attitudes would be far worse than say, Cologne.

If I go to Berlin, I would probably carry a atack knife with me. I heard a Turk guy got attacked by 4 skinheads, and the Turk stabbed two of them to death and injured the other two, and he was not prosecuted. Basically, that tells me you can't expect white Germans to help you, because they won't. You have to defend yourself, or be the victim.

[jared]

Oh, and I was reading some guide book today and it recommended that people go visit Leipzig, Dresden, and even check out the Stassi Museum in East Berlin.

Obviously, this book was written by a white person. I know a black guy who's lived in Berlin for 15years and he swears he won't set foot in those places with sufficient support. Support meaning friends who'll watch his back and ideally be armed with knives.

You can't listen to advice you find in books or the web if you're not white. A lot of it is just inaccurate or your experience will be totally different.

[Michelle]

re: Heather's comment on what one does in that situation--you're absolutely right; first, I felt stunned, and then I thought, in rapid succession, shit, what if he wants to kick my ass, there's nobody around to stop him, better not say/do anything, just keep walking...

not sure if carrying a knife around is the best approach, since that invariably will lead to escalation; i do feel slightly better about my personal security having studied karate for a couple of years; nonetheless, i also had the experience of being robbed while I was in Tanzania, and have since become much more aware of my surroundings at all times; but the fact remains, when 'it' happens, there's no predicting how you will respond

[Michelle]

and just to complicate and add to the mix, I recently had the joy of overhearing some kid yelling (in German), "Oh, Negerkuesse--they're so lecker" in an Aldi where I was shopping...turned around to see who it was and it was a group of Turkish boys; the potential for such experiences thus cuts in many directions; I realize that this does not go to personal security issues necessarily--but just to say, I wouldn't necessarily trust that the Turks or Arabs in my neighborhood would have my back if I were being threatened by neo-nazis

[Berlin Blogger]

As a former military brat, I've always been accustomed to people from pretty much every ethnic group on earth being together in the same place, and usually within a German context (I lived in Augsburg, Heidelberg and Munich, among other cities, as a kid). Growing up in (West) Germany, I can't remember ever coming across open racism against the people I was around (which is not to say that it didn't happen).

My best friend and his girlfriend are an "interracial couple," and they always seem to get more flack in the states than here in Germany, though they spent the vast majority of their time in the western part of the country. When we discussed this issue, their feeling was that Germans would more or less "leave them alone," for the most part, while Americans were more likely to comment ("Damn, sister, why are you with that white boy?" was a frequent sentiment).

A few of the people I've spoken with in the past few days have mentioned that racism in Germany has more to do with immigrants than with "tourists." So that, in other words, the experience of a black U.S. soldier/tourist in Berlin might be dramatically different than that of an African seeking asylum here.

I really appreciate all of the comments on this issue.

[jared]

I think West Germany is probably totally different than East Germany.

I don't know where Berin would fall along that spectrum. Maybe just a big mix of everything, good cool people and ossi trash, which is why you get raving screaming fans of Berlin, and you get the disgruntled South African ambassador calling for more police protection.

I don't think a racist Ossi would really care or know the difference between an African living in Berlin vs a black soldier in casual clothes would he?

A guy said to check out a disco to me. He said it's called "Flirt Disco". I checked it out and it's in HELLERSDORF. Now as a non-white guy, I'm not stepping foot in that neighborhood unless I have backup.

I guess I'm wondering if I should have support if I go to the Ostbahnof station as well, or just general living in P-berg and Mitte, since it's not like skinhead deadbeats are held in concentration camps in Marzahn.

[Geoff]

Berliners, you don't know how good you have it. I live in Columbia, SC, an average mid-sized U.S. city, and there are streets in this town I wouldn't drive down on a Sunday afternoon.

[Amy]

I just came back from looking at a nice apartment by the Ostkreuz train station. The area seemed okay, but I wanted to search for some information about the area, and this is unfortunately the news I found. I'm an Asian girl, and I was just wondering if it would be foolhardy to live in Ostkreuz when you write about this area specificly being dodgy. But on the other hand, I come from one of the dodgiest cities in the world, New York. Would think it's a bad idea for an Asian girl to live in Ostkreuz in general?

[Berlin Blogger]

Hi Amy,

A few weeks ago, I probably would have said: "Oh, yeah, Ostkreuz is basically Friedrichshain (where the average age is 26), so you'll be in good company with lots of youngish arteest and hippies and stuff."

