Germany Debriefing
It had many ups and downs that I wanted to recount here, but too much time has passed for me to capture it with any intensity. Instead, I'll give a numbered list of interesting facts of my trip:
1. The girl I traveled with is slowly taking over my tiny slice of world at GSU. She is me, but better, so it's less of her fault and more of my own failings. At first, she was extremely bitchy and standoffish, but when she realized that the enemy of my enemy is my friend--we got along fine.
2. Mainz, Germany is not Berlin or even Frankfurt. Racism still thrives there--despite all the insistence of the white Germans. The black Germans--who all sought me out the moment I touched down--had horror stories about their mistreatment at Germans hands. These ranged from a neighbor alleging that this African had raped his girlfriend to just being asked rude, inappropriate questions. I got several of these myself at a local nightclub: "You're very dark. Is that why your hair is that way?"
3. On another note, if they aren't being racially offensive, they're trying to get with you. It's actually very creepy. Half are trying to have sex with you right now, while the other half acts like they'd like nothing better than to ship you out of their country. We traveled with a hot white girl--so hot, in fact, that she told us there were steamy photos of her on the interwebs--that got almost no play while we were there. Instead the two black girls were getting all the creepy old German men and young German students who kept telling us that we were "so passionate". Venus Hottentot, anyone?
4. Beer is almost always cheaper than water there. Booze is easy to come by and you can just walk and drink openly--even on the bus! The university even had a cool cafe/biergarden for students on campus. 16 is the legal drinking age for beer and wine, 18 for hard stuff. On that same note, 21 is the legal age to get your driver's license.
5. People bike everywhere. Fat people are scarce, which makes the German fascination with the two thick black girls even more suspicious. Weight is very strictly controlled. We saw one big girl, and she couldn't have been but two sizes bigger than me.
6. The conference became very racially charged very quick. The more I tried to stay out of it, the more ostracized I became. In essence, there were two conferences happening: one on Rhett Butler's South and one on Frederick Douglass's South. No one wanted to reconcile the two. There was a strange expectation that those of us looking at blacks in the South would change our minds and talk about the "real" South. My work wasn't even dealing with racial issues between blacks and whites--I was dealing with Return South Migration and performing blackness--and I got lopped in with the "race baiters". So I found that the black scholars--this time--were more thoughtful and scholarly than the others, and that's how ol' girl and I became colleagues.
7. Turns out she's sweet. She's quite different from me ideologically, I mean, she's still on this whole binary shit, but she is a great scholar and a effusive friend. -hugs abound-
8. I cried myself to sleep a lot during this conference. Usually when I'm faced with these sort of rock and a hard place situations, I have my friends and my husband to turn to at the end of the night. I missed them and I hated having to deal with racists on both sides of the fence AND being not really accepted into either group. "Not black enough for BET / not white enough for MTV / just let me be" (Jadakiss). The white people I befriended would say some wacky racist shit and I'd have to check them, and then I'd take a break and be with the blacks and think, "omg, you are doing the same fucking thing!" Emotionally exhausting.
9. I met a black American. He was dumb as a brick, but made me feel comfortable, in a way my classmates did not. I finally felt like I was in Europe--we ate at sexy cafes, went to the beach at night and drank wine, and walked the riverfront. The novelty was wearing off though, as he told me that there wasn't anything to say about black literature since "who's that guy? oh, you know, Frederick" Douglass. He wanted to know why I didn't study Shakespeare since "they always teaching that in schools." So his shelf life was quickly expiring.
10. There are lots more. Like Germans love ice cream. LOVE IT. Imagine that everywhere there was a Starbucks or other coffee shop in Atlanta, it was replaced with an ice cream shop. The buses had "do not" pictures that say, no smoking, no stereos, no ice cream. weird.
11. The buses are on the honor system. You can get on without buying a bus pass. They expect that you have, but they hardly ever ask for you to show it. I bought mine--cause I'm a good citizen--but the others did not. No one had any problems. Maybe I should've done that too. Nah.
12. My conference paper went over swimmingly. The people who were insistent that discussing blacks in the South was a waste of time, were mostly impressed by my work. Katie McKee--who's kinda a big wig--along with Charlie Wilson told me I should put it together for publication and submit it because my work grasps the essence of New Southern Studies. There was one naysayer though: a German professor who said that any paper on this topic is "bristling with problems".
13. I met John Edgar Wideman. w00t! And he kissed me on my cheeks, euro-style!
14. The buildings in Mainz reminds you that America is not old at all. They have buildings--in use--that were built in the 1400s.
15. The river Rheine is cool, filled with castles and vineyards. It's funny how Americans like Ben Franklin dissed it back in the day for being too industrious and spoiling the beauty of the land. Now the castles and vineyards look picturesque.
