CURRENTS BETWEEN SHORES

Black History Month

2012-02-05T05:24:00.009-05:00

February is Black History Month and, like last year, I'll be reading from some of my work in a Dialogue Books event. (see below for details)

On my blog I have previously acknowledged Black History Month by citing black figures, mostly American, that have inspired me. In light of my most recent post, I thought it might be interesting and educational (for me included) to look at a history of black people in Germany. I'll be fishing out some of the people I've admired but I also wanted to see how black people have been portrayed here throughout history.

This morning, my 6 year-old son said, "Good that we weren't here a long time ago, they would have laughed at us." When I asked him why he thought that he showed me one of his favorite cartoon books from E.O. Plauen, "Vater und Sohn" Father and Son. (Honestly, I can't make these kinds of coincidences up! My son might have been more aware of the illustration's implications since we were reading a book about Rosa Parks yesterday. I recently read in a book written by Brene Brown, an American sociologist who researches and writes that about self-esteem and vulnerability, that once we see something it's impossible to un-see it!)

The illustration shows Africans being displayed in a Voelkerschau, or human zoos, which were popular in European and North American cities between the late 1800s up until the Second World War.

The exaggeration of color and lip size in this illustration (which is actually making fun of the human zoo) shows the caricaturization of African people during Germany's relatively brief colonial history in Africa.

*I'll be reading from new work on February 7, 2012 at 19:30 at Dialogue Books Schoenlein Str. 31, Berlin Kreuzberg, RSVP: events@dialoguebooks.org.

Why Black-Face Isn't Funny, a Simple Guide for Germans

2012-01-24T16:12:00.014-05:00

I noticed the poster in the subway station about a month ago and shook my head in annoyance. I didn't go home and write a blog about it, I didn't complain to my husband and ask why, why, why? I just sighed and thought, "Man, this is getting so tired."

I have to confess, I've lowered my expectations. A lot. I have seen white people painted brown so often these last eleven years in Germany I've sort of gotten used to it in a passively disgusted way.

Then, a few days ago, I received an email from a black woman relatively new to Berlin who was upset by the poster (advertising a play in Berlin in which there is a black character played by a white actor) and the controversy it caused. But racial controversy rarely ever seems to change much here. Instead of apologies there are explanations as to why something isn't meant that way, articles debating whether or not the R word is applicable. . .and the usual, self-entitled response of the accused, I didn't mean to be offensive, therefore, it wasn't offensive. (is the previous post coming to anyone's mind?)

Because there appears to be no way to have a sophisticated discussion about why black-face is not acceptable, ever, let me try to break it down in simple terms:

* Black-face is an offensive depiction of black people that goes back to the 19th century American minstrel shows. Don't know about it? Get a book or just type it into Wikipedia. Even if the minstrel aesthetic is not being replicated, painting white people black/brown is still painfully reminiscent of this denigrating period. It's not funny. Ever. Don't go there. You come across as ignorant, racist and everyone will start blaming it on your history.

* If you have a black character. . .get a black person to play it. There is no excuse Germany, there are plenty of black Germans. Stop being lazy and get a casting director who has heard of Tyron Ricketts, Ernest Allan Hausmann, Charles Huber. . .

* Even if you think you're a smart investigative journalist who wants to know about the black experience in Germany, drop the brown make-up. Just ASK black people here what it's like being black in Germany. Save yourself the hours of make-up application and the ridicule you'll receive from your colleagues after your stunt.

* When you're caught being insensitive and offensive to a group of people who have been persecuted, try putting yourself in their shoes, not now, but during the period in history when they were being persecuted. Saying, "I wouldn't be offended if someone painted himself white?" is irrelevant because your ancestors were never slaves, were never depicted as apes raping white German women (don't know about that, then read about Die Schwarze Schmach), your ancestors were not considered to be partially human and, well, as I recommend in point 1, reading helps.

* It's tasteless.

* You already have a bad rap with all the anti-immigrant sentiment and reports coming out about how much anti-Semiticism there is here. Don't add fuel to the fire.

* By the way, black people aren't just black because of their/our skin color. Take a chance, dig deeper, accept that there are cultural, historical and societal experiences that might influence a black character in a way that your white fill-in can't.

*Stop asking "is there anything that isn't offensive. . .soon we won't be able to say anything without someone having a tantrum." Yes, you will have to start being culturally and racially sensitive and limit your fun to the Schlager TV Channel, FKK and drinking yourselves into oblivion when your favorite soccer team wins (or loses).

Photo: flickr

I Am, therefore. . . It's all about Me

2012-01-07T12:41:00.008-05:00

Situation One:

I'm with my children at a holiday event in a large party tent and during dinner, the boys get up to get drinks. While they are gone, a woman comes over and starts clearing away the plates to make room for herself, until I say, "Excuse me, my kids are sitting there."

"Well there is still plenty of room for me," she says, without stopping. Then she squeeezes herself in and moves my kids' jackets to make room for her friend.

Situation Two:

I'm in line at the post office and realize I've written the wrong zip code on the package. I ask my children to stay in line while I go to the desk with the pens. When I return, my eldest has a disappointed look on his face and whispers in my ear, "That man just cut in front of us." I looked at the man and said, "Excuse me, you just cut in front of my kids. They were standing in line." He simply shrugged and turned around and ignored me.

Situation Three:

I am listening to a German friend talk about her love troubles and she tells me, in the memorized speech she got straight from therapy "I can not hurt someone, a person allows him/herself to be hurt" and "I am not responsible for how someone else interprets my words."

Wow, really? We're no longer responsible for what we say or how we behave? I don't mean to sound overly moral here, but since when do our actions not have an impact on others? That's not what they told us in kindergarten!

The first and second situations certainly appear less trivial than the third example but aren't they all situations in which self entitlement takes over empathy?

CBS readers know I have struggled, laughed and been shocked by German bluntness (which I would say sometimes crosses the line into rudeness) and I wonder if the directness, saying what one thinks regardless of how it is perceived, isn't simply a part of the already prevelant German preoccupation with Selbstverwirklichung or "self realization" or the all-about-me syndrome.

How long, honestly, can you realize yourself without eventually becoming insensitive? I also wonder, does this have anything to do with Germany's anemic birthrate? The German government has resorted to all kinds of benefits for new families, yet the German birthrate remains very low. Might it have something to do with not having time/interest in committing to someone/anything other than one's self? I know I'm going to get some comments about this theory. . . but it almost seems logical in a country where there is so much emphasis placed on the self that the job of parenting, which sometimes requires being selfless, is a very unpopular one here.

Photo: flickr

Letter from the Universe to an Ordinary/Extraordinary/Immigrant Girl

2012-01-01T07:04:00.010-05:00

Dear
Ordinary/
Extraordinary/
Immigrant Girl,

You’ve spent over a decade trying to make it work. You learned a language that hurts your face, you said goodbye to your home, your comfort zone, your roots and everything else that needed no explanation in your heart or mind. You started a family in a place where you weren’t a child. You learned nursery rhymes that you never sang as a kid. You put real candles on a Christmas tree even though you internally panicked at the thought of your kids going up in flames. You fit-in, every time. You passively questioned what it meant about your identity, but you did it nonetheless.

You were careful not to assimilate, because "educated" expats don’t have to. You weren’t dependent on the foreign state. You didn’t have to be here/there. Still, you cared what they thought about you. You knew you would never look or sound like the rest, who take home for granted (as you once took home for granted). You didn’t hide who you were but you also didn’t be who you are.

You yanked out a couple of roots. You drank the kool-aid, “you’re here now, make your life here.” You took a step too far into the here and away from, not just the past, but from you, your culture, your view of the world, the way things make sense to you.

Hey, don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s a delicate balance. You wanted approval, admiration and acknowledgement that you tried. You also wanted to challenge yourself, at least that’s what you told yourself.

But you realized, (it has taken you quite a bit of time) that you follows you wherever you go. It watches while you try on another exterior, but it keeps reminding that you’ve forgotten something, you’ve left something behind in the changing room.

A country ain’t nothing but a place. A place is incidental, it's the you that that's the constant. Pick up your boots immigrant/ordinary/extraordinary girl, dust them off, walk on your own, lift up your chin, look at your blue-eyed world with your brown eyes and count and sing in the language you know. One, two, three. . . look at me, (or don’t, it doesn't matter anymore) Four, five, six, pick up sticks. Is it corny? Of course it is. You are corny, you were born in the 70s, you wore brown and orange to kindergarten and you drank from plastic cups in neon colors, you ate too much, non-organic junk food until you got to college, you listened to hip hop, you did The Wop, you watched too much TV, you thought New York was the center of the universe, you cursed too much, through your cracked open Brooklyn window, you listened to Meringue blasting from the corner store and you couldn't help but shake your black girl’s posterior, you once smoked a blunt with a half Jewish, half Iraqi friend, you wore heels that were too high and stayed out too late, you read the New York Times in the subway using the ¼ fold that makes sense.

You became a woman in the imperfect place of superficial people who start too many wars around the world. That’s where you come from. This is who you are and you like you. You are happy to shake the native’s hand and listen to his story but you also don’t need his approval or his opinion about it. Not any more.

Welcome to your new year, ordinary/extraordinary/immigrant girl. Welcome to 2012.

Photo: 99sense/flickr

The Race War in my Absence

2011-09-29T01:36:00.007-04:00

Hi there CBS followers and guests. While I was away, getting oriented in my new job, I noticed that in the comment section of the "Look of Crazy" post, an all out war started between a black American (?) woman reader and two white, German readers. Somehow, the discussion took a turn from stereotyping to accusations and an all around negative vibe emerged.

Let me first say that I don't personally know any of the people who comment but you're all regular visitors and I appreciate your contributions to my blog. You certainly keep the dialogue interesting, so thank you!

If I can contribute to the discussion that went on, I'd simply say this:

The longer I live outside of the United States, the less I think about everything in terms of just race. In the United States, thanks to our history of slavery and racial segregation we are somewhat obsessed with race. And we should be, because the United States is a country that is still race-oriented. Even though the races have mixed considerably since integration began, it is a fact that racial minorities still have less access to education, they earn less, they are more likely to be criminalized and if they happen to be elected president, they still have to prove that they are American. . . .but I digress. . .

There are historical reasons why some black Americans may not trust white people. I get that. But we are in such a different place today than we were fifty, even ten years ago. The world is smaller. The races mix. Nationalities mix. There are at least two generations of people who've never lived in one country for longer than three years. I have white friends who've grown up in sub Saharan Africa. Poland has a black minister. Austrian kids know the lyrics to Tupac better than I do. The Internet influences and exposes us to everything we were meant and not meant to see, allowing us to be passive observers of a digitized and abridged anthropological study.

Yes, Germans, like most people first see/saw my race. I wrote a book about it. I complained about it. I teased the Germans for it (it was great fun, indeed). And I watched how Germans adjusted to their changing racial and cultural landscape, which can't necessarily be compared to the American example, as the histories are so different.

What I have observed is that our generation, whether in Europe or the USA, is much more open than our parents'. We can not know where or how that white man grew up. We can not say what he believes because of the lightness of his eyes. Unfortunately, he has more opportunities to express himself than I perhaps do, but there are opportunities today that allow me to circumvent those obstacles.

Assumptions are still made. Privileges (and entitlements) still prevail. The world is still unjust. But we are a world made up of individuals who must not always represent a pack. This little old blog gives us a platform to exchange and find out about one another in a way that we wouldn't do passing each other on the street. So listen, sometimes the individuals here may surprise you.

Playing the Disadvantaged Card

2011-08-11T15:24:00.004-04:00

Like most people who know and love London, I have been shocked and disturbed to watch the events taking place there. While I don't consider myself ignorant to issues of social justice, I just can not join my liberal friends who find reason upon reason to explain the actions of the British youth looting and destroying the very neighborhoods they live in.

"What's the difference between looting and working the stock markets?" one friend asks.

"When you don't have anything and are told that your worth is based on what you own, of course you go a bit crazy," says another.

I'm sorry, but this, in the end, sounds like middle class liberal guilt for having what others do not. Would my friends be so tolerant of middle class kids behaving badly? Since when did immoral white collar behavior legitimize immoral working class and poor behavior? Why are we excusing one action because it's comparable to another one?

Of course the world is a racist, exclusionary, unfair place but there are enough people who know right from wrong, even in the ghetto. Excusing violent behavior based on social class is just as bad as blaming violent behavior based on social class.

I am not saying the anger is not understandable or ungrounded but I ask, why do liberals have such low moral expectations of the poor and working class?

Photo: flickr

The Look of Crazy

2011-07-30T13:07:00.011-04:00

Anders Breivik could be any law abiding, sane European you'd see on the street. He's blond, well-kempt, pleasant looking enough and probably smells good, too, according to his fragrance preference (fittingly, he wears Chanel Egoist).

But much to the dismay of Europeans who consider Breivik to be "one of us," what he appears to be is actually a cruel deception. Seeing him in the papers last week after his killing spree in Norway, with the remorseless, satisfied smile on his face as he was being driven off in a police car and his admittance that what he did was horrible but necessary, confirmed him to be a wolf in sheep's clothing, a freak villain out of a Grimm's fairytale.

Yet Breivik, in his supposed insanity, is a highly functioning nut with a cause, author of a detailed 1,500-page manifesto/rant and the ability to organize a double crime scene that left Norwegian police authorities stunned. How crazy is crazy, really? And who's reality was influencing him?

Right wing extremism, xenophobia and violence go hand in hand, that is true universally. Even though most right wing followers and politicians aren't necessarily crazy (at least not clinically), the frequent messages of Islamaphobia, whether in Switzerland, France, Germany or Norway, contain a coded message of something off-kilter. The zeal in the we-aren't-going-to-put-up-with-it-anymore from THEM, verges on being unhinged from a reality that promotes peaceful discourse.

Are right wing, anti-immigrant sentiment, politics and beliefs partially responsible for Breivik's actions?

My sense is that Breivik would have found another cause over which to act out violently. But what is it about xenophobes and their guns? I recall recently writing about a crazy person who opposed immigration so much that he shot a congresswoman in the head and killed a little girl. Loughner was another homegrown terrorist creating the violence that's pinned on immigrants.

Still, a man that looks like Breivik is probably ten times less likely to be stopped in an airport than a bearded, brown-skinned man with Al in his last name. There simply is no profile for crazy. Sometimes your enemy can look just like you.

Photo: flickr

A Southern Flower

2011-07-23T05:53:00.010-04:00

The last time I saw bougainvillea growing along a

stone wall

I was in Port-au-Prince

where corners of bedrooms and

memories of kitchens

were hung together by wires never intended to be seen

The bougainvillea grew anyway

convinced of its own vibrance

indifferent to the suffering, the poverty

the stench of everything wrong

A cousin strand grows here, too

along a richer wall

one stabilized by developed world guarantees

The petals look the same

they react to, what is surprisingly

the very same sun

The people too, are not dissimilar

they are rich but they also defer to the rhythm of the sun;

closing their shutters when it burns hottest

walking along narrow streets at a pace that respects

the sun’s authority

Even the language that rolls off the tongue

kissed by romance,

descendants reviving what is dormant

every linguistic variation tracing back to the same root

soleil, sol, sole

The prints of colonialism are deeply set in the stones of these walls

whether crumbled or erect

bougainvillea, beauty itself

was the only life form that could remember

yet forgets to make a distinction

When in Germany, go to Mallorca

2011-07-11T19:23:00.008-04:00

Why, I asked myself, must I listen to German while I'm officially on Spanish soil? Endure sore eyes from seeing chicken-legged German men wearing socks and sandals? Listen to the not-so-inspiring Germanisms like One can't change it, that's just how it is! No, I always told myself, I will not travel to Germany's unofficial colony for vacation.

One simply must go home to appreciate one's adopted home. The you don't know what you've got til it's gone theory applies here.

But with three children, and five full-priced plane tickets to the USA during the summer season, going home for vacation is no longer a reality every year.

So. . . we headed for the sun and sand of Mallorca and enjoy many comforts of life in Germany: easily attainable 45-grain, bark-coated bread, red-nosed drinkers, passive aggressive stick it notes on the car that read, "If you had parked properly, two cars could have fit in here!" And of course, my favorite, the bare breasted, butt exposed folks who simply can't keep their clothes on once they get near a large body of water.

But hey, when in Germany, go where the Germans go. . .

Happy summer!

Photo: flickr

When Girls Play

2011-06-28T02:28:00.005-04:00

The first time my children experienced a World Cup, there were pictures of the German national team on every street corner, especially playgrounds. Supermarkets, drug stores and one Euro stores were flooded with World Cup tchotchke. The marketing mania around World Championship collective stickers, jerseys, cards, Nutella labels, you name it, was strategically aimed at kids. As a result, my boys knew the names of every player on the German team (not to mention the star players from other countries).

Our neighbors put up a huge screen in their garage, heated up an industrial sized BBQ grill and invited an intimate group of about 30 neighbors and their kids to watch all of the Germany games. Our no-TV law was lifted and my kids were allowed to stare at the screen that everyone sat in front of like zombies.

Prior to last Sunday, when the Women's World Cup started, the same fanfare was noticeably missing. I didn't hear the chatter of world champion frenzy when I picked up the kids from school. I didn't see the gigantic billboards that I saw for the male World Cup, even though Germany is hosting.

So I asked my Germany expert (aka my husband), "What's up? Why isn't there more hype around this World Cup?" He looked at me and said, "It's not the same thing. And don't say it's sexist, it's just not the same thing."

On Sunday afternoon, when I noticed my neighbor's garage door closed and no BBQ grill in sight, it seemed painfully clear that it just isn't a big deal when girls play. "Why not?" my eldest son asked his dad. Yes, yes! Ask my child, ask!

