Afro-Europe in Black, Brown and Beige or “No, where do you really come from?”

TableTalk: Afro-Europe or “No, where do you really come from?” A conversation with Trina Roach (left on the photo) and her guest Lillian Ogbogoh (right) on blogtalk radio.

They discuss issues of national and cultural identity, and compare and contrast how those issues are viewed differently from country to country. Is there one black (European) way to act?

Trina Roach is an African American living in Germany and Lillian Ogbogoh is a British Born Nigerian (as she calls herself) who lives in London and has lived in the US.

Listen to internet radio with Creating Tomorrow on Blog Talk Radio

Some of the topics they covered
• How do you self-identify?
• How do you experience “community” amongst other people of African descent where you live?
• How is that sense of “community” expressed in different places in the Diaspora?
• How does the question of “critical mass” influence the lives of people of African descent where you live?
• What role does day-to-day racism play in your life?
• How well-represented are people of African descent in public life?
• What importance was placed on knowledge of Black/African History during your upbringing?
• What can we do to empower children of African descent living in Europe?

The Black European Summit of 2009. A Transatlantic Dialogue.

While interviewing Wouter Van Bellingen, a black Flemish politician here in Belgium, I discovered that in april 2009 there was a Black European Summit held in Brussels. I missed this event completely and had never heard about it.

Still when doing a search in google I couldn’t find much about it. The Summit's declaration and an article on www.the-latest.com (just two references). That article gave me more insight in the meaning and purpose of that summit.


More than 30 Afro-European and ethnic minority parliamentarians, experts and policy-makers came together with Black American policy makers to share ideas on fiscal and racial matters that continue to divide societies on both sides of the Atlantic.
The article on the-latest.com states that recent statistics show that in Britain and Europe the unemployment rates of African Caribbeans are nearly double that of white people. British reports say the rates are three times that for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and civil rights groups say they are off the charts for Romas on the continent.

Editor of The-Latest Marc Wadsworth said: "For me the most important thing about the event will be the opportunity for black and minority ethnic politicians and activists from America and Europe to meet, share ideas and make concrete plans for how we are going to tackle the major challenges facing our people."
The Black European Summit's initiative reflects according to The Latest a common transcontinental fear, among public intellectuals, writers, artists, scholars, educators and students, media journalists, policy-makers in human and civil rights, and leaders of heritage and workers' organisations.

2011 is the International Year for People of African Descent (or The International Year for Black People?)

The UN launched 2011 as The International Year of People of African descent 2011. Through this symbolic action the UN wants to stress the importance to eradicate racism, of which according to the UN, people of African descent all over the world are the most important victims.

This more than 50 years after most African countries gained independence and nearly 50 years after the US Civil Rights Bill was passed (1964), giving equal rights to black people in the US and abolishing formal segregation.

When thinking of people of African descent, or the African Diaspora, people often think automatically about the African-Americans in the US and sometimes black people in Brazil. We often overlook the fact that there are black people all over Latin America (from Mexico to Chile), Europe and even as far as Pakistan, Iran and India where little communities of African descendents often live an isolated life (For more info on Siddi click here). The year is a chance to bring the presence of peoples of African descent all over the world, and their history, into focus.



Check the video below from the UN webcast in which the International Year of People of African Descent was launched. It is pecular to notice how everybody avoids the use of 'black' as a valid word to designate the group of people they talk about. The choice goes for 'People of African descent' or the new word combination 'Africa Descendants'. These choice of words is in itself worth a through research entitled 'From Negroes to Africa Descendants. On How Black People Have Been Named and Defined throughout Western History'. Basically they are right to do so, as Africa Descendents are often not literally 'black'.



Another interesting contribution on the topic can be found on the OBV (Operation Black Vote) UK-website on this link

Video: Mamouland African-American women vs Black European women

"Why do Black European people comment on African American videos as if they know what are problems are about," asks African-American cartoon figure Denise Black British Alisha.

An interesting video. But what I missed in the dialog is how African-Americans and Afro-Europeans look at race relations. Most Black Europeans live in in a different racial situation. Because I can only speak for myself, I know that if I forget the race issue in America I sometimes draw the wrong conclusions on certain social issues.

See the video and judge for yourself.

What is the Black Atlantic? My Comparative Perspective

Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic (1994) is a difficult read but it’s a very influential book. An author who builds further on Gilroy’s work and who writes very accessible books about blackness is Livio Sansone (professor of anthropology at the University of Bahia, Brazil). His book ‘Blackness Without Ethnicity’ (2003) was a very insightful read that I recommend to anyone interested in the subject. In this book he compares black Brazilian experience and cultural production with the African American experience (check this blog www.afrobrazilamerica.com on the difference between black US and black Brazil experiences). One of the chapters of the book even goes further and is based on his research among black youth in Amsterdam compared to black youth in Bahia and Rio. Generally Sansone has written interesting articles about balckness and Western Afro cultures (check this article) . Below I will give my understandings and perspectives on the Black Atlantic, as an inherent part of the broad social and cultural entity called ‘The West’.

There are black people living in all countries of the Americas, in Europe and of course in Africa. The history of all these black populations is interrelated and all in reference to their relation to white European culture. African nations are (unfortunately) a consequence of European history and international affairs. African elites have often Europe and European languages as a reference point for culture, knowledge and social emancipation. The same thing can be said in an even more thorough sense of Latin America. All these cultures, or at least its elites and urban populations are therefore according to me part of the same Western world.

But the black populations of these nations are not all the same, just as all these countries differ from each other although being interrelated in history. Black Brazilians experience race in a very different way than African Americans. Black Britons do not express their identity within the UK in the same way as Black French communities in France. Each country has its own dynamics, history, culture and identity. Still there is also much in common which is all centered around three elements: history, race and Africa.

Race

Race as a social concept has been created through the history of Europe’s self-identification. Not only did Europe create its own identity in contrast to the (predominantly Muslim) East, but also in contrast to the ‘primitive’ black Africans in the South. Creating the concept Europe meant creating ‘whiteness’ and defining it in contrast to all it is not. This history lives on in current societies in Africa, Europe and the Americas. It took different shapes and contents but has kept a common framework in which the lighter one’s skin is, the better the person is perceived (also in Africa).

History

It would be too complex to bring all different forms of blackness in all countries bordering the Atlantic in one post, but the Black Atlantic is definitely an interesting starting point for a whole new historical and social analyses of the Atlantic world with its common history of racism, slavery and colonialism.

While the US have had in the 20th century a dominant place in the culture, economy and political arena of the world, their concepts and expressions of race have had a big influence on the black populations from Kenia, France till Peru. But we can not only focus on appearance and jump to conclusions. Black populations found American elements of blackness and incorporated it in their local culture. Although black urban culture form the US has influenced black kids from Paris, Cape Town, Dar-es-Salaam, Berlin, … it has often shaped the form, not always the content.

Africa

Africa has played a major role in the creation of the African American identity. This happened in retrospect, i.e. the black populations of America rediscovered their African heritage in the 20th century and used Africa as some kind of reservoir of symbols from which to draw inspiration to create an identity. Why creating an identity? As we can read in the works of Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. DuBois and later Césaire , blacks in the West wanted to be accepted as an inherent part of the cultures they inhabited and had assimilated. Unfortunately the racism that Europe had created in the creation of its own identity didn’t make this possible. Being black meant not being fully American, not being really French, not being accepted as a full member of the nation … (Brazil’s political leaders incorporated the concept of "raça mestiça"’ (mixed race) as an inherent part of its identity starting in the 30’s, in Cuba it only started in the 60’s while the rest of Latin America only recently acknowledges its mixed identity, still Africa keeps a marginal place in this mix). In a world where blacks felt home but rejected by the white reference they felt the need to rethink their identity. This rethinking has resulted into African American culture with its Harlem Renaissance and Dubois as its most important intellectual. This American experience dripped down to all black populations in the world, and has put a mark on the form of many black communities throughout the Atlantic world (as the experience of exclusion through racism works essentially in the same way throughout the Western world).