So many other things I noticed while there, but I'll stop here. I suppose if people wanted me to go into specifics, I would, but if not, here you go. Mainz in 15 bullet points.
1. The girl I traveled with is slowly taking over my tiny slice of world at GSU. She is me, but better, so it's less of her fault and more of my own failings. At first, she was extremely bitchy and standoffish, but when she realized that the enemy of my enemy is my friend--we got along fine.
2. Mainz, Germany is not Berlin or even Frankfurt. Racism still thrives there--despite all the insistence of the white Germans. The black Germans--who all sought me out the moment I touched down--had horror stories about their mistreatment at Germans hands. These ranged from a neighbor alleging that this African had raped his girlfriend to just being asked rude, inappropriate questions. I got several of these myself at a local nightclub: "You're very dark. Is that why your hair is that way?"
3. On another note, if they aren't being racially offensive, they're trying to get with you. It's actually very creepy. Half are trying to have sex with you right now, while the other half acts like they'd like nothing better than to ship you out of their country. We traveled with a hot white girl--so hot, in fact, that she told us there were steamy photos of her on the interwebs--that got almost no play while we were there. Instead the two black girls were getting all the creepy old German men and young German students who kept telling us that we were "so passionate". Venus Hottentot, anyone?
4. Beer is almost always cheaper than water there. Booze is easy to come by and you can just walk and drink openly--even on the bus! The university even had a cool cafe/biergarden for students on campus. 16 is the legal drinking age for beer and wine, 18 for hard stuff. On that same note, 21 is the legal age to get your driver's license.
5. People bike everywhere. Fat people are scarce, which makes the German fascination with the two thick black girls even more suspicious. Weight is very strictly controlled. We saw one big girl, and she couldn't have been but two sizes bigger than me.
6. The conference became very racially charged very quick. The more I tried to stay out of it, the more ostracized I became. In essence, there were two conferences happening: one on Rhett Butler's South and one on Frederick Douglass's South. No one wanted to reconcile the two. There was a strange expectation that those of us looking at blacks in the South would change our minds and talk about the "real" South. My work wasn't even dealing with racial issues between blacks and whites--I was dealing with Return South Migration and performing blackness--and I got lopped in with the "race baiters". So I found that the black scholars--this time--were more thoughtful and scholarly than the others, and that's how ol' girl and I became colleagues.
7. Turns out she's sweet. She's quite different from me ideologically, I mean, she's still on this whole binary shit, but she is a great scholar and a effusive friend. -hugs abound-
8. I cried myself to sleep a lot during this conference. Usually when I'm faced with these sort of rock and a hard place situations, I have my friends and my husband to turn to at the end of the night. I missed them and I hated having to deal with racists on both sides of the fence AND being not really accepted into either group. "Not black enough for BET / not white enough for MTV / just let me be" (Jadakiss). The white people I befriended would say some wacky racist shit and I'd have to check them, and then I'd take a break and be with the blacks and think, "omg, you are doing the same fucking thing!" Emotionally exhausting.
9. I met a black American. He was dumb as a brick, but made me feel comfortable, in a way my classmates did not. I finally felt like I was in Europe--we ate at sexy cafes, went to the beach at night and drank wine, and walked the riverfront. The novelty was wearing off though, as he told me that there wasn't anything to say about black literature since "who's that guy? oh, you know, Frederick" Douglass. He wanted to know why I didn't study Shakespeare since "they always teaching that in schools." So his shelf life was quickly expiring.
10. There are lots more. Like Germans love ice cream. LOVE IT. Imagine that everywhere there was a Starbucks or other coffee shop in Atlanta, it was replaced with an ice cream shop. The buses had "do not" pictures that say, no smoking, no stereos, no ice cream. weird.
11. The buses are on the honor system. You can get on without buying a bus pass. They expect that you have, but they hardly ever ask for you to show it. I bought mine--cause I'm a good citizen--but the others did not. No one had any problems. Maybe I should've done that too. Nah.
12. My conference paper went over swimmingly. The people who were insistent that discussing blacks in the South was a waste of time, were mostly impressed by my work. Katie McKee--who's kinda a big wig--along with Charlie Wilson told me I should put it together for publication and submit it because my work grasps the essence of New Southern Studies. There was one naysayer though: a German professor who said that any paper on this topic is "bristling with problems".
13. I met John Edgar Wideman. w00t! And he kissed me on my cheeks, euro-style!
14. The buildings in Mainz reminds you that America is not old at all. They have buildings--in use--that were built in the 1400s.
15. The river Rheine is cool, filled with castles and vineyards. It's funny how Americans like Ben Franklin dissed it back in the day for being too industrious and spoiling the beauty of the land. Now the castles and vineyards look picturesque.
So many other things I noticed while there, but I'll stop here. I suppose if people wanted me to go into specifics, I would, but if not, here you go. Mainz in 15 bullet points.