"You'll see," my husband said, on our way home to catch the German team play Canada. "It's not as exciting. Women play too slow . . ."

Of course, if you tell a boy that women play slow and that they're boring athletes, they'll believe it just because dad said so. A parent's "declaration" of anything at this age, is even more powerful that marketing.

"Look at that pass!" I cried out. "Whoo, look at her go! Slow, huh?" I nudged my husband. "Bet she can run faster than you!"

My youngest laughed and said, "And she can probably kick the ball farther than you, Papa."

In no time, my kids were joining me, "Garafreke's is awesome! Yeah! And the goalie's good too, right mom?"

"That's right," I said, "She is completely awesome."

"But she looks a little like a man," the youngest said.

Ugh.

Photo: flickr

Silence

2011-06-22T14:02:00.003-04:00

Even big mouths like me need moments of silence and I'm afraid this is just one of those moments. I wish I could say that I'm as (seemingly) focused as this beautiful little girl meditating in school but it's a process. I'll get there. And I'll be back (I can only stay quiet for so long . . .)

Bis bald.

Photo: flickr

Homegrown and without a doubt

2011-06-09T07:29:00.007-04:00

This is a section of our vegetable garden. We're lucky enough to live in the middle of the Berlin yet we're able to grow our own lettuce, tomatoes, beans, carrots, cucumbers, potatoes, onions, beets and herbs. Thanks to my husband's Green Thumb, we can eat homegrown vegetables for most of the summer.

Our garden is especially convenient now because there is no signal that German health officials understand the source of this deadly strain of E Coli. First it was Spanish cucumbers, then it wasn't, then it was bean sprouts, now it's cucumbers again. The point is, too little is known to rule out any raw vegetable and that is making some people go loco.

I know some Berliners who won't as much as look at raw vegetables and others who shrug it off and say they won't let such a small probability of infection make them change their lives.

We had guests last weekend who spent about 80% of their visit thinking up theories about where and how the bacteria could have come from.

I do have to say, when I first moved here I was shocked that no one used gloves in supermarkets and delis. When I saw bakers pick up a loaf of bread with their bare hands, my jaws dropped. I also cringed when I saw people put their veggies directly on the conveyor belt at the supermarket, claiming that they didn't want to waste a bag. "But that belt is dirty," I'd say. Then the defense was that vegetables could be washed and peeled. But then I noticed many health conscious people not peeling their carrots and cucumbers because all the nutrients were supposedly in the skin!

Luckily, times have changed and since the outbreak of The Swine Flue, I do see more food workers wearing gloves. But I can tell it is not culturally ingrained yet. At my food co-op, there are plastic gloves near the bread shelves but no one ever puts them on. For some reason, Germans seem to like to be able to touch that multi grain bread they're about to buy? More importantly, glove wearing doesn't seem to come all that naturally to all employees.

While I was deciding which bread to bag, I watched a co-op employee shelf all of the freshly baked loaves with his bare hands, decide they should be shelved differently, then re-shelf them, again without gloves. I sure hope he washed his hands after his last trip to the loo. . .

ATTENTION: "A colored child has lost his parents!"

2011-06-06T03:57:00.006-04:00

This is what we heard at Wannsee over the weekend while we were making sand cakes. My sons looked up at the sky as if the voice was what they'd imagined the sound of God to be like. It was actually the cranky voice of an announcer who had already called the names of other children who had lost track of their parents in the crowd of sunbathers.

Most people laughed at this announcement. I struggled to put a grin across my face so my children wouldn't sense my annoyance. My husband looked right at me, expecting me to say something, a Current between Shores-like commentary about the mini incident. I did not. I sucked at in and let it rest until responding to a comment on the last post.

This morning, I understand why it bothered me.

Why did the announcer say the names of the other children on the loud speaker and with the black boy say "a colored boy"? Why did he not announce that boy's name?

Later, when we took our sons back to the car, a teenager looked at my kids and asked me, "Was one of them the colored boy that was lost?"

"No," I said, sarcastically. "It was another colored boy."

A lesson in black beauty

2011-05-30T14:33:00.010-04:00

Every time I meet an African-American, Caribbean or African woman new to Berlin, I hear the same comment. It begins like a mere observation, a cultural difference, but as she continues talking, a nerve is hit, a personal connection is felt and frustration finally settles in. It is familiar to me because it was a reaction I had when I first moved to Berlin.

"What is with these little mixed girls’ hair? Why do they walk around like their hair hasn’t been combed in months? Can’t their mothers go on the Internet, ask a black friend or go to one of the „ Afro Shops“ that are all over the city? What is their excuse for letting their daughters walk around like that? Even Brad Pitt went on You Tube to figure out how to comb Zahara's hair!"

If I had an Euro for every black woman I've met who has considered teaching a course to white German mothers on how to to take care of their black daughters' hair, I could afford an extra trip home every year.

I simply don't have it in me to say, "Um, have you tried putting a leave-in conditioner in your child's hair? Or, "You realize you still have to comb curly hair, right? It wouldn't be krause, if you actually combed it and put some oil in it. . ." That feels too intrusive but on the other hand, a part of me feels bad for the child. The child's hair is seen as "troublesome" and "difficult" but only because the mother can't relate to the difference in hair maintenance. (I did actually have a random mother or two ask for my help.)

The other observation I've made here is the Ashy Skin Syndrome. For the non-black readers of my blog, ashiness occurs when brown/black skin is not well moisturized. White people can walk around with dry skin and it's not as obvious. When black skin gets dry and there is a white film over it, it is widely seen (amongst black people) as a source of shame. If I had ever gotten caught on the block as a child with white knees, I could expect to be teased for at least five years by other black kids. As far as I know, the ashy stigma is one prevalent all over North America, South America, the Caribbean and Africa. Yet here I see too many ashy brown children walking around and I admit that it makes me cringe.

My five year-old son reported to me that his black friend at school (who has white German adoptive parents) is "ashy all over!" Once or twice my husband forgot to oil our sons' skin after a shower. When my husband saw the next day what the result was, he was shocked and puzzled. Then he remembered that he'd forgotten the necessary ritual.

This may not seem like a big deal to those with fair skin but when one sees how often we of the darker hues come under attack (we're ugly, we smell, we have too much testosterone), these seemingly small points matter, to us.

Here is where it gets tricky. Are these stigmas only stigmas because black people perpetuate them? When I see a German mixed race child with dry, uncombed hair and ashy skin, she doesn't seem to be bothered by it because it doesn't seem to bother her white German mother. In fact, I have learned time and time again that many Afro-Germans (not my term) identify more as being German than as black (not a bad thing, per se but a difference). This is obviously more pronounced if they grew up without a black family member.

Yet growing up black, always having a bottle of lotion in my bag was a cultural difference between me and my white friends. None of my white friends knew what "ashy" meant and they didn't need to, we were different and that was OK. But is not noticing that you're different from your white friends always good, whether you share a nationality or not?

Photo: flickr

Racist Theory

2011-05-18T02:44:00.006-04:00

Satoshi Kanazawa doesn't find black women attractive. He thinks they're too fat and have too much testosterone. In fact, he's so convinced of this, he decided to do some scientific research to support this claim, because, after all, one can scientifically prove that black women are ugly.

Kanazawa isn't just a regular guy entitled to his opinion, he's an evolutionary psychologist at London School of Economics and, unlike other racists, he's got membership to the inner circle. Kanazawa recently published an article on Psychology Today's blog explaining his theory of why black women are less attractive than women of other races. He cites a large amount of testosterone in African women and that black women are much heavier than non black women.

Kanazawa is entitled to have his opinions. There were plenty of commenters who agreed with him. . . another story. But to try and use figures (comparing mass body indexes, levels of testosterone) to support his personal idea of beauty, as an example of academic research, is something else entirely. It's an embarrassment to Psychology Today and to London School of Economics for even entertaining Kanazawa's theories as serious.

Black women being perceived as "unattractive" is nothing new. It took decades before magazines began showing beautiful black women on their covers or began using cute black little girls in advertisements. While it is now common to see images of black women, commercial beauty is still predominately the face of a white woman. (Not to mention that black models are often photo shopped to look lighter and their hair is usually straightened)

But who cares about Vogue? Who cares if the Pampers Baby is almost always white?

I do care, however, about what academics say. They have a tremendous amount of power and influence. Even if they are criticized (as Kanazawa has been) their theories resonate much longer than the image of a pretty black woman on the cover of Elle.

The White Man

2011-05-11T05:19:00.005-04:00

I have presented Haiti to all of my children's pre-school classes. I usually bring a book, show pictures, fry sweet plantain bananas ( I let them press them flat) and, of course, I always bring along a flag. When the children pass around the miniature souvenir flag I got from the airport in Port-au-Prince, they all ask why there are canons on it. This is pre-school so I leave it at, "they had to fight for their freedom". They usually accept this answer and ask for more plantains.

Exactly one year later, my first grade son asked me yesterday, "What did you mean they were fighting for their freedom?" He had never forgotten this, rather he'd stored it in his mind until he could deconstruct it. "Who were they fighting?"

How does one approach the topic of slavery and colonialism with a seven year-old? As usual, I was not prepared to have this conversation so soon. As delicately as I could, I tried to explain that Haitians, who were Africans first, were brought there, forced to work for no money and were not free to go, they were slaves.

The sense of justice in small children is very astute, even if it is overly simplified. Slavery was not only wrong, my son decided but cruel (wait until he gets all of the details!)

"So the French are also Europeans, right?" he asks to make sure.

"Yes," I say.

"So they're like the white men who went to America and killed Crazy Horse's and Pocohantas' people?" (this term, white man, my son learned from a children's book about Crazy Horse).

"Um, well, yes- er,"

"Why did the white man want to steal everyone's land, kill them for it and make Africans slaves?"

Gulp. "In Haiti, the French made money from sugar plantations and the slaves worked on them."

"For nothing." He says softly.

When I asked my parents these questions it always resulted in a speech about why it was so important for me, as a black woman, to get an education and not let anyone enslave my mind and about black people having to be better at everything to gain respect (see Birthers) . . . and a long list of warnings many black children grow up hearing. My situation is decidedly more complicated because while I want my sons to know historical truths, they are half of these white men. It is important, from my perspective, to not be automatically divisive.

"It was a long time ago and, well, you'll learn more about the history when you get older. It's very complicated and many powerful people, you'll discover, took advantage of the weaker ones. But it's true, the white man did do " a lot of mean things," as you say. But a lot has changed, even white people wanted that."

His brow is crinkled, he is thinking up storms, I can tell. I can only imagine what he'll ask next?

Flag of Haiti image courtesy of 4 International Flags

2011-05-05T14:13:00.015-04:00

An Eye for an Eye

2011-05-03T06:12:00.007-04:00

I've needed some time to process what I think about President Obama's announcement that US Navy Seals, under his order, killed Osama Bin Laden. I felt yanked into a different reality because Osama Bin Laden had been relegated to a myth in my mind.

I'd come to believe in him as much as I did in unicorns or Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Al Qaeda-linked terrorist attacks all over the globe are clearly very real, but I began to think of them as incidental to Bin Laden's existence. Just as I believe that Al Qaeda will barely miss a step even with Bin Laden now dead.

I'm a New Yorker. I had friends and family in the World Trade Center on 9/11. The Manhattan skyline still seems incomplete when I go home. For some reason, the warmth and cheerful sunniness of that day still haunt me; no one thinks something terrible is going to happen on a beautiful day. We were all robbed of some degree of innocence and apart from intellectually considering the human death toll and security threats, it is the smaller, seemingly insignificant aspects, like that clear warm day, that return to me in regular daydreams.

What revisits everyone is the harsh symbolism in Al Qaeda's attack on 9/11. This is what Al Qaeda intended, long after they knew the rubble would be taken away and the American bodies buried. This powerful symbolic victory over the West created widespread fear and paranoia and turned American daydreamers into anxious subjects, waiting for a chance at revenge. Yesterday, the USA was given that. Not a promise of more security. Not a guarantee that wars in the Middle East would end. And certainly no indication that another 9/11 was impossible now that Bin Laden is dead.

The only concrete news was that Al Qaeda's greatest symbol or at least what we in the West have come to symbolize with Al Qaeda, is gone.

Then came cheering, grinning and rejoicing in the name of a dead man.

I remembered my sixth grade current events teacher when we learned about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. An eye for an eye makes everyone blind.

When will it end? Will Al Qaeda avenge Bin Laden's death? Al Qaeda's Number Two is certainly already in place. Should the world chase after him now, too? Al Qaeda has never made concrete demands. Is it even possible to think it will ever be over?

To be honest, when I heard the news, I wasn't sure whether I should exhale or hold my breath.

When Europeans become conservative Americans

2011-04-28T14:46:00.018-04:00

I've never mentioned the entire "birther" nonsense on my blog up until now because I never really took it all that seriously. I didn't think the president did either until he showed his long form birth certificate (pictured above) to the press yesterday to finally lay to rest the controversy over his place of birth and constitutional eligibility to be president.

Not surprisingly, no other American president has had to prove his credentials the way Obama has but I assumed these so-called birthers were the usual suspects: racist, ultra conservative, batshit crazy hillbillies who misspell words on their Tea Party signs.

But no. One of the most prominent birthers (I discovered today; like I said, I didn't really pay much attention to this) is a Moldovan-born and raised dentist and lawyer, Orly Taitz, who still won't let the case die. Now Taitz claims Obama has fake social security numbers.

Let me make myself clear. I don't think birthers would be any more legitimate if they were natural born American citizens, but isn't it a bit ironic that Taitz, who is NOT a natural born citizen, is now playing USA citizen police? What does she, I wonder, having been raised in the former Soviet Union and having studied in Israel, gain from bringing down a president who she claims was born in Kenya? What's it to her?

What is in the water that makes Europeans turn into conservative Americans? Arnold Schwarzenegger? . . . or take a French girl I went to high school with. She wasn't exactly well integrated into the conservative WASPish Maryland community where my high school was located but now, twenty years later, she is a hyper Christian mother with a busload of kids, she home schools, loathes Obama, writes long posts about infanticide, (read abortion) and talks about "the media" as if she were Sarah Palin. She also loves posting about the disadvantages of kids who grow up in single parent households. We'd never talked politics in high school (thank God) but I must say she is the most conservative person I know.

It happened before. The fundamentalist Christian Europeans went to America to start a new life, killed the true Americans for their land and created an inner circle that Africans and their descendants would only be allowed to enter hundreds of years later. Would Taitz like to create a renaissance? (I know, this theory is nuts, but I'm trying to roll birther style)

As Obama said yesterday about the entire birther issue, "We don't have time for this kind of silliness."

Hear! hear! We have a royal wedding to watch!

Photo: flickr

We the "Amis"

2011-04-26T06:26:00.015-04:00

I remember well how hard it was to be an American abroad during the Bush years. I felt the German sympathy after 9/11 quickly fade once my home country invaded Iraq. The thuggish Bush war put many of us Americans here on the defensive. How often did I hear in cafes or at intellectual gatherings full of English speakers, "I didn't vote for him!" We weren't only horrified by the subsequent crimes committed there (the images from Abu Ghraib still linger behind my eyelids like a migraine) we were shamed to have an association to such modern day American atrocities; not our grandparents' generation but our own.

We knew well enough not to say we were from "America," but from the United States. We were careful not to come across as ignorant and self-centered. Yet when United States bashing was in order, America and its Amis were the descriptions of choice. American became reserved for the worst kind of national, the gun-toting, war-loving fool who had never set foot outside of the country. Even though some Germans were gracious enough to mention, "Well, you're from New York, that's not really America," I took the criticism to heart anyway. Much of it was true, although it is still very unclear, to many Europeans, just how spread out The United States of America really is. Even in pockets of Texas or on the plains of Montana, you can find liberal thinkers who do not follow the mainstream conservatism associated with their states. The mentalities in America are as diverse as its people.

Still, I admit, it's impossible to look past those Americans who burn Korans or chant "go home" in front of mosques (in New York City, mind you, not Iowa) or the many who believe that Afghan, Pakistani, Yemeni prisoners don't deserve justice because of what they may or may not have contributed to the 9/11 plot.

And now, (it was only a matter of time) the Guantanamo Files have finally brought to light what we knew all along, that many of these prisoners were rounded up for being at the wrong place at the wrong time or simply being the wrong nationality. I can't say I'm surprised by the methods used and the illegal holding of these detainees with no trial but I am disappointed that Obama's administration still has not closed this "modern-day Gulag". I think it's safe to say that Guantanamo Bay and its continued operation is yet another item to add to the list of American political hypocrisy and illegality in its foreign policy.

Guantanamo Bay's continued operation doesn't make me feel that much better being an American today than I did when George W. Bush gave the name American such a bad taste. But I've also been here long enough and speak enough German to insist on separating the actions of a government and the will of many, perhaps not enough, of its citizens.

Photo: flickr

Spring Break Humor

2011-04-17T05:47:00.001-04:00

*My husband saw my blog and informed me that this video is old and NOT funny. Sorry about that, I'd never seen it before. Stay tuned for more adventures in bi-cultural parenting. . .it's Spring "Break". . .

2011-04-13T02:17:00.015-04:00

That "Hi, how are you today?" with a smile, I'll take it. Superficial or not, it beats a cold stare devoid of a "Guten Tag" any day.

The immediate grin that follows my eyes meeting some else's? I'll take that too.

The "excuse me" when someone walks in front of me while I'm looking at a store shelf? I love it. It takes into account that you are entering my space and acknowledging it.

I miss these simple, perhaps superficial aspects of everyday life in the United States. I miss the friendliness in tone, the service with a smile. You don't have to be my friend, but you can be nice to me in the two seconds we interact.

So how can this everyday friendliness turn into such venom when it really matters? How can these smiling faces elect people that screw the working class, the poor and the elderly?!

