Tag Archives: institutional racism

Institutional discrimination

Recently, the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency published its new report on discrimination in education and employment. The report not only details how discriminatory and exclusionary the German education and employment landscape is, it also makes extensive recommendations for change.

A look at development policy institutions and organizations in Germany confirms that here, too, and especially here, these recommendations should urgently be taken note of. The newly founded umbrella organization Migration-Development-Participation e.V. (MEPa) emphasizes in a statement that they “miss an adequate integration of migrant experts in many federal states” and that they “do not see equal opportunities for migrants in the NGO structures at present”. AG Sporen lobal from Hamburg is even more specific. In an article entitled “One year of accusations of racism against Eine Welt Netzwerk Hamburg e.V.”, she looks back at how the accusation of structural racism against the state network was dealt with:
“A wall of silence surrounds the moveGLOBAL affair, like most discrimination cases in this country. The personalities in the former moveGLOBAL project advisory board cover EWNW’s back and sweep the affair under the carpet. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Landesnetzwerke in der Eine-Welt-Arbeit – agl – does not question its Hamburg member EWNW. The partly newly elected board of the EWNW is silent – as is the old one. The donor BMZ seems to have forgotten the issue. Business as usual – One year of accusations of racism against Eine Welt Netzwerk Hamburg e. V.”

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Asylum: Game vs. reality

In Berlin-Hellersdorf, the citizens’ initiative Marzahn-Hellersdorf defends itself with T-shirt imprints such as “No to the home” and the dates of the pogrom in Rostock-Lichtenhagen against a planned home for asylum seekers in their district. In Berlin-Reinickendorf, tenants have hired a lawyer to enforce that children from the neighboring home are no longer allowed to play on the playground in front of their house. In Aarau, Switzerland, the city council prohibits asylum seekers from visiting the local swimming pool, sports facilities, library and churches.

At the same time as these racist actions, ZDF is launching the show “Auf der Flucht – Das Experiment” (On the Run – The Experiment), in which German celebrities are to set off “to the countries of origin of asylum seekers in Germany” and thus “experience first-hand [erfahren] what it means to be on the run”. Instead of letting refugees themselves have their say, German state television prefers to produce a program full of racist assessments and descriptions. Nadia Shehadeh has written an open letter to the ZDF television council. It can also be signed here .

Incidentally, RTL and Pro7 are currently broadcasting similarly problematic series: Wild Girls – Mit Highheels durch Afrika and Reality Queens of Safari. The latter has now been discontinued due to low ratings and extensive criticism from NGOs and many others. Not unreasonably, a commenter on africaisacountry wonders “What’s wrong with the Germans?”

Justice for Trayvon Martin

On February 26, 2012, Neighborhood Patrol Coordinator George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a black teenager. A few days ago, Zimmerman was acquitted of both murder and manslaughter charges by a Florida court. The ruling has sparked outrage and great incomprehension in the U.S. and around the world, reactivating a debate about racial profiling and institutional racism. The National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has launched a petition to the Department of Justice that has already been signed by over half a million people in just a few days. The petition can be supported here:

bell hooks anticipates a description by Zimmermann in her 2000 book, All about love:

“White supremacy has taught him that all people of color are threats irrespective of their behavior. Capitalism has taught him that, at all costs, his property can and must be protected. Patriarchy has taught him that his masculinity has to be proven by the willingness to conquer fear through aggression; that it would be unmanly to ask questions before taking action. Mass media then brings us the news of this in a newspeak manner that sounds almost jocular and celebratory, as though no tragedy has happened, as though the sacrifice of a young life was necessary to uphold property values and white patriarchal honor. Viewers are encouraged to feel sympathy for the white male home owner who made a mistake.”

In Germany, the Initiative of Black People in Germany (ISD) and the Campaign for Victims of Racist Police Violence (KOP) have currently launched a campaign appeal “Racial Profiling Costs.” All people who experience or observe racial profiling are encouraged to raise their voices. A form for a letter to the Federal Police Headquarters in Koblenz can be found here.

Intercultural opening of the development scene

Development policy is one of the most international fields of work. This is why it is often particularly surprising to find that most institutions and non-governmental organizations employ almost exclusively people from the dominant majority society: People from the Global South, Black people and People of Color seem to be more or less structurally excluded.

In recent years, several projects and initiatives have been found that have tried to advance the issue of so-called intercultural opening in the development policy scene, primarily in civil society. One of the projects was the “move glokal/move global” project in Hamburg, which ended prematurely. In the meantime, not only an evaluation of the EWNW project is online, but also a rebuttal by the terminated project manager Dr. Ali Fathi. Continue reading →