The Black Look, The Local Style

While black kids in Brazil wear the same sneakers, caps and golden chains, and even greet each other the same way as their black contemporaries in Alabama and Marseille, they do not all consume the same culture as such. While French urban youth listen massively to rap music, their rap music is not the same thing as rap in the US, ‘funk’ in Brazil’s big cities, reggaeton in Panama or dancehall in Kingston, Jamaica. All this cultural expressions look the same, are dominated by dark skinned, often poor, urban youngsters, but they are all very much rooted in the local culture and mentality.

Today black French or black Brazilian also look directly at Africa, directly and not through the US spectrum only. They look at the content, but mostly take the forms (the masks, the symbols, the colours, rhythms, styles …) for inspiration and self identity. While e.g. the Jamaican Rastafarian movement drew its inspirations from Ethiopian symbols it gave it another content. This new Rasta culture was picked up by Africans afterwards and given again a new content, while black French mixed other African symbols from West-Africa with Jamaican symbols and North American ones to create yet again a new identity. And this goes on and on.

On the surface you might be tempted to think that being black in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Chicago or Sao Paulo is the same thing. Well it looks the same thing, its rooted in a common historical and social framework but it is not exactly the same thing. It’s a constant dialogue between cultures. They all wear the same clothes and their music is all rhythmically based and mixed with rapping styles and soul vocals. The form is definitely based on the American example and reference for the whole Atlantic world. The content though, is determined by the local social dynamics, the local history, language and culture. You can’t just transplant black experience in the US on the life of blacks in the whole world. Although all black people of the Atlantic world share a common framework of racial stereotypes. The way these stereotypes are played out locally is often very different.

Examples

Still, the Black Atlantic exists and is most ‘visible’ in musical productions and all expressions surrounding it. I was stunned to hear the champeta music in Cartagena, the black capital of Colombia, and realize it sounded just like the soukous and ndombolo styles of Kinshasa and nowadays most parts of black Africa (which was inspired in the 70’s by Cuban rumba). I was just as surprised to see how Central American youngsters re-interpreted dancehall music from Jamaica and called it reggaeton . I was amazed to see how the black crowds of South Africa incorporated techno and house into their local kwaito music . I was charmed to see how street kids in Nairobi imitated US rappers but mixed it with the traditional rhythmic story telling style of their forefathers. I fell in love with the mix of techno, reggae and hip hop that resulted into the British scenes of UK garage , jungle , drum&bass and ultimately grime/dubstep and 2step. And most recently I experienced how Angolan kuduro (itself an interpretation of US hip hop) became a new style of techno in Lisbon through the productions of Buraka Som Sistema. This kuduro sound is right now influencing Brazilian funk. There is so much to experience and tell.

Dialogue in Black and White

There is a constant dialogue between populations of the Atlantic, a dialogue dominated by its black populations is what is called the Black Atlantic, a dialogue that existed before internet and only intensified since then. This dialogue isn’t exclusively black in a racial sense. Blacks have always incorporated mixed race people within their communities, blackness is in a way a cultural expression of mixing and hybridity. It is those parts of Western culture which Western culture rejects as being part of its own identity. It therefore becomes ‘black’ or ‘world’.
The Black Atlantic doesn’t exclude white people, on the contrary. Many whites are and were important actors within the cultures of the Black Atlantic, but it is a culture dominated by the poorest and predominantly dark skinned peoples of the Atlantic, a culture of bricolage and mixing, meeting and creation.

Often, once great many people with no biological dominant African ancestry adopt the cultural expressions of the Black Atlantic, the mainstream (white) establishment is prepared to integrate it into what is called ‘Western culture’. Then it becomes colorless, i.e. just French, American, Western, … and the term black is faded out. Examples are today found in house music , techno, electro and rock, but also in the way painters such as Picasso integrated African elements within the high culture of Europe. If Picasso would have been a mixed race person of African or black Caribbean ancestry I guess his paintings would have been defined as ‘afro’.

In this Black Atlantic, Africa and its history functions as some kind of reservoir of symbols, from which we all draw inspiration to create and re-create our identities. That is what blacks in Paris, Berlin, Rio, New York, Amsterdam all do, that is what the Black Atlantic actually is. Today this re-interpreting of our African heritage within the Western world is still in full swing and it’s still a struggle to make the West (or at least our home countries) aware of their African heritage.

Drum&Bass and Jungle

For me personally Jungle music and the culture surrounding it expressed in a perfect way the symbiosis of black and white within my world. This is/was music that brought all together, all styles and all colours. It was the 90’s, it was fresh, it was ‘black’, but it was immediately assimilated by white youth too. It’s urban, and it definitely has its roots among the poor urban minorities of the UK. But it’s music for all. Therefore I want to end this post with 3 video’s: first an interview of Goldie in 1996 (and check his very LAST WORDS), second a video of Congo Natty, junglist nr1. Who emphasizes the black nature of jungle music and finally a track (Brown Paper Bag) from the best selling jungle album (and a must have) from Roni Size, which was out in 1997. Still so fresh!

Black European Meets Skinheads

Last year I went to Berlin to visit a friend who moved there. During my trip I experienced something special. Most of my friends told me I was totally crazy to have done what I did. They might be right, but I think that this story deserves a place on this blog.

It was a last minute decision so I couldn’t get a seat reservation anymore in the high speed train between Cologne and Berlin. I decided to go anyway and ended up in an overcrowded train sitting on the floor in the hallway. Sharing the hallway with me were, among others, two Russian dudes who looked kind of tough. Bald head, bomber jacket, big chains. They had plastic bags full of beer cans and were drinking the whole time. I tended to ignore them, they definitely looked like skinhead hooligans and I supposed they wouldn’t consider me a potential friend. It turned out I was wrong.

I read a book and tried not to look up at them. I succeeded quiet well during the first hours (the trip took about 6 hours), but I noticed that one of them gave me a sympathetic nod once in a while. It crossed my mind for a few seconds that he might be gay, but I quickly decided against it. They looked definitely very straight. Some time halfway between Cologne and Berlin one of them asked me in perfect German if I wanted a beer. I hesitated for a second, it was too early in the day for being drinking, but being tired of reading the same book for more than three hours in a row, I thought why not and accepted the offer. It was a holiday anyway. We started to chat, they turned out to be more German than I thought. I saw it as a good opportunity to oil up my German before reaching Berlin.

They shared more beers with me until there were none left (and they had brought many). I decided to buy some in the bar and to pay them more drinks. Half an hour before reaching Berlin we had drunken all the beers there were in the train’s mini bar. I felt kind of drunk and they were definitely a bit drunk too. But it was clear that they were better drinkers than I was, more used to heavy drinking. Everybody was looking at us, a strange trio, but we couldn’t care less, talked all the time and laughed together.

The time I passed with them drinking beer was very pleasant. They were curious to know where I was from and I explained. I asked them the same question and they turned out to be Germans of Russian descent, but also the other way around, Russians of German descent. I didn’t understand immediately and they started to explain their story.