The supposed budget compromise that the Republicans and Democrats came to over the weekend says nothing other than, F*#k you, America (please)!

Here are some highlights:

$600 million in cuts to community health centers.

$414 million in cuts to grants for state and local police departments.

$1.6 billion cut in the Environmental Protection Agency's budget, of which nearly $1 billion comes from grants for clean water and other projects by local governments and Indian (native American) tribes.

A $1 billion cut to HIV and disease-prevention funds.

A $3 billion cut to agriculture programs, the biggest portion of which comes from the Women Infants and Children fund, which loses $504 million!

A $390 million cut to low-income heating assistance; Community Development Funds are cut by $942 million!

(The war in Iraq, by the way, costs $1.2 trillion. . .these figures are peanuts, pipi fax, BS in comparison.)

Taking that much money out of the Women and Infants Children fund??? That's like stealing a pocket book from an old lady! Oh wait, Medicare also takes big cuts and social security is on its way down the toilet, too! Well, it appears that America's government can't get any lower.

Obama? Obama? Where art thou? You're supposed to be a Democrat, one of the good guys?! You were a community organizer? You're not advocating for the people who believed in you? Instead, you surround yourself by bankers.*

General Electric paid no taxes last year after earning $14 billion in profits! They got a $3 billion tax credit! How? Why? Get a grip people, the money is not trickling down. The government hid the funnel. American businesses don't pay 35% in taxes the way politicians would like us to believe "The highest corporate tax rates in the world, blah blah. . ." They don't pay ANY taxes. Banks that were bailed out are making huge profits by lending money the government gave them for being greedy and irresponsible.

I'm stuck. I'm culturally completely American. But inhumane laws, compounded by gullible voters, are things that make me appreciate the fundamental aspects of a functioning social democracy like Germany's.

So, for now, I'll just have to suck it up when the cashier ignores my Guten Tag. I'll just breathe deeply when a person runs into me and doesn't say excuse me. Morals count for more than "manners".

*Ok, at least I recognized you again in your speech given after this post. At least you called the budget cuts out for what they are, namely tax breaks for the rich paid for by the neediest.

Photo: flickr

The Citizen vs. The Believer

2011-04-11T15:26:00.010-04:00

France's new law banning the public wearing of a niqab went into effect today. Wearing one is punishable by a fine and forcing someone else to wear one carries an even higher monetary penalty.

My gut instinct says, wrong, wrong, wrong. How can a government ban any kind of clothing? Religious or otherwise? It's a clear infringement of religious freedom, it's unconstitutional, right?

But let's be honest.

How tolerant are we, really? How many of us even liberally minded see the niqab as a repression of women? How many of us think this attire is misplaced in a secular society?

The question that keeps coming to my mind is, How far must a society go to protect religious freedom in a secular democracy? And if a niqab is banned, why not a habit, or a yarmulke or a cross?

When and how does the separation of church and state really begin? ( I ask this in a country with a leading party named the Christian Democrats . . . Mama Mia!)

Photo: flickr

Freedom's Burden Part 2

2011-04-01T17:59:00.013-04:00

Originally uploaded by tfelix

The USA has no shortage of religious nut cases.

In the first Freedom's Burden post I questioned if the Westboro Baptist Church's demonstrations at soldiers' funerals with signs reading "Thank god for dead soldiers" incited violence? We had differing opinions and that's how I like it on my blog!

Yesterday, 8 UN workers and 4 Afghan citizens were killed when an angry mob attacked the UN in Mazar e Sharif. The mob was enraged by Pastor Terry Jones' burning of a Koran in his Florida church. Jones claims Islam is an intolerant and violent religion. (He says this with no trace of irony in his voice. . . ) Jones insists that in the USA, he has the constitutional right to burn a Koran.

Before he actually committed this very provocative act (at a time when the USA has military presence all over the Middle East and isn't particularly liked) Hillary Clinton and General Petreus (commanding the US military in Afghanistan) warned that a publicized Koran burning in the USA could have repercussions for Americans and westerners in Afghanistan.

What do you think? Did the pastor's burning of a Koran incite violence in Afghanistan?

Looking German

2011-04-01T15:51:00.008-04:00

A child visiting a family on our block spent most of this gorgeous afternoon playing with my twin sons. When I went out to call them in for supper the boy asked me, "Aus welchem Land kommt ihr?" Which country do you come from?

"Aus den USA," I said, looking down at his freckly face.

"Then why are you all so brown?"

"Because many different kinds of people live there."

"And what about their papa? Does he also come from the USA?" he asked motioning to one of my sons.

"Mein Papa is Deutsche!" my son said. My father is German!

"Ah, that's why your children speak German!" (this whole conversation, by the way, is happening in German)

"My children speak German," I said, "because they are German, just like you. They were born here."

The boy smiled, "Except that they're brown. But they speak German. That's ok, I guess. Do they have to go to dinner now, or can they play a little longer?"

Photo: flickr

Going Green. . .

2011-03-27T17:59:00.010-04:00

No, my blog did not get hijacked by a Leprechaun. Elections in the key German state of Baden-Württemberg yesterday confirmed what everyone here has been speculating since the nuclear emergency in Fukushima put nuclear energy at the forefront of the election agenda. The Green Party made gains of over 12% since 2006, running on a very consistent platform that has adamantly opposed nuclear energy for almost 40 years. For the first time in history the premier of this state will be a Green Party member.

I should point out that most Americans either don't know who Ralph Nader is or they consider him to be a joke. Still, even in the USA, where there are 104 aging nuclear reactors, questions about the safety and sustainability of nuclear power have finally come to a level of national discourse.

The Green Party in Germany has a long tradition that dates all the way back to the 1970s when a relatively small but outspoken group of "hippies" (including my in-laws) insisted that protecting the environment was a political responsibility. Their entry into the parliament in 1983 came with the bare minimum of votes required.

By the time I first came to Germany, the Greens were part of the coalition government with the Social Democrats and passed key pieces of legislation, one of which was completely phasing out all nuclear power plants, (later to be renegotiated and then extended by the conservatives who insisted, up until Fukushima, that nuclear power was safe). Mind you, I was coming from the USA where many people were still making fun of Al Gore and refuting global warming. It wasn't yet cute to walk around with those cloth shopping bags either!

The Greens in Germany have come a long way, fortunately and unfortunately due to the alarming events still unfolding at the damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima.

You can read more about The Green Revolution in Germany in my article on April 8th on The Wip . . .

Aristide's Return

2011-03-22T15:38:00.004-04:00

After seven years in exile in South Africa, (after being ousted twice by US-backed coups) Jean Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti before the election last Sunday. He was accompanied by reporter Amy Goodman.

Smoke Signals

2011-03-21T07:17:00.011-04:00

No matter where I look, there are pictures of smoke coming at me from my computer screen. Whether it's from Fukushima's damaged nuclear power plant or from Libya, where Western allies continue to bomb Gadaffi targets.

In a very short period of time, I have gone from nodding my head at German leadership in reaction to these two major incidents to shaking it in confusion.

As a result of the Japanese nuclear plant being damaged, Angela Merkel and her partners shut down seven of Germany's oldest nuclear power plants last week pending safety inspections. The move came across as shady, because Merkel's party, only a couple of months ago, signed off on extending operation of those very plants. Many, including the opposition, say it was only a political move to gain votes before three big elections. (She was given a proper grilling in the parliament last week).

Either way, it shows that Germans really, really hate nuclear energy and that securing votes (regardless of party) means stepping away from nuclear power and becoming serious about renewable energy technology. This made me nod my head in approval. The serious attention to the environment and faith in renewables, is definitely one of the aspects I like best about Germany.

But then my head stopped nodding and began shaking, (not vigorously but there was a definite subtle side to side movement going on). Just barely a couple months on the United Nations Security Council and Germany doesn't support a coalition effort to stop Gadaffi from butchering his people? I understand the commitment to pacifism, no country grasps the consequences of initiating conflict like Germany does. But this is about stopping a tyrant from systematically killing his citizens as they fight for democratic change. Or so I thought. With each day, I must admit, I grow more doubtful. (22.3)

Germany's pacifism, in light of its history, can be admired. This, too, is something I like about Germany. But in this particular case, in which a dictator is murdering his opponents, I am truly baffled, precisely because of Germany's history.

A Guardian Article about Race/Religion in Germany

2011-03-16T18:35:00.003-04:00

Here's a Guardian article written by Gary Younge, who attended a Busch Girl reading I did in Berlin earlier this month and included a bit of my subsequent interview with him.

Nature Couldn't Care Less About GDPs

2011-03-15T04:40:00.010-04:00

NASA Satellite Image of Japan Captured March 11, 2011
NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Like everyone, I've been closely watching the tragic and frightening news coming from Japan.

A little over a year ago I spent just as many hours reading articles and watching the news about Haiti's earthquake.

What one heard over and over again last year, was how a small, impoverished country with barely any infrastructure had no means to handle a disaster like the earthquake. The houses were poorly built, people were uneducated about how to react, the government was overwhelmed. . . The media focus on Haiti's destitution was extreme, while admittedly necessary.

In contrast, the very initial reports from Japan lauded the country's high-tech, earthquake-resistant buildings, the government's preparedness, their calm. But the images after the tsunami made it painfully clear that nature couldn't care less about GDPs or scientific breakthroughs.

And even though Japan has disaster forecasting technology, this highly developed country did not have the foresight to weigh the real risks of building a nuclear power plant along the coast of an earthquake and tsunami-bound region.

Despite all the technology at their fingertips, engineers either underestimated the power of natural occurrences to throw even the best of science off course or they ignored it.

Have technological advances made us in the developed world so cocky that we think we are invincible?

The reality is that the Japanese, while they may have lived economically much better than the people of Haiti, are experiencing the same loss, grief, displacement and shock left by nature's wrath. It is a sobering tale of our true equality as human beings.

Having it All

2011-03-09T03:01:00.009-05:00

International Women's Day
Originally uploaded by NaPix -- Hmong Soul

My International Woman's Day came and went probably very much like my mother's did some thirty years ago. I got the children ready for school, packed their lunches, did a couple loads of laundry, wrote an article, attacked the kids' bathroom with vinegar, did a couple hours of research, cleaned the kitchen, picked up the kids, gave them a snack, pulled their bikes out of the garden shed, took them on a bike riding tour, came home, cooked while helping with homework, read them a story and put them to bed. Then I got back in front of the computer to continue the research I'd started earlier in the day.

I suppose fifty years ago, my research would have been substituted for sewing or ironing or some other domestic chore. As most mothers today know, emancipation has entailed not only having a career but having a career and all of the domestic chores our mothers did. We have it all. Or do we?

A German mother friend of mine has two kids and was pulling in 30 work hours per week as a manager in a company, but she was obviously not present for the late night meetings, dinners with clients, and conference calls at 10 pm. She was accused of slacking off and four months into the job, she was fired.

On the other extreme, I have a very close German mother friend who works about 60 hours per week, has a nanny with a car, a cleaning woman and a secretary, but her kids never see her and she beats herself up with guilt because she's never around for her children.

In both of these scenarios, my friends' husbands work full-time and they do go to the late night meetings and all the other perks of being a "team player" in today's workplace.

Still, even the non-mothers in Germany, of which there are many, aren't necessarily climbing the ranks despite being just as ambitious as their male counterparts. Women only account for 5% of the top executive positions in Germany. According to the Federal Statistics Office, 43% of women (in "west Germany") who have university degrees have no children (as compared with 25% from the former east, where there used to be state subsidized nurseries for working moms).

It's no wonder that there is a debate here about establishing a quota for women employees in leading positions in Germany. The Minister of Labor, Ursula von der Leyen, (who has seven kids herself) says there ought to be a quota for women. Her opponents say its not constitutional and all of the other contra arguments familiar with quotas (unqualified people getting hired, discriminating against men, etc. We've seen all of this in the USA with affirmative action).

The question is, can we expect leadership in Germany's companies to change if it's not mandated?

For example, in my first friend's case, would company culture change if it was mandated? Why, for example, can't companies have more lunch appointments with clients as opposed to dinners? Can't there be more skyping so that mothers can still work from home after hours? Why isn't there more job sharing in Germany?

My friend was fired by a woman executive with no children who said, "I doubted you'd be able to do in six hours what most people do in 8." In other words, my friend never really had a chance.

Germany's Non-Secular Politics

2011-03-06T11:10:00.012-05:00

So here's the thing that I just don't get about Germany. This country has a robust, supposedly secular democracy and it takes the protection of certain freedoms very seriously, including the freedom of religious worship.

Here's where I start to get confused: The Christian Democratic Party.

It seems to me that this name is really outdated and somehow inappropriate in a modern secular democracy. The name also rings a bit exclusionary. Does the CDU also represent Jewish Democrats or Buhddhist Democrats or, say, Muslim Democrats? According to Christian Democratic principles, yes. But some (not all) members of this political party believe that Islam is not a key part of German culture. This has been said more than once, most recently by the brand new Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich.

There are about four million Muslims living in Germany, so the statement is very, very loaded and intentionally so.

Why do certain members of the CDU keep bringing up Islam when referring to the failures of integration? And, more importantly, why do Christian Democrats want Germans to believe that one has to do with the other?

Not speaking German hinders integration, wearing a head scarf does not. Not getting an education hinders integration, celebrating Ramadan does not.

It appears that the CDU can't separate these issues because they believe that democratic principles are solely Christian ones. Why are politicians going on and on about the Christian tradition in this country? Why should that be a part of a political discourse?

Latent Islamophobia can not be a political platform. Unless, of course, it guarantees votes?

Photo: flickr

Freedom's Burden

2011-03-05T10:56:00.008-05:00

Originally uploaded by tfelix

This past week, John Galliano , the notorious designer at the Paris-based Christian Dior, was fired for his anti-Semitic rant caught on video. Saying things like, "I love Hitler," and loudly praising that Jews were gassed, he not only went over the line, he broke French laws.

A day later, The United States Supreme Court upheld the constutional right to free speech in the case of the Westboro Baptist Church, a small, freakish group that goes to American soldiers' funerals and holds up signs saying "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," and "God hates fags" (according to this church, "fags" are synonymous for all things evil and killing soldiers is God's punishment for America's wars and tolerance for homosexuality). They also yell these same sentiments at the people attending the funerals.

The charges brought against Galliano were relatively easy for me to support. He appeared to be harassing people in the video and the explicit laws against using anti-Semitic speech in many European countries make it a clear cut case. In the US, however, Galliano's rant may have been protected by the constitution.

The ruling in the case of the Westboro Baptist Church on the other hand, leaves me very, very unsettled. Here we have a group of people being offensive and, in my opinion, inciting violence. Going to a fallen soldier's funeral and inferring that he/she was a "fag" and that "God hates soldiers" is akin to screaming fire in a crowd (which is not protected by the US Constitution). When people are grieving, emotions flare pretty quickly, the same way that panic can.

Reading the comments about the latter in The New York Times, I was surprised by how many seemingly liberal readers supported the Supreme Court ruling, even if they did feel torn by it. The idea is that any limitation to our rights is somehow synonymous with losing that right?

Germany also has problems with its fringe Neo Nazi troublemakers because their right to peaceably assemble is protected by the German constitution. Even morons have the right to freely express themselves. (yes, that opinion is protected!) But there are limits to what the Neo Nazis can actually do. They can't say "Heil Hitler", they can't do a goose step and they certainly can't hurl anti-Semitic epithets. These are clear limitations to their freedom of speech and assembly but no American would question that law considering Germany's history.

Yet in this case with the Westboro Baptist Church, our freedom to speak our mind trumps another citizen's right to not be harassed and emotionally assaulted by another. Perhaps, because of the history, it is easier for Europeans to make the connection between speech and violence. But the Arizona shootings weren't so long ago that Americans can't make that connection as well?

It is a curious dilemma and another of freedom's burdens.

Adults are Destroying Integration!

2011-03-03T03:21:00.022-05:00

NEWS FLASH, President Erdogan of Turkey!

You know those Turkish-German children, who you say should learn Turkish before they learn German. . .guess what? They are capable of learning both languages at the same time.*

What is this nonsense about Turkish-German children in Germany not assimilating and losing their roots? Enough already! Children are flexible, open-minded, intelligent and curious. If you expose them to 5 languages, they'll be fluent in all of them by the age of 6!

I grew up speaking three languages and I know plenty of other people who grew up bi-lingual. It's actually easier for children to learn several languages and they will be open to any culture if you present it to them in a fun and engaging way. Children are inherently tolerant and learn hatred of others, from adults.

Can we please start giving kids some credit? If we approach this integration issue with a little more childish open-mindedness, we'll come a lot farther.

"Adults" like Westerwelle or Erdogan are too narrow-minded in their thinking. Multicultural acceptance is what is missing in this integration debate in Germany. No one has to choose one nationality over the other, one just has to be a good citizen who contributes to the community where he/she has a home and sends his/her kids to school.

The simple rules of kindergarten should be applied here:

Treat your neighbor the way you would like to be treated (don't hit, call names, spit or steal)

Listen before you speak (for God's sake, raise your hand!)

Share and trade toys and ideas (someone may have something you'd like to play with)

Don't forget to use your imagination

There is almost always more than one "correct" answer

Maybe we should send these adults back to kindergarten?

*Make daycare mandatory starting at age 3, so kids learn German (during high language-acquisition years) even if it's not spoken at home.

Becoming a Berliner

2011-02-28T14:52:00.011-05:00

Originally uploaded by hlyg

The bullying of one of my children has begun again and it has kept me wondering how children start thinking of insulting skin color. I still can't believe this is happening so young, but then when I think about how often my kids repeat what they hear from me, I worry that these children have heard these ideas from somewhere else, "Brown people stink." Where does that come from? Is it merely the majority picking on the minority, as bullying often happens? Or is this learned?

