5. Decolonizing German Studies While Dissecting Race in the American Classroom

In 1992, Leroy Hopkins wrote a proposal for expanding the German canon to include what he called “Afro-German Studies” (Hopkins 1992). In this proposal, Hopkins argues for the inclusion of more literature written by and about Afro-Germans, in part, because of the diversity it brings to the German canon. “Afro-German” is a term coined by African American feminist scholar Audre Lorde together with the Black German women she taught in a class at the Free University in the spring of 1984. In the introduction to the volume Showing Our Colors, Lorde describes Afro-Germans as one group of many “hyphenated people of the Diaspora whose self-defined identities are no longer shameful secrets in the countries of our origin, but rather declarations of strength and solidarity” (viii). Since then, the term has come to signify individuals who have one white German parent and one parent who is a member of the African diaspora (e.g., African American, Afro-Caribbean, African). This definition of the word has, however, since been problematized because it excludes African diasporic peoples living in Germany who do not have a German parent. Furthermore, by now there are Germans who have two Afro-German parents or one Afro-German parent and another parent with roots in the African diaspora. Therefore, I prefer using the term Black German because Black is not only a political term but also more inclusive (al-Samarai 2004, pp. 611–12).

The published script of the play is based on a British performance. Therefore, the actors are identified as white and Black British.

The term Völkerschau can best be translated as “human zoo” and it refers to a practice in the nineteenth and early twentieth century when Germans, most notably Carl Hagenbeck (1844–1913), placed Africans, Asians, and Indigenous peoples from North America in zoo exhibits to be observed by the public.

For a detailed explanation of “respectability politics,” see the work of Evelyn Brooks (Higginbotham 1993).

„Ja, wir [Afro-Germans] können deutsch sein – aber wir müssen es nicht […] dieser Bruch [ist] unumgänglich – und es ist ein Befreieungsmoment.“