Actually since the late middle ages until the early 20th century, Germans migrated to Russia for new opportunities. These people assimilated to Russian culture although some kept a distinct German identity. They lived all over the Soviet Union. When the iron curtain fell and the Soviet Union collapsed Germany accepted any person who could prove to be ethnically German to get a German passport and come back to Germany. Many Russians of German descent jumped on the opportunity.

These two guys were descendants of Germans who migrated to Russia generations ago, maybe centuries ago. Their surnames sounded German, but that was about the only thing German about them. They told me that their parents moved to Berlin in the early 90’s. They were still very young children then and they grew up in Germany. But they kept on speaking Russian in the household, lived in predominantly Russian neighborhoods and made mostly Russian-speaking friends.

They stressed the common experience they and me had as children of migrants, as people who never really belong, as people who share the experience of displacement and multilingualism. I liked that thought. And as our conversation evolved I started to ask questions too, about how they look, about how they can be perceived as racist skinheads and so on. They stressed that they weren’t racists, they said they were victims of racism too, that German people hated them.

I was fascinated and listened while the conversation evolved to football and Saint-Petersburg, the team they both supported. One of them was even such a big fan that he travelled all over Europe to see all matches Saint-Petersburg had to play abroad. He said he liked to travel, to see different places and that his love for football was a good excuse to do it. But still I couldn’t stop thinking that the guy really looked like a prototype hooligan who might be nice to me now, but who would have kicked my ass in very different circumstances.

When getting closer to Berlin they asked me if I already had plans. I actually didn’t, I only planned to see my friend in a few hours as he was still at work. So I still had some time to kill. They invited me to join them. They would go to one’s place and have some more drinks there and watch some video’s. They told me they had nothing to do that day, they worked hard for several weeks on a construction site and had some cash to spend now. Again I hesitated. Where would I end up? What would a black guy with dreadlocks do with skinheads? Did they try to trick me into some man hunting? The wildest thoughts went through my head? But my intuition, more than movies or politics, told me these guys were really all right. They were actually very friendly, warm, generous and sympathetic. My adventurous, crazy and anthropological me said just to go for it. So I accepted their offer and followed them into Ost-Berlin. After half an hour with metro and busses we arrived at some apartment blocks. I had kept a sharp eye on the itinerary so that I would easily find my way back. First we went to the shop to get some more beers and then went to one of them’s place.

We started drinking again and watching Youtube. I drank slowly. They wanted to show me video’s of hooligan fights in Russia, some hip hop video’s and so on. They started to roll joints, two more skinheads came in. All were friendly to me although I saw some surprise in their eyes. They spoke Russian with each other sometimes, so I couldn’t understand but I was tempted to think that they saw me as a potential danger to them too. Who was I? What was I doing there? All understandable questions, and I guessed the other two assured them that I was OK.

I spend around 2 or 3 hours there, the owner of the place was getting very very drunk, too drunk actually. He started to put some Saint-Petersburg Hooligan video’s with songs. He sang them along and he started to do the Sieg Heil sign while singing. I was kind of embarrassed about it, and I noticed that the three others were too. They tried to assure me that it’s just football and that I shouldn’t feel threatened. The thing is that I didn’t feel threatened. Was I naïve? Maybe so, but the truth is that nothing happened to me, the atmosphere was very relaxed and everybody was friendly and nice to me. I even went out once with one of the new guys to get some more beers and he was actually very soft, he wanted to know about me, was curious about my experience of being black in Europe and so on. I thought that I may have been the very first black person this guy actually talks to (instead of shouting racist slurs to). These guys were not stupid, they were just low class immigrants with a lot of frustrations, just like many other immigrant kids. They were put into a situation in which they had to talk to me as human beings to human beings.

I had stopped drinking after a while, I didn’t want to lose control. The two guys I met on the train were way out there now. Fortunately the two others were still kind of sober. The main language spoken was often Russian now and I couldn’t really follow. I said that I had to go now, as I had a meeting with some friends, we shared e-mails and phone numbers, gave each other ‘man hugs’ and I left. Still, I didn’t feel like having a lasting internet relationship with these guys, so I gave an e-mail I nearly never use and a wrong phone number. I never tried to reach them again though.

Later that evening I told my story to my Berlin friend who said I was lucky not to get killed. I knew the stories of Adriano and other black Germans who were killed by skinheads in Germany. But I still don’t know, I think that the context gave me an opportunity to discover something I only had prejudice against and didn’t know. At the same time, without wanting to do it, I let them experience something they didn’t know. Still, they were the ones who offered me a beer, they were the ones who smiled sympathetically at me, and they were the ones who invited me in their home. I realized that I could have met the exact same 4 guys in a very different situation and that they would have seen me as an easy target to ventilate all their aggression and frustration, they could have killed me. But the thing was that at that time and place they wanted to be my friends.

The next day I was eating a quick snack in an antifa (antifascist) vegatarian snack bar in Friedrichshain and reading a magazine that lay there for customers. There was an article about hooligan skinheads and their use of fascist symbols, mostly by Russians. A study had shown that many of the kids using the nazi symbols didn’t even really know what these symbols stand for. They know it’s anti-communist and they know it is anti-establishment and that it shocks and scares people. As far as they are concerned it works for their purpose, it is not about history repeating itself, it is about expressing anger, aggression and frustration. Against everything that’s politically correct and socially accepted. Maybe they saw my dreadlocks as an expression of the same thing.

It’s maybe not all that strange. Skinhead culture has black roots after all, check these video’s below to discover a strange twist in musical history and racist attitude.

This is of course about England in the 70's, and not about Russian-German Hooligans in the 21st century. Still, I think that being a skinhead is first and for all an anti-establishment style, more than a political stance. Of course I do not ignore the dangers this 'style' has for all people who look like me.

The break: Blogging Black from the Netherlands and how I became an Afro-European

Ground level Ganzenhoef Amsterdam Bijlmer
I am going to take a break, but of course blogger Sibo wil continue to post his views on Afro-Europe. But before I leave I would like to share some of my toughts and experiences about becoming Afro-European and how I started blogging.

A year ago I received an e-mail from someone who wanted to know more about black people in the Netherlands and how I got there.

Of course I have had these question before. I remember a few white Americans stopped me in the city centre of Amsterdam to ask me if I could translate a few English words for them in Dutch. Suddenly they asked me where I came from. “I was born Amsterdam,” I replied. “No, where do you really come from,” they answered. Great people by the way, so I gave them an elevator pitch about the “African-Americans” of Holland.

This post will not be an elevator pitch.

Growing up ignorant in Amsterdam

I grew up almost colourless. Although I knew I was black there was no racism around me that made more aware of it. I was born in Amsterdam before the big Surinamese migration started in 1975, and I lived in a part of Amsterdam which was almost 90 percent white. But luckily my social circle was cultural diverse. I had Dutch, Surinamese, Bi-racial Surinamese, Jewish and Chinese friends.


Moving to the “black” part of Amsterdam, Amsterdam South East (De Bijlmer)

Moving to a black environment was an experience. The place exploded with anti-racism activists, rastas and black culture advocates. Everything was black, including the junkies of course. But it was a tremendous experience. Walking in the Bijlmer in the summer was like walking on a Caribbean Island, black people everywhere.

From an identity point of view the move was gift from God. But since I was born and raised in the Netherlands I actually had to integrate into the black community. Because I also had an uppity Dutch accent (so to speak) this also complicated the challenge to integrate into a society which was a “deep” black Surinamese Caribbean community back then with a lot of black American influences. I was considered "white” of course. But thanks to shooting hoop all winter I managed to get into the pickup basketball games in the summer. And that’s where my black identity journey began. The character in the book “The white boy shuffle” is me.