Ironically, the following day, I was, for the very first time in my decade here in Germany, handed a pamphlet from a political party! Campaign workers normally eager to hand out information about their candidates always pull back their hands when they see me. Sometimes they actually seem sorry about it but retreat nonetheless. But as I recently walked down this busy street a person from the SPD handed me a brochure!

I couldn't believe it? Do I finally look like I might belong? That I have an interest in this community? That I can read?!

Then I looked at the information and it was a brochure about education and an invitation to a discussion about improving schools. The catchy phrases about success in life beginning with a good education was not new to me. My kids weren't with me but maybe I just look like a mother?

Now, if I could just send my children to school to get this great public education without worrying that they'll be bullied because of what they look like.

Then maybe it won't feel like we're spinning in a vicious circle.

True Colors

2011-02-24T14:51:00.006-05:00

Bundesverteidigungsminister zu Guttenberg bei Winfried Parchent in Eckersdorf
Originally uploaded by hartmut-koschyk

There's just nothing like a good political scandal to get the circulation going in minus 15 degree weather.

For those of you on the other side of the Atlantic, Germany's Minister of Defense had his doctoral title revoked (after a long week of speculation and accusations) because he plagarized a considerable portion of his dissertation. I couldn't help but think back to the Monica Lewinsky Affair.

At first, when a journalist discovered major similarities to an article and Guttenberg's dissertation and proposed that the thesis wasn't completely kosher, Guttenberg said, "Oh, well, that accusation is abstruse." Really, abstruse?

It wasn't a definitive "I did not copy my dissertation," as in "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," it was an answer to buy him some time before the Scheisse really hit the fan. And it did. With each day, passages that Guttenberg copied (without citation) kept turning up.

By the weekend it was clear that Guttenberg, a very charismatic, popular politician here in Germany had lied. It got so bad that he even told the university to take back his title, which they finally did yesterday, after Guttenberg was given a proper grilling in the parliament. The opposition called him twenty different kinds of a liar and demanded that Chancellor Angela Merkel fire him.

So should the man lose his job because he cheated, big time, on his dissertation? A politician who lied? What? Unbelievable! Unprecedented. . .

I remember the embarrassing details that unraveled in the Lewinsky affair. The dress, the cigar. I still cringe when I think about it. But I never thought Clinton should be impeached over it even though he did lie under oath. The whole situation was such a cheap Republican trick and made Americans look like prudish fools wasting tax payer dollars over a blow job. It was easy, especially for us liberals, to place the focus on putting someone's personal business on display so that he was forced to lie to save his dignity. Still, he did lie, no doubt about that (and many Americans felt deceived by him). Clinton should have taken the "abstruse" route, if you ask me.

But Guttenberg didn't just get caught with his pants down, he perpetuated a lie over a period of seven years in which he repeatedly chose the sloppy route. All he had to do was cite the sources and he could have copied all he wanted. All is fair in academia as long as it is cited!

But the baron has escaped many a scandal in the past and has floated on his entitlement and probably won't lose his job over this, either. It has already been proven, on both sides of the pond, that moral standards for politicians and bankers are simply different. Oddly, this doesn't seem to bother a country that usually backs up the underdog? Guttenberg's popularity ratings haven't been changed by this?

As one young German plagarist, a certain Helene Hegemann, a teenie authoress who copied pages from another novel into hers said last year, once she was busted, "There is no such thing as originality only authenticity."

I couldn't think of a more fitting explanation.

Flammable Schlammable: Part 3

2011-02-21T04:18:00.006-05:00

bitzi ☂ ion-bogdan dumitrescu

For those of you who've read this blog from the beginning, you know that I, like many Americans, have an admittedly irrational fear of fire. This has changed quite a bit since I've lived here, partially because Berlin gets so dark in the winter and it's nice to have a lit candle to bring some cheer into a somber afternoon. Even Christmas is no longer associated with anxious anticipation of a child on fire. My kids now know not to get too close to the tree with real candles on it and I know not to put on synthetic sweaters during the holiday season!

But tolerance can be tested. I integrated myself into this candle loving culture and thought that I could handle almost any flammable situation with grace and calm. Then this happened.

I'm sitting in the waiting room of a tutor's office while my son practices his writing with her.

It's the first session and I can hear them introducing themselves, getting acquainted and so forth. And I can hear from my son's voice that he likes the tutor, a nice warm person with a tender voice.

I'm about to settle down with a magazine and then I hear that sweet voice asking my son to light a match. . .

My heart starts jumping wildly in my chest. Did she really tell my too-young-to-be-lighting-a-match son to light a match? Did I mention that he tends to drop things? Here's what's going on in my head: "Open the door, Rose-Anne, get him out of there! Think of the skin graphs! His hair will never grow back!"

I breathe and try to imagine what's going on in there. Maybe she's holding his hands? She's probably pushed up his sleeves. . . . if I could just see in there?

Zsssssht. The sound breaks through my thoughts and then, then. . .

I hear them both giggle. "Good!" she says.

I breathe a sigh of relief. My son's beautiful face is not on fire but smiling.

Later, walking to the car, my son proudly looks up at me and says, "Mama, I lit a candle all by myself!"

"Yes, love," I say. "I heard."

"Can I do that at home?"

"No, dear. No, I don't think so."

Buschgirl Readings in Berlin!

2011-02-20T08:07:00.004-05:00

I've been touring through some of the smallest and sweetest German towns but next week I'll be reading right here in the capital. If you live in our economically poor but culturally rich city, please stop by:

Wednesday, February 23 at Soho House at 20:00: Tor Str. 1 please email to register at info@dialoguebooks.org.

and

Sunday, February 27 at Rose Caleta at 19:00 Muskauerstr 9

(auf Deutsch und Englisch)

In the meantime, please stay tuned for an upcoming Flammable Schlammable post.

Happy Sunday!

No Comment: Negerli Kaffee

2011-02-16T03:16:00.002-05:00

Are we really all the same?

2011-02-15T05:00:00.007-05:00

Uniformity
Originally uploaded by Samantha T.

I have to admit that I've been writing quite a lot but not posting any of it because I'm starting to worry that I'm losing the "current". What I mean is, I'm starting to doubt this very basic idea I've had about people since college: That we are more alike than different.

Seriously, this was the underlying mentality that permeated my college seminars, whether in literature or political science. Studying at the beginning of the 1990s, the concept of sameness was the basis for a movement of politically correct behavior in colleges and workplaces in the United States. The main purpose was to reverse decades of discrimination against minorities by emphasizing that we all want the same things in life.

When I moved to Germany, this need was not yet apparent. Political correctness was never really pushed in Europe with the same intensity as in the US, partially because difference always came from the outside and not from within, as in a racially and culturally diverse country as the USA. Europe hopped aboard the PC train a bit later as their communities grew more culturally diverse. (There is still a huge resistance to gender or racial quotas here).

We all know how this ends, though. With every movement comes a reform or an opposition and the idea of all people having tons in common seems to be soaring high through the air from the deck from which it was thrown.

Take for example, politics. All of us at some point have been advised not to bring up politics at the dinner table because it could become "unpleasant". Not only can it become unpleasant it makes me wonder if we are all made up of the same stuff?

Last night I was at an SPD (social democrats) cultural event and Sigmar Gabriel, the party chairman said that democracies work best without violence, in societies without guns. Now this was a factual statement to my ears and not an opinion. It was probably given very little thought in that room. But travel across the Atlantic and that statement would be considered heresy in some places.

I recently saw a Facebook picture of an old high school acquaintance and she'd snapped her young kids with real guns in their hands. I don't just have a different opinion I think she's an irresponsible mother and I wouldn't let my kids play with hers. Yikes, I'd never thought I'd hear myself say something like that, but I feel in my gut that it is morally repugnant to give a child a real gun. The idea actually makes me sick.

Or take that the current political controversy in Germany now is how to revamp Hartz IV, welfare, because the Constitutional Court here ruled that the amount of money welfare recipients receive every month is neither dignified nor constitutional. Meanwhile, we've got a political party in the USA that doesn't think the government should require health care for all of its citizens, and goes so far as to deem universal healthcare unconstitutional. "We Germans just don't get that," a German political science professor told me. Of course he doesn't get it, it is a major difference in mentality.

This is what I'm talking about with the current. These differences are fundamental to our core values. If we took away the love of our families, dogs and cars, what would we all have left in common? Prosperity and quality of life have such different interpretations and they are not exactly superficial concepts.

Whether or not I choose to walk down a block or attend a political rally because I'm afraid I'll run into someone with a gun is not a tiny matter. Whether or not my government allows cows to be fed with hormones (not even talking about the organic vs. non organic matter here) is also not some insignificant point that has little to do with my everyday life.

Obviously there are plenty of other "liberal" Americans who think the way I do and our beliefs are so different from American "conservatives" I would almost venture to say that these beliefs trump our cultural connection. Or am I being pessimistic?

That's right, I'm stepping down from the soap box and questioning everything I've spent the last twenty years believing. Are we more alike than different or are we merely tolerating each other (in some cases quite badly)? And how much does culture play a role, if it all?

Power to the People!

2011-02-11T15:58:00.003-05:00

Today in Cairo:

22 years ago in Berlin:

On the road again

2011-01-30T05:49:00.004-05:00

I've been on the road again with Buschgirl and there are some things that occur to me each time I leave Berlin:

German towns are small, spread apart by fields and people are connected by pubs where "everybody knows your name".

Germans in small towns are proud of their traditions but they are also super curious about the world outside of their own.

They like a good laugh, a good beer or glass of wine and will forgive most German mistakes in this setting.

They really really like to witness a foreigner speak German well. It seems to be a relief that their language is worth learning.

Every 10th person I meet has a friend/sister-in-law/colleague who is "colored", which is why this person can totally relate to my experiences!

They prefer to think of me as Anne-Rose.

Haiti is synonomous with Hawaii, even in the local paper. I still can't figure this out entirely, it might have something to do with Obama having grown up there?

They are good natured and kind, despite the occasional gaffe.

Thank you Hessen!

Now I'm in Freiburg (31.1) at The Carl Schurz Haus and on 1.2 in Saarbrucken.

No Comment: "New Fashion Shown by Immigrants"

2011-01-20T17:10:00.005-05:00

What's your take? Was ist Eure Meinung?

A Murderer's Homecoming

2011-01-17T14:40:00.011-05:00

Who let Jean-Claude Duvalier back into Haiti? Are the immigration officials so young that they don't know who he is?

Are Haitians so desperate that anybody offering help, even the dynasty that murdered their families, robbed them blind, terrorized them, drove the intellectual, middle class out of the country and then (the Duvaliers) lived like fat cats on the French Rivera with stolen Haitian money? Are Haitians so weary that they forgot the Ton Ton Macoutes and their machetes, Papa Doc and his lists of people to have killed, the curfews, the fear that their parents and grandparents lived in?

Where are the people calling for Duvalier's head? Where are the mobs? Where is the international police force to arrest this criminal and send him to The Hague? Why is Murderer Baby Doc being protected by guards while women and small children are being raped in tent cities?

This is a shame and a disgrace for Haiti and all of humanity. I am holding my hands up in the air in complete exasperation.

What's next? Will Idi Amin come back to life and get a "We Missed You" party?

Losing my grasp on home

2011-01-14T08:45:00.012-05:00

by Bo Insogna

I caught myself staring into space several times yesterday, each time my thoughts wandering to Christina Green, the nine year-old girl who was shot and killed almost a week ago in Tucson, Arizona, when she eagerly went to meet Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Christina had just been elected to her school's student council.

A writer of fiction couldn't come up with as much tragic irony as that which surrounded Christina's brief life. She was born on September 11, 2001 and she died on just as violent a day as the one in which she came into this troubled world.

(One of the greatest ironies, of course, is that gun sales in Arizona rose dramatically after the shooting because subsequent gun control laws were feared. While family members mourned the loss of their little girl, people in that very community were running out to buy more weapons, thanks to an antiquated interpretation of the constitution that gives them and every mentally unstable American the right to bear arms.)

Between Christina's birth and death, exists a timeline of trends that could foreshadow disaster. After September 11th, the fundamental rifts between American political parties deepened and quickly grew toxic, platforms for incendiary rhetoric became commonplace as media grew less objective and more partisan, wars were started abroad to supposedly protect the homeland, while morally and financially draining it, the rich grew richer and the middle class became poor and the backlash toward foreigners in a country of immigrants, showed a very hateful, xenophobic side of Americans, particularly in Arizona.

Obama's speech in Arizona was very moving and eloquently called for unity, but conservatives and liberals despise each other so much right now, I wonder if much of what Obama said can be heard?

And Sarah Palin, yet again, managed to upstage the president's speech by putting together a presidential-like video of her own and spewing further divisive and anti-Semitic language at a time when Americans should be pondering why the USA is protecting "freedom" all over the world but it can't protect an innocent nine year-old child in her own hometown? And it can't protect mentally ill people from hurting themselves or their fellow citizens?

Neither "Islamic terrorists" nor illegal immigrants killed that little girl, a mentally disturbed American-born man with a gun did. Universal healthcare, which Giffords supports, (oddly, she also supports gun possesion) would cover treatment for more mentally ill people. Mandatory health insurance is supposedly "unconstitutional" and un-American. Allowing an insane person to buy a gun, however, isn't?

I'm at a loss. I really don't understand.

I wonder, is it because I've been here in Europe too long? Is it easier, from here, to see the USA's stubborn isolation in its handling of healthcare, gun control and human rights issues compared to other wealthy democracies?

"I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it," Barack Obama said yesterday about Christina Green. I want that, too but a democracy that allows for a dangerous mix of violence and social inequity will never live up to the expectations that Christina Green surely had.

May she rest in peace.

Mein Interview mit Sueddeutsche Zeitung ueber Integration

2011-01-12T04:35:00.002-05:00

Klick hier zum lesen.

I'm working on the English translation!

Looking back

2011-01-12T02:59:00.007-05:00

A year ago, I was braving the icy streets of Berlin and buying last minute birthday presents for my eldest son. His party was only hours away and I was pondering the details of the pirate scavenger hunt we were planning for the eight rowdy boys that were about to descend upon our home.

It was grey, like most Berlin winter days. It was also cold and I wondered if we should still make a bonfire in such weather. I was in this world, far away from any other. Having children can do that, they can make one's universe seem very small.

But I was shaken back into the larger world, of course, a year ago today when we turned on the news. My son was ready for bed, still dreaming of the booty he and his friends finally found behind the garden shed.

We hadn't yet heard about the boys in my mother's orphanage in Jacmel.

The international community reacted swiftly, the press offered round the clock coverage, and friends reached out, new friends were made, my husband and I stopped working for nearly six weeks to plan a fundraiser.

Haiti became a household name in Germany. No longer did people ask about my parents from Hawaii. They could suddenly place it, there was a context. My children came to understand more about their grandmother, about themselves. They understood that children outside of this world, do not wait for birthday parties with presents and sweets and scavenger hunts.

A year later, and yet it feels like yesterday.

Photo: Rose-Anne Clermont (boys I met in a tent city in Jacmel, Spring 2010)

A Time for Role Models

2011-01-04T06:13:00.002-05:00

"Birthplace of The Civil Rights Movement" North Carolina, Greensboro
Originally uploaded by eleatherberry

Last night I told my children that not so long ago, day after day, black people sat at lunch counters intended only for white customers. They persisted in doing this even when they were ignored, spit at, hissed at, had food and drinks dumped over them. We had just read a book that mentioned Martin Luther King and my children wanted to know what exactly Martin Luther King was fighting for.

The brown eyes at our dinner table grew wide with shock when they heard more details. Was this a true story? "Then what happened, Mama?"

I continued by telling them how hard it had been for the young black students to sit there and take the abuse but they were brave and they believed what they were doing was right, even though what they were doing was illegal.

"The white people spat on the brown people?" my youngest wanted to know and I when I said yes, he was indignant. "But that is mean!"

Oh, how the harshness of reality snatches away innocence!

But I added very quickly that many white people marched along with Martin Luther King and protested these unfair laws. "Together, many many people brought about change." This seemed to relieve my children, at least temporarily.

It is not entirely a coincidence that I brought this up. I recently found out that a regular bully on my son's bus told my son and another black boy "Ihr seid braun und seht aus wie Kaka," " You're brown and look like caca!"

Although I am not entirely surprised that it happened, it still felt to my husband and me that someone had punched our son and us in the gut.

How to handle bullying is something all parents will have to deal with at some point. It is a precarious matter because we struggle with how to protect our kids on the one hand but not allowing them to be subjected to more bullying by "saving" them. At some point children do have to stick up for themselves but they need the right armor, the confidence and consensus of the majority that show a bully for what he is; usually a weak, insecure person with a collection of his own issues.

Unfortunately, the majority often does not stick up for the minority, even when it sees injustice. Still, we have a chance in schools to teach right from wrong and very basic rules of respect. It is a road that I didn't yet expect to have to travel but here I am and I'm treading forward, confident that I can find enough examples of right and enough role models for my sons to allow them to brush off ignorance and not feel threatened by loud mouths with sharp tongues.

Round Up 2010

2010-12-31T06:31:00.008-05:00

>>> PEACE
Originally uploaded by NaPix -- Hmong Soul

In a few hours there will be at least 1,245,768 lists on the Internet re-tracing the most memorable moments of 2010. My list skips across genres and continents and, sadly, I’ve had to fact check some of the events because I’ve reached an age in which I can no longer distinguish between what happened one year ago or three years ago.

The Earthquake in Haiti sent a huge ripple effect throughout the entire Haitian Diaspora. Up until January 12th, many of us, children of Haitian parents, pretty much lived our lives concerned about Haiti but not as committed to its future as we were after this horrific natural disaster. My subsequent trip to Haiti changed my life in more ways than I can describe in a blog post. Let's just say that there is quite a difference between understanding poverty and experiencing it.

