Since I have a physics midterm tomorrow, I can't go to class and discuss about the reading Other Germans with my classmates. Hopefully they will have a nice discussion.
Before I started reading, I talked about the topic of this reading with my roommate. She asked me, "I don't think there are many black people in German. Where did they come from, did they come from France?" In fact I didn't know the answer since I was not familiar with the history of Europe. The only thing I know is that in French soccer team there are always more black people than that in the national team of Germany. So I started my reading with this question. After tow-days reading, I would say, "Congratulation! She is right." France colonized a large part of African, and they recruited approximately 190,000 African soldier for World War I, because they wanted to keep national troops to renewal the country. Also, as French were not good at military operation, so they needed African troops who had innate physical capacities and aptitude to war. Then when France was at war with Germany in World War I, those Black troops got into Germany. I'm wondering that if they entered in Germany this way most of them would be enemies to Germans.
"I was insulted and verbally abuse about my father's heritage. That was just after the war. The fathers of all the other kids were German soldiers. And mine was the enemy." --Hans Hauck
After seeing those paragraph I came up with a question. Did their background generate the racial problem or the racial problem make them have that hard background? As for America, when those black people came to this country they were slaves. At the beginning part of their history in this country they were in the lowest class, and they had to do all the hard work without freedom. So even nowadays their background always influenced people's views towards them. Seeing back to German, if they come to this country as enemies they would get the hatred from native people, so the racial problem among them must be sharper. I don't know how the racial problem generated. Maybe people have the natural to repel the different race. But one thing I'm sure is that it's really sad if we still keep the racial discrimination as we already got in this civilized society such a long time.
As for racial mixture, even I can understand their concerns, but if two people with different races fall in love how can they ban their marriage. But there is a paragraph about "sexual threat" make me rethink about the cause of some racial problems.
"The white woman...has always had a visibly privileged position among Europeans. For this reason the Negro has also shown her, for the most part, absolute respect and submissive obedience... But the white woman was also something different to him, something beyond the term Weib. She was something unreachable to him; something he certainly only seldom consciously desired... Now the negro, who inhabits Africa and parts of the rest of the world in countless millions and generally stands on a lower rung of the evolutionary ladder, is not only being brought to Europe, not only being used in battle in a white country; he is also systematically being trained to desire that which was formerly unreachable for him--the white woman! He is being urged and driven to besmirch defenseless women and girls with his tuberculous and syphilitic stench, wrench them intone his stinking apish arms and abuse them in the most unthinkable ways! He is being taught that...he can do anything his animal instincts even remotely demand, without the slightest restraint, he even finds support for this form the 'victors.'"
Sometimes we think that most crime and rapes were did by black people, but do we ever think that may be the result coming from the way we treat them. If we don't create the barrier between each race people won't desire something so much. And because of the discrimination they experience in the life make they have more antisocial thoughts and behaviors.
"We are the victims of our History and our Present. They place too many obstacles in the Way of Love. And we can not enjoy even our differences in peace."
I do hope people can transgress boundaries, and enjoy the differences. Life should be equal and beautiful.
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