Becoming “Black” gradually

I also got new friends of course. They introduced me to the black organisation scene, which meant that I got to meet a lot of black artists and black activists and different black people from across Europe. I remember how I got lost when I had to speak to a French black girl, she could hardly speak English and I hardly could speak French.

What I did learn during that period was the way skin colour was perceived. Most of my black friends dated white girls and I dated black girls. The entire racial dimension when past me like a ship in the night, but I would gradually learn the deeper structure of things. I think it’s a part you miss if don’t grow up in a environment where skin colour is like a military rank.

But although my black identity was developing I felt something was missing. It was like watching CNN, but not understanding the background of things. I was missing a deeper understanding of blackness.

My black experience

I knew that my knowledge of blackness wouldn’t come from playing basketball, eating rice and beans, or hanging out with my friends. The difference with my friends was that I had learned nothing at school about colonialism, slavery or even the history of Suriname. I knew it vaguely, but that was it.

Because Suriname lies in South America one of the first books I read was the “Open viens of Latin America” by Eduardo Galeano. I think it’s the book that Venezuelan president Hugo Chaves gave to president Obama. I remember it opened my eyes about the history of Latin American from a left wing point of view. It’s a radical book, but I think a needed a radical view at that time. I read a lot of books about latin American, but later I found out it wasn’t exactly “my” history. Although Suriname lies in South America, it’s in fact a Caribbean country. But I am glad I read it, it’s a classic. Although Galeano could have added some more black history in it.

The book which really took me closer to my roots was “Van Priary tot en met De Kom, the history of resistance in Surinam”, by Sandew Hira. Hira is the Surinamese version of Eduardo Galeano. although he didn’t made me wear a dashiki, he did gave me a deeper understanding of the black struggle in Suriname and of Dutch colonialism.

The book that shaped by black identity was “Black Skin, white Masks” of French writer Franz Fanon. I think James Baldwin would have said, that it takes you to the dungeons of your black soul. I started reading the book, closed it and opened it again three month later. Fanon dropped an issue that I never thought of before, one of his famous lines is, a black person wants to be white. But he made me feel at ease by explaining that it was a logical consequence of slavery and colonialism that I could have these feelings. But after finishing his book he didn’t leave me with the feeling that I wanted to be white, but he did leave me with the question: why should I be proud to be black if being black meant having a twisted black frustrated mind.

Fanon's book really gave me a Teflon layer so to speak, but as African scholar once said: it didn’t cure Fanon. Did it add to my black identity yes, to my Afro-Dutch identity, no.

Becoming Afro-Dutch?

I don’t have an Afro-Dutch identity, I have a Surinamese-Dutch identity. Saying you’re Dutch to a Surinamese person is sometimes even considered an insult. I think the mayor difference between the French and the British is that the Dutch were more preoccupied with trade then with assimilating slaves into Dutch Culture. Not very a long ago in the Netherlands children from foreign countries could get lessons in their own language and culture during school time. Comfy together, or as they say in Dutch “gezellig bij elkaar” with your own people was the Dutch mantra for integration. Foreign films in Holland are not voiced over as in France or Germany, but subtitled. But the perception about integration and minorities has changed now.

Being Surinamese-Dutch feels like belonging to a cult group, and to be honest I am comfortable with it.

I am going to take a giant leap forward in time.

Blogging and becoming Afro-European

Fast forward two years ago. Before I started blogging about Afro-Europe I was focused on the Netherlands. Although I had met black people from different countries in Europe and Africa, I had virtually no deep knowledge of their backgrounds. Even on holidays in Europe I was running to see the buildings, or other tourist places. A market full of black people in London doesn’t differ much from a market in Amsterdam-South East.

Like most holidays I focused on the beach, or on sight seeing. There is hardly time to actually meet black people in their countries. Before you know it, you’re home in the rat race again.

The inspiration for Afro-Europe began after an interview I did with an Afro-German woman. I am not going to say who it is, but if she reads this: thanks for the inspiration and your mind blowing insights. Although I had met French, British and African people it never came to mind that there were actually black people in Germany, although Germany is the neighbouring country of the Netherlands. What also inspired me was the blog Black Women in Europe.

One of the books I read was the book of Noah Sow, "Deutschland Schwarz Weiss - der alltägliche Rassismus" (Germany Black White - the everday racisme"). The thing I got out this book was the subtle racism I had never seen before. It was as if different lights went on on the same stage. I saw objects I had never noticed before. The little black boy on my cornflakes box who was surrounded by African Elephants and zebras, were thinks I hardly noticed before. To me they were just part of yet an another “Africa” contest campaign. But after reading Sow’s book I realized that there is an implicit racist connection when black kids are portrayed with African animals. Her book made me more aware that I was living in a society with hidden and sometimes even subliminal racist images. I somehow felt as ignorant as the day I moved to Amsterdam-South East. It was strange to get this information out of German book. And yes, these images were floating around me in the Netherlands.

Then I got a mail from Belgium. My name is Sibo and I would like to contribute. It was again strange to find out there was a person from another country who wrote about everything I always wanted to write about, but couldn’t. I was again interested to see new a perspective from a black person from Belgium. But he has something I don’t have, a close connection to Africa.

Identity

To me being Afro-European is not the same as being a Dutch black person. I’d like see as an element of it. I’m different from a black British Caribbean or African person. Growing up black in a class structured society is perhaps different from growing up in the egalitarian Netherlands. Growing up black in a French society where showing your black colours was in conflict with the all-people-are-French ideal is very different from my black experience. And being Afro-German is also different because it’s small community in a big white country with an infamous racial history.

But my Afro-European element what I perhaps share with other Afro-Europeans is that I want to have a piece of the country where I was born and raised in. It’s position I don’t even have to defend. Being black and European means that I also have an Afro-European connection on issues like race, black success and other specific black issues. But there is one issue that I consider very important, I don’t only have connection with Afro-Europe, but also with Africa.


How I became African, again

I don’t know if it sounds familiar, but although I read the ‘positive’ books about Africa I still remained biased. I read books about Africa, about the copper masks of the Yorubas and about the monument of great Zimbabwe, but still it looked as if they were compensations for the daily reality I saw on TV. The images of the machetes in Rwanda, the hunger, the child soldiers and the corrupt leaders. If in Europe one person dies it almost seemed similar to 500 deaths in Africa. As if large scale deaths is a natural thing in Africa. That was ignorant me two years ago when if first started blogging.

Thanks to all those wonderful African blogs I know that “Africa” doesn’t exits and that my lack of interest and knowledge made me stereotype a whole continent. It reminds of the silent Nigerian basketball player who trained in my basketball team. I never asked him anything about Nigeria. If you read this Femi, sorry for being so, “basketball minded”? Or the African woman who asked me the direction, and while we were talking I asked her about the “war” in a country in Africa which I had seen on TV. “No that’s not my country, that’s another system,” she replied while shaking her head. If you read this, sorry.

I can honestly say that blogging has changed my perspective on African countries and Africans completely. I have never visited Africa, but the slave fort Elmina where my ancestors left Africa will not be on my visiting list. There is so much more to see then a broken down slave fort, a fort which is just one leave on the tree of Africa.

Has blogging about Afro-Europe changed you?

A lot. I can’t go back blogging on a national level because I have seen, heard and experienced so much of the Afro-European community. I’ve seen people who would outsmart me ten times. I’ve seen successful initiatives that could be copied in other European countries with the same results. And I’ve seen a media landscape which could be a goldmine and powerful network if they would only touch each other.