Bill Clinton's admission to dumping subsidized US rice in Haiti and destroying the local rice market there was, unfortunately, heard by only a few and came a little too late. Still this also sticks out in my mind when I think back on 2010 and I wish this example could be hammered into the same heads of anti immigration Americans who can't see the role the US plays in forcing people to leave their homelands.

The closest law to healthcare for all Americans was signed, allowing Barack Obama to hold true to one of his most important election promises. The bill was imperfect but certainly came closer to anything every politician knows (even if she/he won’t admit it publically) belongs in every democracy. The USA belongs to the minority of wealthy democracies that do not guarantee healthcare for all of its citizens. It is still unfathomable to me that so many Americans could be brainwashed into believing that healthcare for every American is „ unpatriotic“ and „unconstitutional“ but I think it will be one of those aspects of history that we’ll look back on and shake our heads at how ignorant our fellow citizens once were.

Ditto for the recent turn over of „ Dont’ Ask Don’t Tell,“ doing away with a despicable and discriminatory law that prevented gay soldiers from serving openly. I think it is deplorable enough that young servicemen and women are lied to and told they are „fighting for democracy“ yet they don’t have the right to be openly gay Americans. It was a ridiculous paradox and another major accomplishment of Barack Obama’s presidency. . . now, if Obama would just send all troops, gay, straight, bi-sexual back home and out of harm’s way. . . . .

Julian Assange's Saga. I am still put off by his arrogance but I do believe Assange's work is undeniably useful. I hope Wikileaks won’t ever replace solid investigative journalism because I think information should be parsed critically and Wikileaks has yet to do that.

The year multiculturalism “failed” in Germany. Having half German children, this statement felt like a big slap in the face. I actually support much of Angela Merkel’s platforms and I felt her statement disrespected those of us in Germany struggling to raise our children to love their non-German as well as their German heritage. Sarrazin’s book was annoying but unsurprising. Hearing „ multiculti has failed“ coming from such a rational, otherwise diplomatic and level-headed politician like Angela Merkel was a big disappointment. . . .if she could have only seen me cheering the German national soccer team with my kids when we were in the USA. . .

Watching the German team play so well was also definitely a highlight in my family. I have three boys and soccer is a significant part of their lives when there aren't three feet of snow on the ground. The World Cup was a constant source of conversation as well as an opportunity for my children to see the diversity that exists outside of Germany. My sons saw many African teams, different European teams and many South American teams and they heard a variety of names that hinted at just how large the world is. It was a great educational experience for them.

The year I finally published my book. Most writers never see their work come to life in a major publishing company and I had the privilege of not only seeing my work in print, but having had an awesome tour, thanks mostly to the US Embassies in Berlin and Austria for making it possible. Thanks also to the DAI's in Hamburg, Nurnberg and Stuttgart.

Happy New Year! Bonne Annee und Guten Rutsch!

Happy Holidays...

2010-12-27T17:01:00.001-05:00

Please check back in on the 31st for my 2010 round up. Peace!

Germany's Best Selling Sentiment?

2010-12-17T16:38:00.001-05:00

pro nrw in dormagen & Gegenprotest-12
Originally uploaded by Björn Kietzmann

It was only a matter of time before the numbers started spilling . . . it appears that my long lost relative (my mother's maiden name was also Sarrazin) has made himself a millionaire by playing on fears of Germans who think immigrants will destroy the future of this country.

Four months and one and a half million copies later, Thilo Sarrazin's book, "Germany Does Away with Itself," is a household name and apparently on coffee tables all over the country.

As far as I know, no one has kept statistics on the most common response to his book, but I'm guessing the bestseller is, "But everyone was thinking it, Sarrazin just had the guts to say it."

If that is the case, then the road to German integration is going to be a hell of a lot longer than I thought.

Sarah Palin in Haiti?

2010-12-13T03:51:00.005-05:00

Sarah Palin wears 'Skinny Ravens Sports' t-shirt to Haiti
Originally uploaded by oopsy4

So the first question that naturally comes to mind is, WTF??? Since when did Palin ever express interest (or knowledge, for that matter) in any country outside of the USA?

The second question is, of course, what exactly is her agenda? A journalist friend of mine in Port-au-Prince said Palin is not speaking to Haitian journalists or any media outlet not affiliated with Fox News.

I made the mistake of posting my sentiments on Facebook and the conservative contingent (from my high school) came after me. "That's not very nice. . .why can't conservatives do good deeds without being questioned. . ." and my favorite, "Beggars can't be choosy. . ."

Beggars can't be choosy? Listen, Haitians may be poor but they are not stupid. Even Salvation Army/Caritas doesn't accept donated clothes with holes in them. Sure, Haitians will take help where it comes, but they're certainly not naive enough to believe that Sarah Palin is the next Mother Theresa who will be their savior on earth.

Haitians know that Palin is helping Haiti to help herself, just like the other slew of celebrities who have made an appearance there, to be seen helping Haiti.

Haiti is now on the checklist of every celebrity do-gooder. Hey, if it sends more money (whether or not it actually gets there is another story) and attention to Haiti, then great. But let's be clear that nobody is fooled, especially not the Haitian people.

Haiti in Austria

2010-12-05T14:21:00.013-05:00

Who knew that I would find Haitian gems in a snowy town in Austria?

I was invited to particpate in a reading of Haitian authors, as part of a two-day symposium about Haiti entitled: A Forgotten Country between Europe and the Americas.

I was a bit humbled to be reading alongside Haitian literary greats like Dany Laferrière and Louis-Phillipe Dalembert . But before the reading even began the star authors went out of their way to introduce themselves and embraced me like I was an old cousin. My French, un-used in a while, was shaky but by the time we arrived at the Literatur Haus, we were doing the "Do you know. . ." game all Haitians play. In no time, we were joking in Kreyol.

On the one hand, I felt a little insecure because I, admittedly, don't know Haiti that well. The place I know as home, is really the United States; French and Kreyol are not the languages in which I feel most comfortable.

But none of this mattered, to them or to me. The connection I felt was immediate and incredibly comforting. Even though I read in English and German (they read in French and had German translations) and I could find my way around Berlin better than I could Port-au-Prince, we were relatives.

Both Laferrière and Dalembert live abroad, as do too many of Haiti's great minds. So perhaps that is why they were so understanding of my distance from Haiti.

I often wonder what I would have been like had I grown up in Haiti, had Duvalier not forced so many Haitians into exile? Hans Christoph Buch , the well-known German journalist who often writes about Haiti said at the reading, "Haitian literature is often written abroad."

Thank you Innsbruck for the reunion!

Multiculti 101

2010-11-30T03:46:00.007-05:00

Thank you very much to the United States Embassy in Vienna for this video!

Turkey or politics, turkey or politics?

2010-11-26T04:32:00.004-05:00

Wild Turkeys in Paterson, NJ
Originally uploaded by Brooklyn Bridge Baby

I had an invitation to attend a talk yesterday given by some big wigs in the SPD (social democratic party) and the editor-in-chief of one of Germany's biggest newspapers. And. . . the topic was about integration in Germany. Of course Buschgirl would be there, right?

Well, yesterday was also Thanksgiving and I have never, ever missed a Thanksgiving in my life. Even in the 12 years I've lived in Germany, I've always rearranged my schedule to park myself in the kitchen (usually with my laptop) and tend to a turkey.

So began my three-day dilemma: turkey or politics. . . .turkey or politics. . .hmmm

What won out in the end? Not just the turkey, but the the tradition I want my kids to get used to, one of the reasons why we send them to a German-American school.

And, really, to attend a talk about integration while ignoring the biggest American holiday would have been kind of ironic, wouldn't it?

So we had a great Thanksgiving (turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, corn bread, cranberry sauce and pie), we invited a good American friend, we said why we were thankful and I read the children the story about the first Thanksgiving in 1620 and how the Pilgrims (the immigrants) and the Native Americans shared a meal (yes, my kids will be in shock when they later find out how the "Indians" were screwed over, as was I). In true multi culti fashion we lit the lanterns our children made for St. Martin's Day.

I'm serious about this, being able to celebrate Thanksgiving made me feel better about being here. Don't get me wrong, I really love Berlin and many things about Germany. But, if you haven't been able to tell, there are things that get on my nerves, too.

But this mini euphoria I experienced while celebrating a familiar holiday, even outside of the USA, was a revelation of sorts. And excuse me if this sounds cornier than, well, cornbread. But this is it, people!! This is what people of other cultures want. Most immigrants want to contribute to their German lives but they also want to be able to step back into the familiar, comforting aspects of their culture, to feel complete.

So there you have it, the politics of turkey.

The Bluest Eye

2010-11-24T14:17:00.009-05:00

"So blonde, so blue-eyed, so pretty: the picture-book woman of German television. . ." reads the headline of this magazine I got on the plane this morning.

True, she's pretty. And according to the rest of the two-page spread she is the "woman that even future mother-in-laws dream of."

So glad I'm not raising girls here. . .

Mr. Vanilla

2010-11-13T13:55:00.006-05:00

I was continuing on with my book tour yesterday and, barely five minutes out of my hotel in Nürnberg, I ran into this coffee shop.

It is not unusual to still see black people in ads for coffee or chocolate in Germany, so it's not as if I was shocked. And the sign makes fun of the German pronunciation of black as "bleck," which threw me off a bit because that part is supposed to be funny.

Still, couldn't the joke come across just as well without the black man serving the coffee?

My son ran into my office as I was transferring the photo from my phone to my computer and he's now learning to read. "Blaaa, Blee ck? Bleck? Why does that say bleck?" my son asked. Then, while I was thinking of how to respond, he asked very seriously, "Are they making fun of people who look like us?"

"They're making fun of the way Germans say black," I said.

"Then why do they have that picture of that man?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "I think it's supposed to be funny."

"I don't think it's funny."

"Me neither."

Are we really surprised there is Cholera in Haiti?

2010-11-06T07:13:00.008-04:00

Originally uploaded by EDV Media Director

Do I have bottled water to brush my teeth?

Do we have any hot water to "take a shower"?

How far does he have to carry that heavy water bucket on his head? And where did he get that water?

Do we have enough tablets to purify the water?

Do the clay water filters have to be changed? How do we know they still work?

While I was visiting Haiti this past spring, these were the thoughts that ran through my head on a regular basis, literally, every day. And I was living in a house that had running water, sometimes, or a servant who fetched water at four o'clock in the morning, then heated it up, so I could pour warm water over my shoulders. (I won't go on about the servant situation here, that is a whole other post).

So it doesn't surprise me when I hear that Cholera is continuing to spread in Haiti. Of course it is. Access to clean water is a huge problem in and has been, long before the earthquake hit this past January.

It is unfathomable to most of us who can simply turn on the faucet and trust that the water that comes out won't make us or our children sick. But in Haiti, water takes on another symbolism entirely. It is not always replenishing or purifying, but dubious and suspect.

In another context, rain comes down and offers growth. In Haiti, it pummels down on houses and now tents, and creates conditions ideal for the spread of diseases.

Anyone who has spent more than 24 hours in Haiti, should not be surprised that Cholera is spreading there. I'm neither a doctor nor a public health expert, but when I saw the living conditions, particularly in the rural areas and in tent cities where I filmed, a red light kept flashing through my mind.

The only surprise is that billions of dollars in aid money could not prevent this.

A Matter of Perspective

2010-11-04T05:31:00.004-04:00

Glass half full
Originally uploaded by nainggolan

I wasn't quite sure which was more shocking, that a bomb hadn't been sent to Berlusconi sooner (of course I don't condone violence, but you'd think a charming personality like his would have bombs delivered to him on a regular basis, "bunga! bunga!") or that the Democrats bombed in Tuesday's elections. The real coronary attack for me was that John Boehner, a tea partier (that "fringe" organization) is now the Speaker of the House. Mama Mia.

I'm trying to see the latter as a glass half full, half empty scenario. Full because Bill Clinton dealt with a majority Republican congress back in 1994 (although, these were not the same nasty, sneaky, overtly racist brand of Republicans that we have today and the economy wasn't as shaky) and out came a balanced budget and a pretty good track record (er, until that whole Monica Lewinsky debacle).

Half empty because, well, ok, I don't think I have to be as creative here. What do you think will happen? And for those of you Americans living abroad, how do you think the election will affect opinions and policy outside of the US?

10 Buschgirl Tips zur perfekten Integration in Deutschland

2010-11-02T12:44:00.005-04:00

(English below)

1. Lernen Sie nicht einfach Deutsch sondern machen Sie mindestens eine Doktorarbeit in Germanistik. Kleben Sie Vokabelkarten auf alle Oberflächen in Ihrer Wohnung um sicherzustellen, dass Ihre Gramatikkenntnisse besser sind als die des durchschnittlichen Deutschen. Selbst wenn ein Deutscher sagt wegem dem Geld, stellen Sie sicher, dass Sie den Genitiv beherrschen und sagen können wegen des Geldes.

2. Bitte Sie Deutsche um ihre Meinung zu Allem und Jedem: Egal ob es dabei darum geht, wie tief man ein Loch in die Wand bohren sollte oder um die Namen der vier Evangelisten. Selbst wenn der Durchschnittsdeutsche die Antworten auf die zweite Frage auch nicht kennt, könnte durch Ihr Interesse zumindest eine Einladung auf ein Glas Wein herausspringen, bei der er anerkennen muss wie gut Sie Deutsch sprechen.

3. Machen Sie lange Spaziergänge (aber tragen Sie dabei auf gar keinen Fall Sportschuhe, Jogginganzug oder eine Goldkette) bei denen Sie sowohl die Möglichkeit haben werden andere Deutsche kennen zu lernen, als auch Blumen zu pflücken, die Sie dann Ihren Nachbarn mitbringen könnten (am besten noch zusammen mit einem leckeren selbstgebackenen Kuchen), wenn Sie zum Nachmittagskaffee eingeladen werden. Sie mögen das für ein kleines unwichtiges Detail halten aber Deutsche sind die weltweit größten Konsumenten von Schnittblumen und trinken jährlich mehr Kaffee als Bier (!).

4. Beschränken Sie sich bei Kopfbedeckungen auf Wollmützen, Ohrschützer, Stirnbänder und Baseballcaps. Schals die nicht ausschließlich um den Hals getragen werden könnten bei Ihren Deutschen Mitbürgern zu Angstattacken, Anstarren und politischen Diskussionen am Kaffeetisch führen und das möchten Sie auf jeden Fall vermeiden!

5. Loben Sie so häufig wie möglich die Vorteile, die es mit sich bringt in Deutschland zu leben (sagenhafte Leistungsfähigkeit, hochwertige Ingenieurskunst, Pünktlichkeit, Erfindungsreichtum und Toleranz). Erwähnen Sie unter keinen Umständen das deutsche Sozialsystem. Sollte dieses Thema aufkommen, erwecken Sie den Anschein, dass Sie keine Ahnung haben wie dieses funktioniert, geschweige denn, wie man Zugang dazu bekommt.

6. Stellen Sie sicher, dass man Sie dabei beobachtet, wie Sie Abfall aufheben, „Recyceln“ und ihren „Wertstoffmüll“ in der richtigen Tonne entsorgen. Stören Sie sich nicht daran, dass Ihr Deutscher Nachbar seinen Müll unsachgemäß entsorgt. Migranten sollten besonders sorgfältig darauf achten den Deutschen Abfall-Moral-Codex nicht zu verletzen.

7. Hängen Sie niemals eine Flagge Ihres Heimatlandes sichtbar in Ihrem Auto oder Ihrem Zuhause auf. Dies könnte zu dem Missverständnis führen, Sie hätten eine Romanze mit einem anderen Land und zu den gleichen Problemen, die Offene Beziehungen auch sonst mit sich bringen (Eifersucht, Misstrauen, Loyalitätszweifel etc.)

8. Sollten Sie Kinder haben, lernen Sie mindestens fünf deutsche Kinderlieder auswendig, drei der einschlägigen Grimms Märchen und alle Sankt Martinslieder an die Sie irgendwie kommen können. Wenn diese Lieder in der Schule gesungen werden singen Sie bitte laut und deutlich mit, so dass man wahrnehmen kann, dass Ihr Kind nicht aus einer sozial schwachen Familie stammt und man sich auch über seinen „Migrationshintergrund“ keine weiteren Gedanken machen muss.

9.Selbst wenn es sich dabei lediglich um eine Wikipedia Zusammenfassung handeln sollte, machen Sie sich mit dem Inhalt von Goethes „Faust“, den „Buddenbrooks“ und der „Zauberflöte“ vertraut. Auch hier spielt es keine Rolle, ob der Durchschnitts Deutsche diese leitkulturellen Werke kennt oder nicht, denn Sie sind die Ausnahme und nicht die Regel.

10. Wenn Sie einkaufen gehen, stellen Sie sicher, dass Sie immer gut angezogen, frisiert und parfümiert sind. Vermeiden Sie es große Taschen zu tragen. Sollten Sie Einkaufstaschen mit sich tragen, beschweren Sie sich beim betreten des nächsten Ladens darüber wie schwer diese sind und bitten Sie darum, sie am Eingang abstellen zu dürfen. Auf diese Weise ersparen Sie dem Securitymitarbeiter am Ausgang, dass er Sie durchsuchen muss, wenn Sie den Laden verlassen.

Buschgirl's Ten Tips for Effective German Integration

2010-10-30T12:47:00.004-04:00

1. Don’t just learn German, get a PhD in it. Tape vocabulary cards to all surfaces of your home to ensure that you have better grammar than the average German butcher. Even if a German says wegen dem Geld, make sure you study the Genetiv and say wegen des Geldes.