But today, to be honest, I'm just not sure. In general, my impression is that, the further east you go, the more likelihood that you'll have problems.

Otherwise, it terms of things to do, I would think that living somewhere closer to the center of the city (Mitte, Kreuzberg, P'berg) would be more fun.

[Mayur Valanju]

I was there last week. (I am Indian) During the day I felt that I had no problems and everyone was friendly. The last night that I was there, I decided to go on a bar crawl that ended at a club. Going to the bars were not a problem, but at the end of the night, when the whole pub crawl was walking in, they stopped me and told me I wasn't allowed. After demanding more of an explanation, they said "We don't let your type in here". A couple german girls overheard and actually came out and apologized for there country. I heard also from talking to non-whites there is that it is not that uncommon for this to happen. I have travelled throughout latin america, south america, india, china, the us, most of western europe, and this was the first time that I felt like a second class citizen.

[Raven]

Since 1998, I've been spending long amounts of "quality time" living between Germany and the States. I'm mixed (dad's a country boy from Oklahoma, mom is from Trinidad) and grew up in Oklahoma City, virtually problem-free, in terms of racial stuff. Though admittedy, me and my family would get a few stares in the little podunk towns outside of OKC.

1998 I spent the summer living in Berlin with a guest family in Hellersdorf. My guest family was amazing and seriously like a second family for me. The one problem that I had, I accounted to the fact that the guy was probably a drunk soccer hooligan, probably more upset that Germany had lost a game than the fact that my skin is brown. I dunno. I spent a few other summers in Berlin visiting my host family and I never experienced any hostility. When people recommended that I avoid certain areas at certain times, I pretty much did that. But in general I always felt relatively safe in Berlin (considering it's a big city).

Then I studied in Hamburg for a year. I think I really felt most comfortable there. Hamburgers can be kinda snooty, but it's more of that "we kinda really wanna be British" type of snooty...but it's a great city with great people. And not one single race-related problem.

Towards the end of last year I lived in Cologne for 2 months. Aside from the beers that are way too small, no problems.

After being in Cologne for the two months I took an internship in Dresden, where I've been living for the past 7 months...it's totally a perfect job/not-so-perfect locatinon situation.

Though there is a big vietnamese population in Dresden (I'd say that the Vietnamese outnumber the Turkish here), the Dresdners simply don't know how to accept non-whites. In the last 7 months I've heard over and over from younger Dresdners "But Dresden's a big city...not like out in the country". Which leads me to believe that it must be way worse outside of Dresden.

People here automatically make the assumption that I can't speak German, so (without me having even opened my mouth) they speak to me in English. I was in the elevator in my apartment one morning and one of my neighbor's (an older woman) stepped inside and said under her breath in German "I can't even imagine how you could get a comb through your hair" (referring to my curly 'fro...of which I'm very proud thankyouverymuch) and I responded to her (because I thought she was speaking to me) "I use a conditioner and comb it when it's wet". She huffed at me, we rode down in silence, and she's avoided me ever since (sometimes waiting for the next elevator, even though we both live on the 12th floor).

And that's just one example.

The attitude here is such, that when I go to visit Berlin or Hamburg the difference really just strikes me. I can have conversations there that revolve around like normal things in life, and not just about my skin color.

The experience has also made me a little bit wary of meeting new people. Which is incredibly unfortunate. But in the back of my mind, I'm always thinking "Hm, did THEY vote NPD?" or "Are they going to say something about me?"

It hasn't however, ruined my German experience...
But I'm very much looking forward to getting the hell out of Dresden.

[Raven]

Um, I would just like to say that in Hamburg *I* didn't have a race-related problem...not that the city doesn't have any...so nitpicky...

[Hamburgforme]

Sounds like Hamburg beats the pants off of Berlin.

I also heard the women in Hamburg are FAR better looking than the ones in Berlin, including A LOT more blondes. My favorites.

[Rage]

I realize racism is allways going to be an issue. The question I have is will the world ever stop looking at Germany as a racist Country.

[monica]

I'm half mexican and half white, light skinned but with dark hair, dark eyes so I definetely don't look full white. Should I expect racism while there? I plan to stay there for a couple of months this next time. I've been there a couple times before and haven't come across anything but we pretty much stayed in tourist areas, although we did go to that much mentioned place of Ostkreuz for a little while. Also, next time I go, I might bring a friend who is full blooded Mexican, should they expect racism?