Two years ago I lived in the dungeon of my own community, today I have new and different perspective. If I was a community consultant I think I would be the one with all the great and successful ideas. I won’t go into personal details, but the blogging has even changed me on a professional level. Blogging Afro-European means reading French, German and Spanish and of course English again, so working on my languages was also a good training.

Is this the end?

No, I think it’s just a break.

Best wishes for 2011!

Erik K.

The Emergence of Afro-Europe from an Afro-Flemish Perspective

My interpretation of the Flag for the Flanders Region of Belgium, combined with some African colours, the 'AfroFlemish Flag' so to speak (The original flag is yellow, representing a black lion called 'The Black Lion of Flanders'. This symbol has a strong political meaning in Belgium)

I am currently working on a film about black identity within the Flemish world of Belgium. For those who do not follow the Belgian social and political situation, I live in a bilingual country with a lot of communitarian (or call it ‘ethnic’) tension between the Dutch speaking Flemish population in the northern part of the country and the French speaking south. There are no wars or fights of course (I guess you’d have heard about that) but politicians and media are constantly blaming the other side for all national problems. If white Belgians don’t even know who they are, it is an even more complex issue for those whose parents and grandparents migrated to Belgium.

However, black people of very different origin tend to stand outside this issue. As Flemish identity is currently a hot topic in Belgium I wondered how black Belgians define themselves within this discourse. I decided to start interviewing black Belgians living in the Flanders on these identity issues, using very explicit questions on identity. Generally though, we are not tempted to talk about these issues overtly.

Below I will introduce you to different books recently written on the black experience in Europe. I also featured a 10 min interview with French historian and writer Pap Ndiaye on his very intersting book 'The Black Condition'.


I planned an interview with the most famous black politician in Belgium (Flemish), a city councilor in the Flemish town of Sint-Niklaas. He introduced me to a book written by an African American professor, Allison Blakely (Boston University). The book was entitled ‘Black people in the Dutch world. The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society’ (1993) and attracted my attention immediately. It was a very interesting interview in which I heard very good arguments about the symbiosis of black identity and European identity (in his case Flemish identity).

A quick search of Allison Blakely online made me discover he is currently working on a new project called ‘The Emergence of Afro-Europe’, i.e. he’s working on a book about us … He also wrote the first chapter of ‘Black Europe and the African Diaspora’ (2009) edited by Darlene Clark Hine, Trica Danielle Keaton and Stephen Small. I ordered it online and will read it and write about it on this blog soon. Although the introduction of ‘Black Europe’ was written by Philomena Essed, a black Dutch scholar, it is worth noting that many African American social scientists feel naturally attracted by the subject and tend to dominate it. Well, of course they have been thinking and working on racial and identity issues way before there even was a substantial presence of blacks in Europe. Allison Blakely also wrote the first chapter of this book.

Today, black people in Europe (of very different origins) tend to start analyzing their situation and identity, finding a lot of inspiration in the American world. This blog is an expression of this new trend. (Although it already started in the 1930’s with the négritude literary movement that was also inspired by the Harlem Renaissance and W.E.B. Du Bois.)

The UK were first in producing substantial work on black identity in Europe. Paul Gilroy’s ground breaking work ‘There ain’t no black in the Union Jack’ (1991) was followed by the still very influential work on the transnational black experience ‘The Black Atlantic’ (1993). As a bilingual Belgian I am naturally attracted to the French speaking world too where last year I discovered two very interesting works on the subject: ‘La condition noire. Essai sur une minorité française’ (2008) by Pap Ndiaye (only in French)(who also studied in the US, check his interview on France24 in English below) and ‘Noirs de France’ (2007) by politician Rama Yade. The former is a very detailed analyses of the black experience in France while the latter is more a short and personal overview of current racial issues concerning blacks in France. Both books emphasize the fact that black French people are not a community as such but form several communities (Africans from several parts of Africa, Caribbeans, Muslims, Christians, mixed race, …). They share a common experience though, an experience of being culturally French, being perceived as foreign, and being perceived as ‘black’ (which contains several stereotypes they are often confronted with in a predominantly white country). Recently I discovered ‘Portraits de douze noirs de France: ni éboueurs, ni sportifs, ni vigiles, ni musicien’ (2009) (Translation: Portraits of Twelve French Blacks: nor garbage men, nor sports men, nor vigils, neither musicians) by Baba Diawara, a very interesting little book. And I guess there must be tons of new literary productions of the sort all over Europe now, besides video and documentaries.

Literature and video production on blacks in Europe was virtually nonexistent in the 20th century (except for the UK and maybe France, both since the 90’s). Since the start of the new millennium it is literally booming in those countries and I guess this means that in other parts it must be growing too. I discovered interesting Spanish, German and Russian productions on Afro-Europe (all to be find on this blog) and I guess there are people all over Europe creating and working on the subject.

I would like readers of this blog to contribute their knowledge in comments below. Do you know of any important books on the black experience in Europe written in any language, whether existing in an English translation or not. Do you know of documentaries about black people in a European country? Let us know. This blog is an inventory for all this productions and is a platform to spread that knowledge gathered through all these experiences.

On an academic level there is the website afroeurop@s (bilingual English-Spanish) which brings together scholars from all over Europe who focus on the subject.
 
Pap Ndiaye on France24 (In English) talking about being black in France:

Pap Ndiaye, "The Black condition"
Geüpload door france24. - Nieuwscontent direct van de pers.

First black deputy in Polish parliament

Poland has its first black politician in parliament. John Godson, 40, is originally from Nigeria but moved to Poland in the early 90’s. He lives in the town of Lodz, is married to a local woman and served for several years in the city council. He is a university lecturer teaching at several universities and institutions in Poland and the president of the African Institute in Poland.

John Godson is a member of the leading Civic Platform party of which prime minister Donald Tusk is also a member. He took up a seat in the Polish lower house of parliament following the resignation of a party colleague.


Next parliament elections are due next yeat (2011). Godson is a very popular politician in his hometown Lodz, but it will be a different to keep his seat in parliament after the 2011 elections.

Poland is an ethnically very homogenous country with very few minorities. According to the 2002 census only a couple of thousand people of non-European origin live in Poland.

The country is also notorious for experiencing racist violence although racist crimes have dropped significantly since the early 90’s. Still it sometimes occurs, often combined with hooliganism after football matches.

John Godson will become one of just a handful of black politicians in central Europe

Below I post a little Youtube video about John Godson's private life. You can meet his wife and kids and he tells about his personal issues. It is in Polish only though, and although Youtube features many video's with John Godson, they are all in Polish only. If you understand what is told in this video, feel free to tell us in a comment.

Black people in Austria - The life of a young Austrian from Ghana

Via Blackinnrw

A story on Afrikanet about a second generation black Austrian with a Ghanaian background who feels rejected in Ghana and in the country he considers home.

Read parts of the story here. The photo is not from the orginal story, but is of the photo series of Philipp Horak about black people in Austria.

A “true Viennese"

Kofi Akwanpa likes to consider himself a “true Viennese with a Ghanaian background.” He was born 25 years ago in Vienna. He was born in Austria, speaks and writes perfect German and studied in Austria: but he does not feel accepted by the austrian society.

Kofi Akwanpa speaks perfect German and is even very proud to be able to speak and write Viennese dialect as well. When asked what his mother tongue his, the proud answer is: “German, of course.” “I went to school here, I studied in Austria and have my friends here. To put it another way: I was socialised in Austria.”