2. Ask Germans their opinions on any and every subject, whether it’s how deep to drill in a wall or the names of the four gospels in the New Testament. The average German may not know the answer to this second question but your interest could get you invited over for a glass of wine once he realizes how well you speak German.

3. Go on long walks (under no circumstances wearing sneakers, sweatpants or gold chains) where you have the potential to meet other Germans as well as pick flowers, which you can then bring to your neighbor’s house (preferably with a homemade cake if you’re invited to cake and coffee hour). These seem like small cultural details but the Germans are the world’s largest consumers of cut flowers and drink more coffee annually than they do beer.

4. Try to keep head accessories limited to wool hats, ear muffs, head bands and baseball caps. Scarves worn anyplace but around the neck can lead to anxiety, staring and political talk at the cake and coffee table, which you do not want.

5. Compliment, often, the perks of living in Germany (efficiency, quality engineering, punctuality, industriousness and tolerance.) Do not, under any circumstance, mention the social welfare system. If this is brought up, pretend that you have no idea how the welfare system works or how one might even access it.

6. Be sure to be seen picking up trash on your block, taking your recycling to the dump or responsibly putting your trash in the appropriate container. It doesn’t matter if the German in front of you threw away his trash inappropriately; foreigners have to be especially careful of breaking Germany’s moral rubbish codes.

7. Never have your home country’s flag anyplace visible in your car or home, as this could be construed as having an affair with another country and will undoubtedly lead to all problems associated with any "open" relationship (suspicion, jealousy, questions of loyalty, etc.)

8. If you have kids, try to learn at least five German nursery rhymes, three Grimm fairytales and all Latern Festival related songs. When these songs are sung in school events, be sure to sing loudly and clearly so that the school acknowledges your child is not from a sozial schwache Familie or that it’s not a bad thing that your child has a Migrationshintergrund.

9. Even if it’s a Wikipedia synopsis, become familiar with the plotlines of “Faust,” “Die Buddenbrooks,” and “The Magic Flute”. Again, it doesn’t matter if the average German knows this or not, you are the exception and not the rule.

10. When going shopping, be sure to be well dressed, coiffed and perfumed, and avoid carrying large bags. Or, if you have shopping bags with you when you enter a store, be sure to complain about how heavy they are and ask to leave them by the register so no one has to bother searching you when you leave.

Hamburg and beyond. . .

2010-10-27T07:40:00.001-04:00

Hamburg from above
Originally uploaded by =Thomas=

Thanks for a great reading last night Hamburg. And thanks to the Amerikazentrum for hosting it.

I'm relieved I didn't get any "Do blacks belong to different social classes in the USA or are they all poor?" or the "What is your kids' hair texture like?" questions last night.

Two questions did give me the impression that I was supposed to somehow congratulate integrated immigrants or speak about why I/my parents were so integrated. While I don't want all immigrants to be lumped into a pot/drawer, I also don't care to diss those who don't have their act together. That is divisive and helps no one. We all know the statistics.

The language and job thing is a no brainer and I don't think I really need to go there. But if a person can speak German, work and pay his taxes then let him live how he wants, geesh. So what if he doesn't live amongst or like Germans, hautpsache, he is contributing to German society in a his/her own way.

Anyway, I think I have blogged ad nauseum about this topic, so I'll give it a little rest for now.

Next stop, Nürnberg . . .

Go read Buschgirl! Recommend it, give is as gifts, leave a review on a book website and be merry!

The Power of Words

2010-10-20T05:11:00.007-04:00

Every Person A Map
Originally uploaded by ::Taylor::

Christian Wulff, Germany's President, has been the only voice of reason since the integration debate heated up a couple of months ago.

Even before Chancellor Merkel and her CDU party member, Seehofer, began polarizing the immigration issue, Wulff made a speech (on Germany's reunification day) that said Islam was as much a part of Germany as Christianity and Judaism. It was an important wake up message that Wulff is spicing up this week on a visit to Turkey, where the majority of Germany's immigrants hail.

Wulff has also been criticial of the sweeping generalizations of all Turks and immigrants, which is what brings me to the point I'd like to address in this post (if these annoying red words haven't already).

As a black American I am well aware of the pervasiveness of stereotypes. Regardless of our class and education, my friends and family have been racially profiled by the police, wrongly accused, offended, marginalized and patronized long before political correctness became a part of the American psyche.

How did this happen? Constant images of black Americans in the news as criminals, welfare recipients and prisoners, backed, of course, by statistics that appeared everywhere; politicians who threw these statistics into every speech; entertainment that confirmed negative caricatures; curricula in schools that rarely taught examples of successful blacks; harsher sentences for "black offenders". . . the list can go on and on.

The process of throwing people into a drawer can be long and, as we have learned in the United States, can take even longer to reverse.

When one group of immigrants is demonized (by politicians or in the media) all immigrants feel offended. When there are few distinctions made between hard-working, law abiding, society contributing immigrants and immigrants uninterested in German society, then Germany will steadily lose and repel the former.

Ask an Indian or an African or a Turkish engineer (which Germany desperately needs right now) how enthusiastic he is about finding a job in Germany when he reads the current headlines. A German friend recently lamented that a brilliant scientist friend of hers from Sudan wants to leave Germany because of how he is treated on a daily basis.

Is it because every German he meets is a racist? Probably not. But everyone he meets has read headlines telling them that immigrants are more likely to have no education, live off the dole and be criminals.

Never sleep on the power of a headline or a quote repeated over and over again. Milllions of people don't really read or even know how to process what they read, so a headline or a soundbite can have a lasting impact on a busy brain.

"Multi Culti is Dead!"

2010-10-16T04:29:00.018-04:00

If them ain't fightin' words . . .? (from CDU's Horst Seehofer) who said that the CDU is no longer backing a multiculti platform, rather standing behind Germany's "dominant culture" ideal.

So tolerance is out of style, multiculti is dead and immigrants in Germany need to assimilate to the German dominant culture already, basta. And, as Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said, immigrants need to "accept Germans' Christian roots, otherwise they are in the wrong place."

(correction: Angie does indeed refer to Germany's Judeo-Christian roots, still. . . Advocating for a dominant culture and/or religion is a familiar and dangerous platform here.)

So let me get this straight. These words are supposed to help the integration debate? What are they going to do now, pull that old "Germany is not an immigration country?" out of their hats again? This kind of language is embarrassing for Germany. These politicians sound like a bunch of rednecks standing at the side of the road while visitors drive by "their land."

Of course immigrants should learn German, get jobs and a grip but making the sign of the cross in the Bundestag is not going to help this issue. Germans can't complain that the Islamic religion is intolerant while German politicians keep yacking on about Christian values. Is Germany a secular democracy or is it not?

The return to conservative values is offically a trend all over Europe and in the United States. The problem with these societies, according to the crux of this trend, is that they have lost their grasp on the founding values that made their countries so darned great.

Why these values always become synonymous with "Christian" values is beyond me, as Christianity is not explicitly mentioned in the German Grundgesetz or the US Consititution? How do we so quickly buy into the belief that democratic values are only Christian values?

And newsflash, I speak fluent German, was raised Catholic, I'm educated and I am still asked however on earth I learned to speak German, as if I'm a monkey incapable of attending a German course. I am not served water in a stuffy Logenhaus full of white Germans. I am duzed by Germans who do not know me. I am asked ridiculous questions about the color of my skin or my hair and my Christian upbringing didn't shield me from any of that ignorance.

Multikulti, Mr. Seehofer, is neither understood nor valued. A statement like "Multikulti is dead," coming from a politician, basically digs a grave for integration. Nice work.

Photo: flickr

How Accurate is this Poll?

2010-10-14T03:13:00.004-04:00

For example, 32 percent approve of the statement that "When there's a shortage of jobs, foreigners should be sent back home;" 34 percent agree or strongly agree with the statement that "Foreigners only come here to exploit Germany's social welfare system;" and 35 percent think that "Germany has a dangerous level of foreign influence as a result of the many foreigners in the country."

Click to read the entire article at Deutsche Welle.

What does it take to be German?

2010-10-13T14:58:00.004-04:00

Germany 3-1 Bosnia - 03.6.2010
Originally uploaded by LizNN7

Now that some readers have found out a little bit about my parents' Haitian background, I've been hearing, "I didn't realize you were Haitian?" Or, "You're not really American then?"

This shouldn't surprise me in a country where a third generation German of Turkish descent, soccer star, Mesut Özil, had his loyalty to the German team repeatedly questioned when Germany recently played against Turkey. It was ridiculous to hear the speculation about where Özil's heart really lies. Why didn't the journalists just come out and ask, "Can a German with Turkish background really be German, a loyal German?"

Why is that so hard to believe? Why is Lukas Podolski's loyalty, a Polish born player on the German national team, never questioned? Or Miroslav Klose's, also Polish born? I never saw any headlines questioning their identities? Is it because they can pass as "German looking?"

What does a person have to do to be seen as German? I know there is a special friction with Turkish immigrants here but why is it so difficult to believe that Özil feels German or that I feel American?

When I went to Haiti last spring, I stuck out like a sore thumb. Everyone knew I wasn't from there and several referred to me as a blanc (white person/foreigner). Why? Because I'm an American, born and raised, no matter how much I love rice and beans.

At a reading recently, a woman candidly told me that it is still weird for her to see a black person and hear him speak "Bavarian". At least she was honest. But when will this stop feeling weird for Germans, I wonder?

If you can be born and raised in Germany and still not be considered German, then just what does it take?

Buschgirl on the Road. . .

2010-10-06T07:51:00.008-04:00

I'm packing my book, some sweaters, an umbrella and a light armor and making my way around Germany and Austria. But before I get on the next train, I'd like to debunk a few myths concerning Buschgirl:

1. Buschgirl is not a travel book! Buschgirl ist keine Reiseliteratur! Somehow, the book has landed in travel sections all across Germany and is currently sharing shelves with Reiseführer, Hotelführer and Feinschmecker. . .do not be fooled! Buschgirl is a biographical tale (aka memoir, Erringerungen) of my life in these here parts. . . .

2. Irony/Ironie, tongue in cheek, eye winking/Augenzwinkern is a part of the Buschgirl experience. I'll say no more about this point, because that would, well, destroy the irony. (not so much a myth per se, but FYI)

3. Although I'll be reading in Freiburg in January, I do not live there, as I have read somewhere on this vast Internet.

4. Please check the schedule of readings on buschgirl.de or on the C. Bertelsmann website for accurate listings. I have spotted some mistakes.

5. I wrote the book in English but it is only available in German at this time. While I can be (quite easily) persuaded to do some readings in English, only German copies of the book will be sold. But, for those of you German-as-a-second-language folks, this is pretty simple German and easy reading.

Can't wait to meet some of you in person. Until then . . . let the currents flow!

Photo: flickr

What they did vs. What they are. . .

2010-09-27T14:36:00.004-04:00

More than one person has now asked me why in my new book, Buschgirl I never sock it to Germans who are racist . .call em out, tell it like it is. . .

Being who I've been for almost forty years, I've discovered that people, especially Germans, respond better to example than to labelling. It's ironic, because I am always being labeled. Yet I've found the best way to let people see themselves, is by letting them go about their business in front of a mirror.

No one can deny his/her own reflection.

Listen to this very smart You Tube Professor explain the difference between calling someone out on his actions (concrete) rather than defining (slippery) what kind of person he is.

He speaks fast, so pay attention. . .especially at 2:34

If You're PC and You Know It . . . Clap Your Hands

2010-09-19T15:10:00.003-04:00

Politically Incorrect??
Originally uploaded by FrankLong

The other night I found myself at an event in Berlin, whose title promised some flair of intercultural understanding and exchange. Actually, all the dry speeches ended up being about intercultural understanding and exchange and a couple of diversity and multiculturalisms tossed in.

Meanwhile, hanging on wooden walls, were portraits of old white men, which had clearly been painted shortly before their deaths. Most of them looked distressed, in pain or chronically constipated.

In a room of about 150 people, I spotted one Indian woman in a sari and one other black woman who admitted she'd been dragged in by a neighbor.

I brought my mother, who is visiting Germany, and we sat on the periphery in a row of other bored looking people, as the tables were all occupied. A waitress came by with glasses and water and gave each person in our row a glass and a bottle of water. With glasses still on her tray, she walked passed my mother and me without as much as a glance in our direction.

It stung immediately. My mother and I exchanged a look and the stillness that followed felt heavy and long. Finally, a man sitting next to me got up, came over and gave us his water.

I tried to focus on the speeches, I tried to move past the actions of one person. But as the speeches came to a close, a woman walked over to me and asked, "Du verstehst Englisch?" You understand English? (familiar form of "you" not typically used with strangers, at least not in that woman's generation).

I felt like getting up and screaming, "Multiculturalism is not about having most of the people of color in one city living in the worst neighborhood. It's not about inviting a few tokens to an event and then patronizing them. It's not, for God's sake, talking about it and then not even experiencing it on a daily basis (because you live in a "good neighborhood").

But what would have been the point? They probably would have agreed and started clapping. . . and then they would have gone right back to their roasted pork.

Pre-Release Robbery

2010-09-17T02:55:00.008-04:00

I had a great book release party, thanks to The US Embassy in Berlin, my publisher, C. Bertelsmann and Institute for Cultural Diplomacy and, of course, to Jana Napoli, the delightful artist who allowed me to have a reading in the midst of her exhibit.

Then. . .

FOR THE SAKE OF KARMA, PEACE OF MIND AND LETTING BS GO. . . I HAVE DELETED THE REST OF THIS POST. COMMENTS I'VE LEFT, BECAUSE THEY'RE MOSTLY POSITIVE WELL WISHES. THANK YOU!

Lost in New York

2010-09-12T09:43:00.003-04:00

NYC: World Trade Center
Originally uploaded by wallyg

Even after nearly twelve years, I still get lost when I walk around Berlin. This city is huge and landmarks are sprawled across an enormous grey landscape.

Here I have no internal GPS, no radar, no sense of north or south. I'm terrible at reading maps. My lack of orientation in Berlin is so bad that even my kids, when we've passed the same corner, start interrogating me, "You don't know where you're going, do you, mom?"

In Manhattan, for as long as I can remember, the Twin Towers gave me a sense of direction. When I was 13 and finally allowed to go to ballet lessons by myself, I'd come out of the subway and stare hopelessly at all of the street corners, trying to decide which way was downtown. Then I'd spot them, the long twin narrow tips reaching into the clouds and I'd shift into gear

and confidently walk toward them.

Today, whenever I visit New York, the gap in the skyline is still disorienting even nine years later. Orientierungslos, "orientationless" somehow the German word fits better.

Even more disorienting, however, are the Americans, my fellow New Yorkers who confuse that tragic day nine years ago with the beginning of a war with Islam. New York City, where most likely every nationality and religion is represented. New York, the city in the USA not only accepting of diversity but expecting of it.

What happened to my New York? We lost so many precious lives on September 11th and now we're losing the true sense of who we are. This is the place people go to be different, to be accepted, to be anything they want to be. This is a place where we have seen everything and it has made us stronger for it. This is the place that serves as a refuge for the gay teenager from Wisconsin or the freaky artist from Idaho. New York is where a Rabbi can can expect a Jamaican to wish him Happy Hannukah or an Ethiopian to marry a Tibetan.

We don't do religious discrimination in New York. This is not who we are or who we want to be.

We are lost, New York, very lost.

FKK

2010-09-06T07:20:00.005-04:00

FKK
Originally uploaded by Habakuks Ansichten

I know, sometimes one sees more than one would like. That's what I unfortunately witnessed yesterday when we took our kids to a lake in the woods and saw Berliners chilling in the FKK (freie koerper kultur) style and baring it all.

I always have to check my Americanness when I see this and forced myself yesterday to cough back a few giggles.

My half German kids on the other hand, who go to the woods more frequently with their dad, didn't even take a second look! How's that for a cultural difference? My very young kids don't react to nudity in public and I, a woman who is nearly 40, can't, um, hang. It's still very, very weird for me.

But I acknowledge this cultural difference. What I can't figure out, though, is how Germans manage not to stare at each other when they're all hanging out buck naked yet I can be fully clothed and people still stare at me?

Think I'll just keep my clothes on for now.

Darf man das SAGEN was viele Menschen DENKEN?

2010-08-29T06:31:00.003-04:00

Sarrazin Buchpraemiere Hurra, wir duerfen zahlen
Originally uploaded by Pressefoto Berlin

(see below for English version)

Heute morgen war ich in unserem kleinen Buchladen an der Ecke. In den knapp zehn Minuten die ich dort verbrachte kamen fünf Leute rein, die das neue Buch von Thilo Sarrazin „Deutschland schafft sich ab“ bestellen wollten. Das Buch, dass von den Medien als anti-muslimisch und fremdenfeindlich gebrandmarkt wird ist ausverkauft bevor es überhaupt in den Buchläden liegt.

Natürlich ist Sarazzin, Mitglied der SPD und im Vorstand der Bundesbank, als Provokateur bekannt. Niemand ist wirklich überrascht von seinen aufwieglerischen Kommentaren über Minderheiten, insbesondere Ausländer. Trotzdem scheint er mit seinem neuesten Buch über den angeblichen Niedergang der Deutschen durch die Immigranten auf viel Anklang zu stoßen.

Natürlich hat sich die deutsche Regierung, inklusive der Kanzlerin, schnellstmöglich von Sarrazin distanziert und seine Ausführungenals „schädlich“, „diffamierend“, „polarisierend“, „nicht hilfreich“ bezeichnet.

Natürlich hat die Presse einige besonders scharfe und lächerlich rassistische Passagen aus dem Buch veröffentlicht. Diejenige, die ich jedoch als besonders beunruhigend empfinde ist folgende:

„Ich möchte nicht, dass das Land meiner Enkel und Urenkel zu großen Teilen muslimisch ist, dass dort über weite Strecken Türkisch und Arabisch gesprochen wird, die Frauen ein Kopftuch tragen und der Tagesrhythmus vom Ruf der Muezzine bestimmt wird. Wenn ich das erleben will, kann ich eine Urlaubsreise ins Morgenland buchen.“

Es sind solche Bemerkungen, die die meisten vernünftigen Menschen nicht wirklich ablehnen können und ich habe sie so oder ähnlich in Deutschland immer wieder gehört. Sie rühren an die tiefsten Ängste vieler Deutscher, die Sarrazin, mit Hilfe der Statistik, bestätigt, die beweist, dass sich Immigranten viel schneller „vermehren“ als die „einheimische“ deutsche Bevölkerung.

Ich habe mir dann bei „Amazon“ die Kommentare zu seinem Buch angeschaut (selbstverständlich weiß ich, dass diese oft von Freunden des Autors verfasst werden). Es gab mehr als 20 Rezensionen mit 5 Sternen, alle scheinen zu bestätigten, dass Sarrazin das ausspricht, was viele denken. Wird deshalb innerhalb weniger als einer Woche bereits die dritte Auflage des Buches gedruckt?

Vielleicht sollte ich Herrn Sarrazin ein Exemplar meines eigenen Buches schicken: „Buschgirl: Wie ich unter die Deutschen geriet“ (C.Bertelsmann Verlag) , selbstverständlich handsigniert. Er würde einen anschaulichen Eindruck davon bekommen, was aus seinem Deutschland inzwischen geworden ist.

Is it OK to say IT if a lot of people are thinking IT?

2010-08-28T08:18:00.012-04:00

I was in our small local bookstore this morning and in the ten minutes I spent there, five people came in to order Thilo Sarrazin's new book, "Germany Does Away with Itself." Slammed by almost every media outlet as anti-Muslim and xenophobic, the book was sold-out before it was even available in book stores.

Sarrazin, a member of the Social Democratic Party and currently on the board of the German Central Bank, is already known for being a provocateur. No one is terribly surprised when he makes some incendiary comment about any particular group, particularly foreigners. However, he has struck a chord in his new book about the supposed demise of Germany through its immigrant population. Everyone high up in government, inculding the chancellor, has been quick to distance her/himself from Sarrazin and has called his language "injurious, defamatory, divisive, unhelpful. . ."

The press has printed some pretty hot, ridiculously racist passages from the book, but the one that I find most troublesome is this one:

"I don't want the country of my grandchildren and great grandchildren to be largely Muslim, or that Turkish or Arabic will be spoken in large areas, that women will wear headscarves and the daily rhythm is set by the call of the muezzin. If I want to experience that, I can just take a vacation in the Orient."

See, this is the comment that most sane people can't immediately dismiss. I've heard this sentiment repeated over and over again in Germany. This statement touches upon real fears that Sarrazin confirms, through the use of statistics showing that immigrants reproduce faster than the "indegenous" German population.

I went over to Amazon to see what the comments looked like. (Yes, I know that author's friends often write those reviews.) There were about 20 5-star reviews, all of which say that Sarrazin is basically writing what everyone is thinking. Is that why, in less than a week, the book is already in its third printing?

Maybe I should send Sarrazin my upcoming book, "Buschgirl: Wie ich unter die Deutschen geriet" (C. Bertelsmann Verlag). I can give him a personally-signed copy and a visual taste of what his Germany has become.

Stay tuned for more on Buschgirl. Release date is September 20, 2010.

And Pakistan?

2010-08-26T04:02:00.004-04:00

pakistani children
Originally uploaded by ameerhamza45

At a recent gathering a woman handed me a donation for our orphanage in Haiti. Then she casually mentioned that she had also just donated to Pakistan. Well, this comment started up a discussion that went a little something like this:

Person 1: "If I donate to Pakistan, I don't know if my money is going to end up with Al-Queda."

Person 2: "Well, if Al-Queda is helping drowing children, shouldn't we give them money anyway?"

Person 1: "What if some of that money goes to terrorist activities?"

Person 2: "Do we always know where money to the big aid organizations goes? I say, give money to whoever is helping."

Person 3: "I just think all this press about Islamaphobia toward Pakistan is completely untrue. And when that is talked about, people feel even less like donating because they're being called racist."

Person 2: "Why then has such little money gone to Pakistan? It's an enormous disaster and there isn't as much money being donated there?"

The fact that people haven't donated to Pakistan as they did for Haiti or after the Tsunami in Indonesia, has become a bigger story than the flooding itself, which, as person 3 says, doesn't help matters. But to deny the wave of Islamaphobia that is very prevelant in Europe and the USA right now is naive.

French bans on burkas, Swiss bans on minarets, a murder of a Muslim woman in a German courtroom. . .

Or the anger over the supposed "9/11 mosque". Why does the tragedy of that day give some Americans a pass to be Islamaphobic? We suffered so all Muslims and anything representing the faith of Islam shouldn't be anywhere near Ground Zero. What kind of logic is that? Newsflash: Islam did not crash those planes into the Trade Center, terrorist religious zealots did. Why some Americans can't make this distinction is a tragedy to the very American ideal of religious freedom and tolerance.

And that human beings can't make distinctions between fundamentalism and innocent, drowning children, who cry and suffer just like their own children do, is an even a bigger tragedy for humanity.

Bush Girl Alert: Who Can Tan?

2010-08-16T05:15:00.002-04:00

dark-skin-light-skin-pic_edited-3
Originally uploaded by NusaibaTheArtist/L.E.G.A.C.Y

At the end of every summer, when my family has returned from the USA, we often hear "Wow, the boys really tanned." When I say, "All of us have," there is at least one of the following responses:

1. Blank stare of confusion

2. Wide-eyed look of shock. "Really?"/"Im Ernst?"

3. Skeptical look. "How is that possible? You tan?" /"Wie? Du wirst dunkler?"

I'm not sure why this is so hard to believe? Why should my skin (tissue) have different properties than white skin?? I really don't understand why this is such a bizarre concept? And why do they notice that my children have gotten darker and not me? And this time, I am considerably darker than before. It seems like such an irrelevant point but it does make me wonder how much people actually see other people.

I certainly notice when my white friends tan. I notice when they get burned. It's weird.

Any ideas or explanations?

Wyclef Jean's Naive Passion

2010-08-06T17:15:00.005-04:00

Wyclef Jean
Originally uploaded by Hkk09

Everyone who had some connection to Haiti, be it through blood or sheer humanity, was stunned into action on the day of the earthquake. The most passionate wanted to fly to the Dominican Republic, hitch a ride across the border and pull a crying baby from the rubble. But everyone wanted to donate money, give time, help with a fundraiser, create an NGO, adopt a Haitian child, something, anything to help.

I am still convinced that Haiti's survival mostly likely rests in the hands of non-Haitians and Haitians in the Diaspora. Haiti hasn't been able to rely on the government for even basic services for years. Even Haitians critical of past politicians get elected and end up in the vortex of corruption.

So I can respect Wyclef Jean's run for presidency of Haiti. I can appreciate his very American-like rescue dream, to save a country that he loves and to which he is rooted. I admire his creativity and the work he has done for Haiti. But I do believe his passion is naive, his vision is vague and short-sighted and that just because he can run for president of Haiti, doesn't mean that he should.

I am not terribly interested in the vilification of Wyclef surrounding the drama of the ill-spent $400,000 from his non-profit organization, Yele, but I do think it is telling of his fiscal naivete. Wyclef may have cried on Oprah saying he didn't do wrong, but, well, it doesn't look good. There is a tax return that doesn't exactly help his case. Did he mean to? I'm hoping not. But that doesn't fly when people are starving, tent cities get flooded and children don't have schools. No amount of crying can save Haiti, not even tears with the best of intentions.

To be fair, Wyclef is not alone in dubiously spent aid money. I already wrote about what I saw when I visited Haiti in May. Lots of people were helping but they were also driving $80,000 cars and living in $10,000/month villas as their hearts bled for the poor they went to save. . .

I am not saying that the same will happen with Wyclef but I fear that if he lacks the understanding of how $400,000 can go astray, then he certainly has no idea what awaits him in a country that has run, at every level, on a well-greased corruption machine for decades.

As a child of Haitian immigrants, I feel Wyclef's desire to help. I understand it at a deep level. We all watched television and considered how close we were to having grown up in Haiti and ending up crushed under a building.

But don't we, (since we know what a real government means to a country) want a Haitian leader who has some experience in governance? Don't we want someone who studied constitutional law or history? Shouldn't we have the same expectations of a Haitian leader that we'd have of an American leader? If Wyclef says that the USA has Obama and Haiti has Wyclef, then Wyclef sure as hell better hurry up and offer something more than a love for Haiti as a plan.

Haiti's problems are too great and the people need too much to take a risk on a rookie, even a well-meaning one.

Still in the USA. . .

2010-07-27T10:23:00.003-04:00

We're still in the USA, as you can tell by a lack of posts. The kids are speaking real English, they are getting to know my friends' kids, they are learning to swim and they are experiencing the other part of their heritage. . .

More to come on some of our experiences but one sprang to mind that I had to mention before we return.

We're currently on Cape Cod and were taking a walk around Hyannis, where JFK once lived, and right outside of the JFK visitor center, there were two twenty-somethings holding a picture of Obama with a Hitler-type moustache. "Impeach Obama" was printed on the bottom in large white letters. The photo was pasted directly next to a picture of the real dictator.

It was the first real negative encounter we've had since arriving here last month. My kids didn't know this, of course, which is why I didn't give a longer response to one of the demonstrators who said hello to me. I merely said, "I don't agree." What I really wanted to say was:

"You should be ashamed of yourself comparing a mass murderer to Barack Obama. . .get a history book moron. . . you are belittling the gravity of The Holocaust by doing this. . .you are naive and embarrassing. . .my German husband feels like telling you a little something about your immature, cheap and unimaginative cartoon there. . .Adolf Hitler is not synonomous with "I don't like X, so let's compare him to the last centruy's most horrific figure".

Like I said, I was with my children, and I didn't want to get into a discussion. When my son asked me why I said "I don't agree" I said that it's my right as well as theirs to say what we believe. I was really thinking "Even ignorant people have the right to free speech."

Jim Knopf vs. Port-au-Prince

2010-06-24T02:26:00.006-04:00

I have been a neglectful blogger, I know, but not because of sheer flakiness. Part of me has been debating whether or not it makes sense to continue pointing out miniscule details in the German culture that I find strange, unsettling or unpleasant, after my experience in Haiti. I had one of those, "you think you've got it tough" reality checks on life and I felt like Bush Girl had little relevance in a world where people are still starving.

But even after seeing children in tent cities, babies lying on filthy pavement with NGOs driving by, even after understanding that aid is a business just like any other, I still came back to my life, this life. I had a different perspective but that did nothing to change my personal history and what irks or interests me on a daily basis.

For example, I recently went to a school picnic with my children and in a span of one hour, I'd been offered a Negerkuss and then saw a wooden statue of this Sambo/Lawn Jockey look-alike, aka Jim Knopf, (pictured above) at the playground. It drives me crazy that this figure is still depicted like this. So I asked an American, "Is it just me?" He replied, "No, that's pretty bad."

But I have evolved. I simply said to the mothers "They're called Chocolate Kisses now," and they looked at me stunned. They'd been calling those things Negro/Nigger Kisses all their lives and it never occurred to them to call it anything else. (And for the record, the German official dictionary, The Duden, even says the term Neger should no longer be used in spoken German)

The Jim Knopf thing is a little more complex because it is simply a matter of conflicting historical backgrounds at play. Americans, of all races, are fimiliar with the Sambo character and Jim Knopf looks exacly like him. Here in Germany there is simply no such association with the caricatur and millions of books have been printed with this ridiculously dark and big-lipped kid on the cover, the hero named Jim Knopf.

Is it still important to discuss? I think so. Does it still bother me, even after I saw things in Haiti that are more disturbing? For sure. Is it the end of the world? Definitely not, but that too, is a matter of perspective.

Street Corner Irony in Port-au-Prince

2010-06-05T06:51:00.007-04:00

The car might have a better chance at being repaired soon. . .

"The strange life," in the background is a UN truck.

An ad for condoms. Behind the earthquake rubble it reads, "Pleasure and Security".

The barbed wire can't keep out the bougainvillea. . .

Photos: Rose-Anne Clermont

"Mwen pa wè aid la."

2010-06-01T10:45:00.021-04:00

I don't see the aid. This I heard from people I interviewed in tent cities, which are spread across the landscapes of Haiti. Thousands of people moved into these temporary homes since the January 12th earthquake and, nearly five months later, they are still living in them.

Living is a relative term. I tried to spend more than ten minutes in such a tent and I grew sweaty and dizzy. The floor is dirt, the air is stifled. When it rains, some tell me, they simply don't sleep. They stand and wait for the rain to stop, which can mean long hours that creep into dawn.

Lucky children wake up in their tents, put on uniforms and go to school, some of which are also under tents. Parents try to sell something, anything. Everyone in Haiti, it seems, has something to sell. I wonder who is buying the bags of water, the cut up sugar cane, the homemade peanut sweets?

Trash is piled high on the rubble. As we drive through undrivable roads, we all close the windows because the smell of garbage is nauseating. In Carrefour, I see a woman and a family of pigs simultaneously looking for something to eat in the rubbish pile.

In Port-au-Prince, I see two NGO trucks speed past a baby sleeping on the side of the road. I see toddlers playing with trash. I see things I was not prepared to see five months after the international community donated millions of dollars to Haiti.

I see their SUVs, I see their well-staffed offices, (which is more than I can say about the Haitian government, which is eerily absent) I see their names printed on tents, but I wonder, too, Kikote aid la? Where is the aid?

On Route . . .

2010-05-22T02:56:00.001-04:00

A pilot from an American Airlines flight waves a Haitian flag.
Originally uploaded by Official U.S. Navy Gallery

I'm on my way to my mother's motherland. Excited, a little nervous and wildly curious. I'll keep you posted. . . bis bald.

Is PC BS? They All Look Alike

2010-05-14T13:09:00.006-04:00

eye (i) Stop Him..
Originally uploaded by elsakawai™

This is a new category you'll be seeing on my blog as I ponder the question, "Is PC BS?" Does PC etiquette prevent true discourse? Is anyone really capable of being PC and honest? I have listened to so many non-PC statements since I've been in Germany that I'm beginning to wonder if PCism exists, if it's on a path toward slow death or if it is regarded as a serious form of communication at all?

I should have started this category months ago but it was a seemingly banal interaction that I had recently, which made me sit down and start writing this.

I met an interesting group of Korean people at a party last week and somehow we got on the topic of people confusing them for being Chinese, Japanese, ______ (insert Asian nationality here). I immediately said I couldn't believe how ignorant some people are.

"Well, sometimes we can't tell either," one Korean woman said to me. "Like sometimes I can't tell between a Japanese and a Korean."

I was in shock, rendered speechless.

Then her Korean friend added in, "And you know what's really hard? Telling apart Germans."

My eyes must have been enormous by this point.

"I swear to you," the friend continued, "my grandmother calls all of my German friends by the same name. She can't tell one blonde person apart from the next." He was serious.

So here I am wondering, "Ok, so true PC behavior says we're not allowed to say all people of one race or ethnicity look a like. For one, it's not true. If one more person says I look like Michelle Obama. . . .but when Asian people say this, then I'm tripped up. Do the rules bend? WTF?

I used to HATE IT when people confused me for a black girl who looked absolutely nothing like me. But then I got to college and people trying to be PC were afraid to say that I was black. They kept referring to me as "the tall girl."

So are we now post-PC?

POP THIS!

2010-05-03T12:19:00.003-04:00

Originally uploaded by tommyajohansson

I was on my way to pick-up my children when I saw a woman, maybe in her late 30s and holding a small child's hand, as she walked down a busy street. Obviously happy to have warm spring weather, she put on a short-sleeved t-shirt.

POP THIS. She was walking around wearing that! I felt like pulling over and saying something. How embarrassing? A message like that in the lingua franca. Didn't it occur to her that most people here speak English???

Our cleaning woman once came over with a t-shirt that read I LIKE IT FROM THE BACK and I nearly lost it.

"Do you know what that means?!!!!" I asked her. She shrugged and admitted she had no idea.

"Don't you care?" I insisted. "How can you put on a shirt with words on it and have no idea what it says?"

"It's just to hang out in," she replied nonchalantly.

This is one of the reasons why I never got into that fad of wearing t-shirts with Japanese characters on it. It seems so ridiculous to sport attire that has no meaning to me? I'm sure our old cleaning woman had no idea she was explaining her sexual, er, preferences. . .but she didn't care.

English is so trendy here that people pepper their German sentences with as much English as they can, sometimes incorrectly. I no longer blink when I see ads with the words feeling or emotion printed in shiny letters.

Maybe ads in English sell products faster?

Can English as a second language really make people feel so good?

True Americans

2010-04-28T04:15:00.002-04:00

Minneapolis protest against Arizona immigrant law SB 1070
Originally uploaded by Fibonacci Blue

Back in the day, our parents told us that because they were immigrants, they had to work harder, be better educated, be better dressed, be better prepared, be over prepared, all the time. I never wanted this to be true, but even as a kid, I knew deep down that it was.

I realized later that this was a burden my parents were willing to carry so that their children, born and raised in the USA, wouldn't have to. (Sorry mom and dad, guess I blew that by moving here!) Despite their "foreignness" my parents raised very American children.

But who knows that, really? Can you look at me and see that I speak American English? Do I look legal? If I were to carry a white baby through Central Park, would I still look legal?