Although he travelled to Ghana with this parents every second year from the age of two, he does not feel socially integrated in Ghana, even though “I highly regard both country and people.”

It was important to the parents for their children to gain first-hand experience of both cultures. Kofi remembers skiing holidays in Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Styria. “We were always the only African fam- ily wherever we went skiing,” he says.

Kofi’s childhood memories also include vacations on farms and excursions to several tourist destinations in Austria such as Mariazell, Großglockner, and even Melk and Radenthein, a smal town located in Carinthia, the southernmost Austrian federal state.

Kofi feels Austrian and thought his home was here. But after finishing his university studies he had to undergo painful experiences. After graduating with a business degree from the Vienna University of Economics—”with distinction,” as he points out—he wanted to start a career in banking. He dreamt of a rosy future, he says, because “I am very good with numbers and people. These had been my strengths for years.”

He wanted to start his career from scratch and applied to a well-known Austrian bank for a job behind the counter. As he puts it, he wanted to engage in “direct contact with people.” This proved to be an unrealistic dream for a black Austrian. His application was turned down. Several weeks later he found out from a friend who worked for the same bank that employing a black person at the counter was feared to have “a negative impact on the traditional Austrian clients.”

Read full article at Afrikanet

Black Austria photo series of Philipp Horak at
www.philipphorak.com

Black Austria - An Anti-racism campaign in Austria (2007 - 2009)at www.blackaustria.at

Video: Black people in Spain – Judi Oshowole on life in Barcelona

Black travel expert Nelson George of BlackAtlas visited Barcelona and spoke to Black British Judi Oshowole who has lived in Barcelona for 18 years. She tells BlackAtlas about the city's growing diversity and the community of black women, from countries around the world, she has helped to build.

See more videos at www.blackatlas.com

See a video of Judy Oshowole talking in a meeting of a group of black women in Barcelona, the BIBS (Barcelona International Black Sisters). The BIBS consists of women from all over the globe - the UK, the US, the Caribbean and South America, Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands... See the post at www.fatjuicyoyster.com

Trivia on Barcelona

Frank Rijkaard was the successful head coach (2003–2008) of the Football Club Barcelona. He was appointed as head coach together with his assistent coach Henk ten Cate. Both of them are black and of Dutch/Surinamese origin.

Link

Also see the post Black people in Spain here.

Black in Belfast and the book "Where Are You Really From?"

The book Where Are You Really From? is a compelling story of a black mixed race man who grew up in Belfast Northern Ireland.

It´s the fascinating and powerful memoir about oneman’s struggle to establish his own identity and a moving tribute to the woman who risked everything to keep her son.

Tim Brannigan was born in 1966. He grew up in a white Catholic family on the Falls Road, all the time believing he was adopted.

Tim was actually the result of an extra-marital affair between his mum, Peggy, and a black junior doctor from West Africa. To avoid scandal, Peggy told her family the baby was stillborn. Tim was then hidden in a baby home for almost a year before his mum ‘adopted’ him.

Tim learned the remarkable truth of his mother’s true identity when his mum revealed the shocking truth on the day of the Live Aid concert in 1985.

Where Are You Really From? is a moving account of racial prejudice, sectarian tensions and family secrets. It also recounts his exceptional relationship with his mother and his attempts to trace the father who abandoned him. (Source: Blackstaff Press.)

Read a long story at Timesonline

And see the book details at Blackstaffpress.com

Black Community Northern Ireland promotes positive images of Africa

The Afro-Community Support Organisation of Northern Ireland (ACSONI) has celebrated the launch of its European Commission funded project, 'Images and Messages of Africa from an African Perspective'.

This programme is a joint initiative between the Africa Centre, Slovenia and the Africa Centre in Dublin. It is aimed at building the capacity of Africans and raising awareness of issues fuelling the migration of Africans to Europe and recognises that Northern Ireland also faces the challenges of an emerging intercultural society, there are pockets of the population which struggle with accepting people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

The Afro-Community is one of the largest Minority Ethnic Communities in Northern Ireland (1,126 people, 2001 Census, that today is estimated in excess of 6,000) while information on the life and experiences of African, Caribbean and other Afro-descendants in Northern Ireland is virtually non-existent. (Source: 4n.co.uk)

See website for more information: http://www.acsoni.org/

Sharing the AfroEuropean Experience. My visit to the 25th yearly Bundestreffen in Germany.

Last weekend I was in Germany. ISD (Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland – Intiative Black People in Germany) organized the Bundestreffen for the 25th time in a row. This means 25 years of black German coming together, 25 years of theater, dance, workshops, debates, presentations, films, music, knowledge sharing, book selling and more. All focused around the black German experience, and actually by extension, the experience of being black in the Western world. The Bundestreffen doesn’t seem to be on its way out, it is alive and kicking and apparently there to stay.

After knowing it for years I wanted to experience it for myself and took off to Helmarshausen, a little village in Hessen, in the geographical heart of Germany. I am not German but I felt that I could relate to this community being African and European at the same time. And checking googlemaps I realized it wasn’t even that far, just a 4.30 hours drive.

I had questions to ask, questions about the why and the how of these meetings. To my knowledge such an organization in Germany is unique to Europe. I don’t know of any equivalent initiatives in France, the UK, Holland, Belgium, Portugal or Spain, although many of these countries have big local communities of African descent.

But I discovered that exactly because black Germans aren’t that many, the need to come together at a Bundestreffen is much bigger than let’s say in France, where most black people do not live isolated from other black French. According to wikipedia there are 500.000 AfroGermans in Germany, representing just 0,62% of the total population. They are scattered all around Germany and grew up in schools and towns where they were often the only black person around. These people have very different roots going back to Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, the Caribbean, the USA, Brazil … but all have their German roots in common, all speak the same language and have a common experience of being perceived as black and foreign while feeling at home in Germany.

The need to share this experience stimulated them to come together, so they wouldn’t have to feel isolated as ‘strangers’ in a white world. But they also did it for their children so that they would grow up with people having the same experiences and learning that the predominant image of blacks in media and education doesn’t fit reality.

AfroGermans are those people who are culturally German, who grew up in Germany and are part of Germany, but who experience being perceived as foreigners because of their physical features and sometimes non-Germanic names. I wrote about this feature on a European level before in my article on the AfroEuropeans (What is AfroEurope?).

While there are communities of Nigerians, Rwandans, Ghanese, Sudanese and others in Germany, these people are not the focal point of the Bundestreffen I think. The black people I met at the Bundestreffen are not strictly speaking immigrants but mostly Germans who happen to be black. They were born and/or raised there. They feel home in Germany and although they have an earnest interest in their black roots, they know that they belong to Germany. Unfortunately Germany, just as most European nations, is still not aware of its postcolonial diversity.

Still, this experience is not unique to the postcolonial era. History tells us that for centuries there have been black people in Europe making European culture their own. These people have mostly lived isolated lives but some of them became famous as artists, scholars or even politicians (Soon I will write an article about that). ISD and other initiatives try to make people aware of this heritage that is all too often ignored and which can help Europe to accept its postnationalist diversity. ISD makes black Germans also aware of the fact that they are not alone, that they can share their feelings with fellow black Germans.