The contentious new Arizona law, which essentially allows for racial profiling of anyone (born in America or not), is like throwing my parents' and other immigrants' hard work and investment in the United States in the trash. So what that my parents treated sick Americans? So what that they paid taxes to build roads and schools? Based on the Arizona law, which allows anyone who looks "suspicious" regardless of whether or not she saved a life, taught a kid how to read, or cleaned a public building, her constitutionl rights take the back seat to her appearance, or simply someone else's prejudices.

Why is there no systematic profiling for businesses that "look" like they hire illegal immigrants. Aren't there telltale signs? Shouldn't some accountant be checking a company's ratio of profits to its labor costs? Isn't it suspicious when the 10 workers actually on the books are miraculously doing the work of 30?

These exploitative businesses are the real criminals. They thrive on cheap, illegal labor, get out of paying taxes and insurances and "take jobs away from Amuurrrrrrricans." They are allowed to break one law after the next while Mexicans (and it's mostly Mexicans we're talking about here) are asked to show an ID because they can't earn a decent living in their own country thanks, in part, to American masterminded free trade agreements.

Illegal immigrants are not the enemy. The enemies are poverty, violence and corruption on the American side of the border, by "true Americans." Whatever that is. . .

Precious in a Foreign Place

2010-04-20T02:51:00.008-04:00

I couldn't completely understand why my black girlfriends back home (in the US) were so resistant to seeing the film Precious. Obviously, no one is dying to go see a sad film about sexual abuse, poverty, ignorance . . . you name it, the movie is packed with modern tragedies.

But the thing is, it's not just about anybody, it's about a black young woman and that was reason enough for my friends to say, "No, not again. We've come too far. . . .we don't need another depiction of us as fat, lazy, ignorant welfare mothers.

I was the first to say, "Hold on, black men once said that about The Color Purple," but it is one of the most important books/films of our generation. Just because a (single) truth is ugly, doesn't mean it shouldn't be told.

Then, when my husband and I couldn't get tickets to see another film, we settled on Precious, which was recently released in Germany.

I know the story. I reviewed the novel, Push, upon which the film is based. And I interviewed the author, Sapphire, many years ago in a Brooklyn café. Yet I felt uneasy walking into that film with my German husband in a European country where there is still so little understood about Black American culture and the dynamics of race and poverty.

And, which is too often the plague of black folks everywhere, I took ownership of the shame. That "Now they'll think we're all like this." But when we walked into a nearly empty theater, scattered with young white faces, it hit me that now is precisely the time when those fears can really be let go.

Precious wasn't released in 1980, but now. We've got Michelle! We've got Oprah! We've got Toni Morrison! We've always had Zora Neal Hurston.

To focus on the negative images of us as black women is a choice, for us and everyone else. Of course, we can’t always help how we're depicted (how often was Michelle Obama referred to as angry?) but we can, for our own dignity and development, focus on our true public role models, of which there are many. Not enough, I didn't say that. But I do think we are at a place in time when a movie like Precious doesn’t have to threaten us.

Selective Memory

2010-04-08T17:35:00.007-04:00

I attended high school in Maryland, and while it wasn't as southern as Virginia, I do remember the rednecks who demanded to know why we didn't celebrate "white history month."

Well, as if their prayers were answered, Governor McDonnell of Virginia whipped up "Confederate History Month." And get this, McDonnell decided to omit slavery as part of Confederate history??? Really? Did McDonnell attend my highschool?

(watch him below coming up with a sorry explanation for his unique twist on history)

Ok, so he wanted to focus on the "positive" aspects of the Confederacy. But how can anyone, seriously, even a Pole born in 1985, think of Confederate history and not have slavery come to mind?

That's like trying to imagine The Weimar Republic and not having any recollection of the Nazis' rise to power?

It's ridiculous, does McDonnell think our memories are that bad?

Rebuilding Our Parents' Home

2010-03-31T17:16:00.003-04:00

Check me out today on The Root . It's a story about Haitian-Americans, more specifically children of Haitians in the American Diaspora going to Haiti to help in rebuilding efforts.

Thanks for stopping by.

Oh, and since I'm really in the bush, that is outside of Berlin, I have no idea what my Internet access will be like over the next few days. . .

Happy Easter. . .

Imagining (Home)

2010-03-22T18:11:00.006-04:00

Warn out Welcome
Originally uploaded by DeeDivynePhotos

I can't pretend that I haven't thought about it before, but waking to the news of the healthcare bill passing in the second chamber of congress. . . well, brought back vivid pipe dreams of returning to the United States.

Seriously, why would anyone leave universal healthcare, subsidized daycare, a fair cost of living and a pretty generous social net to go to a place that offers absolutely none of that? It wasn't exactly rocket science. Even though I missed family, my culture, American people (minus the ignorant and racist teabaggers). . . none of that compared to my family's quality of life here in Germany.

Now that Obama has succeeded in pushing through the most humane and hopeful piece of legislation since I've been an American, I can imagine life in America again, with my family.

Let's hear it for change.

A Day in the Life

2010-03-20T05:54:00.011-04:00

Some recent photos of the boys at The Clermont Center taken by my brother, Hervé , who is currently in Jacmel.

(Jean Peter and Martin Luther chillin' or "Nou posé" in Kreyol)

(Life in the tent)

(Fritzca doing laundry)

(there is always time for soccer. . .)

Journey to Jacmel

2010-03-16T04:03:00.018-04:00

(a damaged wall from our house)

(a school in Jacmel some of our children attended; 200 children died here)

(same school)

My brother, Hervé, is currently in Jacmel with the children at The Clermont Center. He brought medical supplies, clothing and books for the kids and some moral support that the world hasn't forgotten about Haiti.

(some of the boys with Markes, the head counselor)

Hervé was relieved to discover that the house itself appears to be more resilient than other houses in Jacmel, many of which came tumbling down in a matter of seconds. There was damage done to our house but it's not immediately apparent and it is still unclear just how much. But the boys are able to spend time in the recreation area, which is a blessing now that hurricane season has begun. (however, rain, my brother tells me today,11/18, seeps through cracks in the kitchen left from the quake.)

(the center's name did not crumble)

But they still continue to sleep in tents outside because they are so traumatized by the images they see around them. Friends' houses destroyed, their school in complete rubble, the classmates they lost while they were outside playing soccer. . . they fear that if they sleep inside, the house will come crashing down on them. So my brother has been camping out in Jacmel and taking pictures with his cell phone and I am posting them here for now.

(tent in the center's yard where they sleep)

Journey to Jacmel will become its own blog with regular updates about my family's travels to The Clermont Center. I hope to be there soon.

Now that we see how blessed we've been, our top priority will be to focus on expansion to address the very tragic orphan situation that affects Haiti now.

Listen to a literary piece I wrote about Haiti here on Season Two of Berlin Stories (NPR World Wide)

Bachata in Berlin

2010-03-15T16:01:00.007-04:00

Tonight, while I was strolling past the apples, I heard something on the supermarket loudspeaker that made me stop my cart, stand still and listen in surprise. The music, totally out of place in a Berlin supermarket, brought back a lovely memory. . .

It was around 1999 and I was in Washington Heights (New York City) at a birthday party. I can no longer remember whose? Anyway, there were a lot of Dominicans there and I was with a good Haitian friend of mine who loves to dance to all kinds of Latin music. That night was full of Bachata and I could feel the movement come back to me in the grocery store. Step, step, step, shake. . . step, step, step, wiggle. . .

My Haitian friend, a fantastic dance partner led me from one song to the next and an acquaintence asked, "Is that your German boyfriend?"

In Berlin, I hear Cuban salsa everywhere because Buena Vista Social Club had an Abba-like following here. But salsa has almost become synonymous with Latin music/dance. OK, so you'll catch the occassional rumba but in the 10 years I have lived in Berlin, I have never heard Bachata. I don't know why it was playing at the grocery store and I have no idea if I'll ever hear it again. It was like being on the Upper West Side all over again. Pass the platanos please.

For some reason, the video doesn't want to properly embed so click on the link. Check out the hiccup on the four.

On Multiculti Marriage

2010-03-09T15:54:00.005-05:00

Bridal hand mehndi (natural tones)
Originally uploaded by madaboutasia

One of my closest childhood friends was a Hindu girl whose parents had often hinted (strongly) that she marry this particular Indian gynecologist or that particular Indian internist. "He comes from a good family," they'd tell her. But my friend, like most of us first generation Americans, resisted the custom of her parents' homeland. She travelled to Cuba, went to med school and ended up becoming a doctor all by herself, thank you very much.

When I was younger I actually pitied this friend because I couldn't imagine my parents nagging me about marrying some Haitian-American guy. Marriage was one area in which I didn't want my parents meddling around. What was the point of us growing up in America if we couldn't marry whomever we wanted?

Now that I'm married to someone from a completely different culture and, despite my fluent German, I sometimes feel like we're speaking a different language. I start to wonder if my Hindu friend might not have had it so bad after all?!

How often have we sought out the right partner simply by hoping we'd see stars and hear music whenever our eyes met? Well, guess what, our parents actually knew better (am I really saying this?). They look less for the romantic and more for the practical. They know that common backgrounds later play a role in child rearing, expectations of family and passing on religious and cultural traditions. Of course these can all be fused together from different perspectives, but it sure must be a lot easier to not have to always explain traditions, as opposed to simply sliding into them.

Some days I understand why people marry their high school sweethearts or the kid from their CCD class. I doubt that would be for me but now I have greater understanding for it.

Oh yeah, and my childhood friend? She ended up marrying a businessman from New York who is Punjabi Sikh. And her parents had nothing to do with it.

Conditional Love

2010-03-07T15:54:00.004-05:00

Originally uploaded by Joseph L. Harris (www.jlh-photo.com)

While I don't remember exactly when I began distancing myself from my Catholic upbringing, I do recall the relief I felt, no longer having to separate my intellectual beliefs from my spiritual ones.

My 17 year-old intellect thought it was wrong to preach to poor people that they shouldn't use birth control. My 25 year-old brain told me it was impossible to abhor sin when so many leaders of the church, one after the next, sin without recourse of action. My 30 year-old gut knew that there was a problem with an empire that claims to advocate for children yet does not bring justice to those who abuse children.

I don't deny that the Catholic Church has been charitable to Haiti and other destitute nations. The church has shown great humanity yet, in the same breath, it continues to show great disdain for basic human rights.

Today I read that a child was expelled from a Catholic school in Boulder, Co because his parents are lesbians. How does the church explain this to a child? God's love is conditional? Your parents, even if they appear to love you and take care of you and nurture you, are actually sinners and you are no longer welcome to be a part of our community? God doesn't love or accept you because your parents are gay?

It reminds me of the story a close relative of mine once shared with me. This relative attended Catholic school in Port-au-Prince with strict nuns who preached that charity was the Catholic way. Then, when she was 10, her father died that Christmas and the nuns called her into the office and wanted to know who was going to pay for her tuition? She and her sister were swiftly kicked out of the school and forced to attend Haitian public school with all of the other children who didn't make God's cut.

Is Offense in the Eye of the Beholder?

2010-02-23T05:22:00.002-05:00

It turns out that the Olympic Russian ice dancing pair created some controversey even last month, before the games began in Canada. Their darkened skin, Aboriginal make-up and leaves attached to their costumes got some Aborigines and experts on Aborigenes heated up.

But ask around, and some will say, "Enough of the PC crap, it's just ice skating!" But, as I have argued countless times, even if you don't intend to be offensive doesn't mean you're off the hook.

What do you think?

Meanwhile . . . Back in the Jungle

2010-02-21T15:31:00.007-05:00

I'm minding my own business in the back of a cab and the driver strikes up a conversation. As always, I'm happy to oblige in chit chat:

Driver: Where are you from? Are you Muslim?

Me: I'm American. No, not Muslim.

Driver: You never know. Dark skin, you could be a Muslim. I have friends from Sudan. Good people. Why are you here? Why do you speak German?

Me: My husband is German.

Driver: I'm from Turkey. But I was raised here. Germans, ugh. They are not easy.

Me: How so? (like I don't know, but for the sake of conversation. . .)

Driver: I was married to a German. Oh. . . that wasn't good.

Me: No?

Driver: They're not like us. They can't help it, they're naturally racist.

Me: But she married you.

Driver: Yeah, but she still couldn't help being racist.

Me: Are you two, um, still--

Driver: Of course not! And let me tell you, my family is happy about that. I bet your family wasn't thrilled about you marrying one of them.

Me: Well--

Driver: (interrupts me again) But you know, you and me, we can live here because of the Jews.

Me: (long pause before I speak): The Jews?

Driver: That's right. If they weren't here, you and I would be dead. The Germans would let those crazy skinheads loose. The Jews keep them in check.

Me: (sounding like a parrot) The Jews?

Driver: They're everywhere. They run the government.

Me: Angela Merkel is Jewish?

Driver: No . . . you can't actually see them, but they're everywhere. They keep peace in this country.

Me: Ohhhhkaaay. . .

Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror. I can't decide if he's messing with me or simply out of his mind.

Me: You know, you can let me out right here. . . the sun's out. I, um, I think I'll walk the rest of the way.

We are the World, Yes, Really

2010-02-17T16:11:00.011-05:00

If you're of my generation, then you can recall at least one parody of the charity hit We Are The World. Even if you won't admit it today, you may have even put on a pair of headphones and re-enacted the highly emotive studio singing with your high school friends.

Although it was considered superficial and downright sappy by some music critics, We Are The World raised almost $45 million to fight hunger in Africa. And let's face it, in 1985, it wasn't yet hip for Hollywood stars to adopt babies from Africa.

We Are The World was, in its conception, a great idea and it still is today, 25 years later, in bringing attention and aid to Haiti. Stars in this new version include Barbara Streisand, Mary J. Blige, Celine Dion, Fergie, Pink, Kanye West (I know, if you can stand him), LL Cool J, Snoop Dog and, of course, Wyclef Jean and many others.

Sing along, you know you want to. . .

The Time "Trip"

2010-02-12T15:52:00.007-05:00

A month ago today, we made a pirate birthday cake, hid chocolate gold coins in the snow for a scavenger hunt, and wearily blew air into colorful balloons. We couldn't believe our son was already six. Where had the time gone, we wondered?

Hours later, we watched the news and our fast-paced life suddenly stood still. With cake still on our plates, our lives were yanked upside down and we focused not here in Berlin but toward Haiti. Our office became a help Haiti center. My blog, usually a place for my observations about life in Germany, was transformed into a Haiti blog. There was nothing else to blog about, there was hardly time to think about anything else.

Our children, unsure of how to handle this odd piece of truth, the earth shook, began playing "orphanage" with their stuffed animals. Lego houses crashed to the ground.

Once we began planning the fundraiser, our daily routines were slacked on. We couldn't focus on our work (the stuff that pays the bills). Our kids spent more time at daycare. The laundry piles turned into mountains.

But then, suddenly, I looked up and today happened. The twelfth, already? I thought? Even in our bubble, life continued to race past us. Our son proudly wiggled his first loose tooth. "Costumes," the calendar scowled at me, "have to be sewn for Mardi Gras." The Berlin Film Festival is upon us. Haiti is, nowhere, a top story.

I looked at the calendar in shock, almost offended by its impatience.

Then it occurred to me, too, that all those Haitian babies that dared to be born amidst the rubble are already a month old today. I tried to remember my son at one month of age. Had he smiled yet? Was he already cooing? Was he already sucking his thumb? Sadly, I realized that I couldn't remember, at least not exactly.

. . .today is the twelfth. Life feels like it's spinning, fast, scary, whizzing out of control. It's a good thing instinct reminds us to hold on.

Photo: flickr

Haiti Lives!

2010-02-09T15:45:00.021-05:00

THANK YOU to Maybrit Illner, Irmgard Knef, CubaKlassik, Gerlinde Boehm, Hans Werner Meyer, Tyron Ricketts, Muriel Baumeister, Nine Gnaedig, Rike Schmid, Simon Licht, Claudia Michelsen, the Berliners in the audience and the fabulous team of volunteers who helped make this event possible.

Haiti Lives raised 14,000 Euros with corporate sponsorship (thank you trnd.com, Blue Man Group and Taxi Deutschland!)

Thank you to Amanda Herman Tischbier, Olaf Tischbier, Deborah Giese, Tara Cain and all the generous raffle donors:

Meryl Prettyman

Cynthia Barcomi and Barcomi's

Philip B

Brille Badstrasse

Rike Feurstein

Ole Berlin

Sweet to Go

Deutsches Theater

breathe-fresh cosmetics

Physio Aktive

Dorso Fit

Uwe Stylisten

Rachel Moss

Aspria GmbH

TBWA/Berlin

Semmel Concerts

Berlin Brands

Cafe Bondi

Alex Marashian

Patti Ferer

Storytime Books

Anschutz Entertainment Group

Schuhtick

And for all the help behind the scenes. . .

Barbarella

Thomas Peter

Jens Hoehne

Christine Boock/Fuego Film

Babylon

Die Buchholz Architekten

Photo: Me, my husband, Georg Kemter with Jean Robert Saget, The Ambassador of Haiti

"I'm Not an Orphan, I Still Have My Parents!"

2010-02-03T03:51:00.011-05:00

This quote is from a crying nine year-old Haitian girl taken by a group of Americans on a supposed "child rescue mission". The Baptist church group was stopped at the border for attempting to transport 33 children out of Haiti without papers. Many of the children taken were not orphans.

Help us take care of Haitian children in Haiti.

HAITI LIVES!

Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 18:00
Babylon (Rosa Luxemburg Str. 30)
25 Euros

An event organized by The J. A. Clermont Memorial Foundation/Clermont Center for Homeless Children
In Germany: Hilfe für Waisenkinder in Jacmel, Haiti (i.G.)