I drove off on Saturday afternoon. I found the place easily. It was a big hostel in a little rural village surrounded by fields, forests and hills. A very nice spot indeed with old typical German houses of wood and stone. I arrived there around 6.30pm, the sun was still shining and the scenery was beautiful and relaxing.
When I entered the building I introduced myself to a friendly lady at the book stand. She knew about this website which was a very nice surprise. I asked her who I should talk to to stay for the night. She brought me to one of the organizers and I was warmly welcomed. First I had supper. I met Stephen while cueing for the buffet. He asked me if I just arrived and we started to chat. We shared the same table with an African American living in Germany for 15 years now. From then on the talking started and I met a lot of interesting people. It was an awesome experience, like meeting some lost family members …

With them and many others I shared experiences about living as a black person in a predominantly white European world. Experiencing racism the hard way but also the much more subtle and hidden kind of racism, the one that’s much harder to pinpoint and therefore frustrating. We talked about the common troubles we have defining our identity as a black person who relates to European culture, how we feel home and rejected at the same time.

I wasn’t the only non-German there. There were some people from France, the US and Canada who joined German friends. But there were also Austrians and Swiss who share the same German language. I am blessed to speak German too what made contact easier and comfortable although most people there could speak English too.

I realized also that although many of them know about the black American experience they hardly know about the black communities in Germany’s neighboring countries. In France you won’t find a Bundestreffen but there is the CRAN (Representative Council of Black Associations) who represents blacks politically and academically. In the UK there are several black British organizations promoting black solidarity and representation on all levels of society. In Spain there is the Alto Consejo de las Comunidades Negras . In my home country Belgium and its closest neighbor The Netherlands I don’t know of any structural representation of black people or afro descendents as a whole, although we are many of us and most do come together with their respective black communities (be it Congolese, Rwandan, Senegalese, Surinamese, Antillean, …). Maybe that’s the reason I went to the Bundestreffen, to be inspired and stimulated for a meeting of all Belgians of black descent, and by extention to think about an AfroEuropean Congress for the future. Because I know that, safe for the language, we have more in common than differences.

I had interesting conversations with several of the visitors. I met up with some who were also there for the first time. They had known of the Bundestreffen for a while but didn’t know what to expect. Eventually they came, alone or invited by friends or family. Nobody was disappointed, although some were initially scared it would be some kind of radical black power (anti-white) event. But it was nothing of the sort. It was all positive vibes. Still, I wondered if white people would be welcome to join this event (as I didn’t really see any) and when asking I discovered it actually was a topic of discussion within the community. I was thinking about the reason why a white person would want to come there, except to have an outsider’s view and an anthropological perspective. Isn’t that missing the point though? As the Bundestreffen seemed to be about sharing and participating and not about staring at each other, it seemed to be as a chance to talk with each other, and not about being talked about … well, I know I’ll have to develop my thoughts further on this subject, but this experience made me think about this.

The Bundestreffen is not just a meeting of black Germans though. Even if I didn’t notice white people it represents diversity within German society. The age of the participants ranged from 1 year old till around 50 years old, having parents, kids, teenagers and young adults intermingling. Also sexual orientation and gender is an open topic at the Bundestreffen, black gays and hetero-sexuals, men and women, all are just as much involved in the activities and responsibilities. There were families and individuals, couples and singles, punks and hiphoppers, artists, architects, artisans, lawyers and business people. You name it and they were there. A fact not always as common place in society in general or in black communities throughout the Western world. But ISD has succeeded in bringing all this people together.

All this made this whole experience very rewarding and fulfilling. Although I have my life, friends, loved ones and family in Belgium the experience I had last weekend in Germany brings something extra to my life: the ability to express my identity with others without having to explain nor having to excuse myself for cherishing my black ancestry while being part of Europe.

Of course not all black Germans want to relate to this event. Some told me they know other black Germans who don’t want to come to the Bundestreffen. They either don’t feel the urge to share their experience or find the whole thing rather communitarian (self-apartheid). I understand that. All individuals forge their identity differently, and not all feel the need to come together. When I talk with my sisters about being black in Europe we do not agree about everything, sometimes we are even opposite to each other. I wondered if my youngest sister would even want to come to such an event. I counted approximately 150 people there last weekend, while there are many more AfroGermans all over Germany. For very different reasons they didn’t come to this event although they may support it from a distance. But of course others don’t support it. I think that this is a logic consequence of human diversity. Therefore I am not tempted to say that ISD speaks for all AfroGermans, just as this website doesn’t speak for all AfroEuropeans. But it is a platform to discuss the matter if needed and it is first of all a network to share experiences.

Going to the Bundestreffen made me happy. I think that black people of the Western world have something extra here. In contrast to white Europeans we have an identity that transcends language and national borders, we can therefore being more European than all Europeans put together, more Western than any Westerner. We have a natural link with the black experience in the US and Brazil, we can relate to people experiencing other cultures, speaking other languages and living in different countries and continents. We are the outcome of the history that Europe created for itself and we have a ‘community of experience’ that goes beyond the unity that Europe tries to forge for itself.

While creating racism in the course of the last 5 centuries (and legally abolishing it just 50 years ago) Europe created a people that can be stronger than any European people before. It created solidarity among us. Our potential unity is a logic consequence of more than 500 years of European colonial history. It is therefore global, i.e. international, intercontinental, multilingual and intercultural. Grown out of a bloody and absurdly violent past, I can’t do anything but see the present and future beauty of all this. Thanks again to ISD and all the people at the Bundestreffen for making me experience this.

Video of 25 years ISD (2010)

See website Initiative of Black People in Germany (ISD) at www.isdonline.de

The miXed2010 Expo at Gentse Feesten 2010

During the festivities of the ‘Gentse Feesten’ (17/7-26/7/2010), a yearly 10 day music and theater festival in the city of Ghent, the miXed2010 association (website in Dutch & French) is planning an exhibition about racial identity. The exhibition contains work of black and white artists who question the concept of race through visuals, paintings, sculptures, video, installations, … The artists featured in the exhibition are Berni Searle (SA), Jean-François Boclé (F) and Gauthier Hubert (B) among others. The curator is the art critic Stef Van Bellingen who questions through this exhibition the way black people have been depicted during the whole history of Western media (commercials, Hollywood, TV, …).

(c) Gauthier Hubert

The exhibition will be opened on Friday 9th of July at 7pm, one week before the start of the Gentse Feesten and will be followed by a concert with European and African artist brought together by Tuur Florizoone. They will bring a musical show combined with visuals, telling a story of a white man who discovers his African roots (according to me a metaphor for the whole of European histroy and identity). World famous Belgian jazz artists like Laurent Blondiau (AKA Moon) en Nicolas Thys will be part of it, next to AfroBelgian singer Sabine Kabongo and polyphone vocal group Nabindibo next to African multi-instrumentalist and artist Aly Keita. You can see Sabine Kabongo performing Duke Ellingtons 'Come Sunday' with the Zawinul Syndicate via this link.

During the exhibition the documentary ‘Colour Bar’ will be screened all day long. This is a documentary of Roland Gunst, a video artist who describes his identity issues for a new generation raised in-between different cultures and racial colours. Below I post the little trailer for his documentary. It is currently only available in French though.

Black people in Spain

Being black in Spain is different from being black in the UK, France or The Netherlands. In an interesting article five black people from Spain share their experience about living in Spain (short translation). You can read the full article (in French) on the blog Noirs d'Amérique Latine

Among the interviewed is television reporter Lucía Asué Mbomio. In the video for the website Live unchained she talks about her her documentary and about being black in Spain.

Short translation
Marcia Santacruz is chocolate coloured. Black like her father and her mother. Black as her grandparents. But apparently, in Spain, clothing, education and money determine the level of melanin. They nuanced skin tone. The Afro-Colombian, who came to Madrid to complete a Masters in Public Administration, said: "In the Spanish mind black is synonymous for domestic work, poverty and lawlessness. In their subconsciousness, they can’t believe that there can be a black latina who speaks about Sartre.

Spain is not an openly racist country. There is no xenophobic party with parliamentary representation. The country does not represent a clear rejection of black, except for marginal groups of extreme right. But there is subtle everyday racism. Manifested in the way home. It is installed in the eye. You find in the classic statement: "I am not racist, but ...". Or it’s the shop salesman who rushes to serve a black person, just so he can leave the shop quickly. It’s racism in a country where blacks have gone from singular elements and exotic, before being put all in the same bag, which is perceived with some concern: immigrants.




Here, there is neither Barack Obama or Oprah Winfrey. There are not many symbols of success. The Black presence is recent. An explosion occurred in the late nineties.

Spain has about 683,000 African descent. 1.5% of the population, just over 10% of foreigners by High Council of Black Communities (Alto Consejo de las Comunidades Negras).This exponential growth is most striking: in 1998 they were no more than 77,000. And just last year, about 7,500 descendants of Africans born in the Spanish territory.

According to the association that advocates the visibility of the black community, these figures are approximate. First, they counted foreigners residing in Spain from countries with black people, and crossed the result with the percentage of African descent in these countries. These figures have a margin of error. Fortunately, we have no ethnic census, the racial difference does not appear on the national identity card. But the quantification of a minority can be seen through another prism. Especially if the initiative comes from the minority itself.

There are data that say: "We are a growing community. We're here. Take us into consideration."

For there was a time when the Spaniards (white) rubbed their eyes in seeing them. Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo, writer and minister of the self-declared government of Equatorial Guinea in exile, based in Madrid, arrived in Spain when his country was still a Spanish colony. A province on the African continent, one hundred percent black. In a recent article entitled Una nueva realidad: los afroespañoles (A new reality: afroespagnols), the Equatorial Guinean wrote several anecdotes of his early years in the white territory.

For example: "Older women who, at Christmas 1965, ran, terrified and scared to see me in a city within the Levantine region, laying hands on her head and cried a black, black, My God, a negro! "[...] My classmates had scratched his head and hands with their fingers and were surprised they were not stained black.

Guineans in the former colony have been the first to arrive so widespread. Today, they are all a little over 23,000. This is the third African country with the most big contingent of blacks in Spain, after Senegal (47,000) and Nigeria (35,000). But migration has been very different. They came to study in the metropolis. To be formed. Today, they perhaps represent the most integrated black community of African descent with a second and third generation.

Lucía Asue Mbomio reporter for Españoles por el mundo (TVE1) is one of them. She speaks with an accent of the district when she wants. She says it is her vulgar side. Born of a white mother and a father Equatorial Guinea, she grew up in Alcorcón, a municipality south of Madrid. She's 28, and her room in a shared appartment, is filled with pride of her race. From "I Have a Dream" Martin Luther King, to the "Yes we can," Obama.

You can read the full article (in French) on the blog Noirs d'Amérique Latine

Expat

Also see Black travel expert Nelson George of BlackAtlas talking to Black British Judi Oshowole, who has lived in Barcelona for 18 years. See more information about her and the community BIBS (Barcelona International Black Sisters) here.

Links

High Council of Black Communities (Alto Consejo de las Comunidades Negras)

High Council of Black Communities on Myspace

What is AfroEurope? Who are the AfroEuropeans or black Europeans?

Some who read this blog may think what the hell this is all about. Are we trying to imitate the USA and their ‘racial’ interpretation of society? Or we trying to pigeonhole the black people of Europe in a new category? What gives us the right to bring together topics related to black people in Europe in one blog? Isn’t it racist to categorize black people in Europe as one group? Based on what? Skincolour? Culture?

The central question is what a Nigerian in Italy, an Angolan in Sweden, a Jamaican in the UK and a mixed race Congolese in France or Germany have in common. Europe is not even united so how would black people coming from different nations feel united within Europe? We don’t even have a common language. Below I will give my opinion on this issue.



500 years
What we have in common is the western and European experience, and the way we are categorized within Europe as a certain kind of people. Whether you are in France, Germany, Italy or any other European country, the majority white people of Europe perceive people of African ancestry in quite the same way. This categorization isn’t entrenched in the laws of European nations, but for centuries in the past it was. It isn’t something we can easily describe nor can we demonstrate it through clear facts and figures. However, through a history of relations between Europe and the darker peoples of the planet, the ‘black man’ has received a certain place. Although racial slavery has been abolished, and racist laws eradicated from law books, the concepts and ideas inherited from more than 5 centuries of African-European relationships are still there. Whatever the colour of our skin, we are part of this history.

An anomaly
Black people in Europe, whether with brown or black skin, whether born there or not, whether having a white parent or not, whether adopted or not, whether they speak the national language or not, whether integrated or not, ...are all perceived as a certain kind of foreigners. They are not supposed to be there. But in reality most black people in Europe have built their homes in Europe, have adopted European cultures as their own and are perfectly integrated. If not the first generation, then certainly their children.

This experience; being perceived as foreigners from a common continent (whether being really a foreigner or not), is central in the creation of our identity. Identity is based on the relationship you have with others. I do think that most Europeans of African ancestry, i.e culturally integrated black people, would prefer just to be seen as part of the country where they are living, fully accepted as members of that society. In reality it is not so. Even when they have actually forgotten the cultures and languages of their ancestors and only know the Western world as their world, they will still be seen as an anomaly within the Western world, even after generations. (It is important to note here that Italians who migrated to France, Belgians who migrated to Sweden, etc. are assimilated after one or two generations). However, after centuries of African-European relationship Europe influenced Africa, but the other way around is certainly just as true. The presence of black people in Europe is a logic consequence of the African-European history. Europe seems not to accept this logic.

Europe’s relationship with the other, (whether Africans or people from the ‘Orient’) and the way it has described the other, has been the vehicle in the creation of a European and Western identity. Unfortunately black people do not fit into that identity. We could fight for being acknowledged as part of the European identity. But this means a total reconsideration of what being European means. When we look at the social and political reality of today's Europe there is an urge to defend and protect an essentialist view of Europe as 'white and pure'. Therefore today, black people in Europe are creating a new concept of self within the Western world, i.e. AfroEurope.

America
Besides that there is the influence of the American media in Europe. Europeans, whether black or white, consume a lot of American media and are influenced by it. Whether you’re French, Swedish, Italian, … we all watch Hollywood movies, we all enjoy the same soaps and series. We all listen to Jazz, Hip Hop, Rock, Grunge, Metal, Soul, Reggae, House .... Our pop culture is impregnated with American pop culture (Predominantly from the USA but actually also from the Caribbean and Latin America). We are all, white and black, part of the Western world. This has a direct influence to how black people within Europe are creating an identity, and how they have been categorized within Europe.

Being ‘black’ is being Western
Black people in Europe do not really have common cultural roots, but second generations feel more related to Western black culture as it is expressed in the Americas than through the culture of their parents. Black people in the Western world have very different roots and backgrounds but have a common experience. Their black identity only makes sense within a Western world dominated by white European culture.

In fact it’s because they have become part of white European culture that they are now ‘black people’ and not Yoruba, Bakongo or Banyarundi, to name just some of the many African peoples living in Africa. This is why, according to me, the European people of African ancestry are becoming black Europeans, AfroEuropeans (or Afropeans as some label us). This is why, according to me, today there is a blog called AfroEurope, informing the world about the African presence within Europe's culture and society.