In Audre’s Footsteps E-Book

Heidi R. Lewis

• Herausgeber: edition assemblage
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 168

Beschreibung

In Audre’s Footsteps amplifies the resistive and generative experiences of women of color educators, artists, activists, and scholars in Berlin and the U.S. who consider themselves friends in the struggle. In Audre’s Footsteps honors Black radical traditions set forth by W.E.B. Du Bois, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Angela Y. Davis, and Audre Lorde, all who were intellectually influenced by their experiences in Berlin. The text primarily relies on Black and Transnational Feminist theoretical frameworks and methodologies to amplify the resistive and generative personal and professional experiences of women of color educators, artists, activists, and scholars in Berlin and the U.S. who consider themselves friends in the struggle. While being particularly attentive to racism, heterosexism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression, In Audre’s Footsteps also examines how these women resist, reject, and revise oppressive narratives as they develop their subjectivities. Further, it addresses the always advantageous but sometimes contentious contours of solidarity, especially when people actively engaging with various forms of resistance have seemingly competing and contradictory goals.

Leseprobe

“MOVEMENT SPACES ARE AFTEN ROMANTICIZED AND EXAMINED THROUGH ROSE-COLORED GLASSES, AS SPACES OF COMMON UNDERSTANDING AND UNITY, BUT HOW CAN WE CONNECT ACROSS DIFFERENCES IN SPACE, TIME, AND IDENTITY, PARTICULARLY WHEN WE’RE IN CONFLICT WITH EACH OTHER?”

In Audre’s Footsteps honors Black radical traditions set forth by W.E.B. Du Bois, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Angela Y. Davis, and Audre Lorde, all who were intellectually influenced by their experiences in Berlin. The text primarily relies on Black and Transnational Feminist theoretical frameworks and methodologies to amplify the resistive and generative personal and professional experiences of women of color educators, artists, activists, and scholars in Berlin and the U.S. who consider themselves friends in the struggle. While being particularly attentive to racism, heterosexism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression, In Audre’s Footsteps also examines how these women resist, reject, and revise oppressive narratives as they develop their subjectivities. Further, it addresses the always advantageous but sometimes contentious contours of solidarity, especially when people actively engaging with various forms of resistance have seemingly competing and contradictory goals.

“It is a great tribute to Audre, but also to us activists of the Black German movement, that Heidi continues to cross the Atlantic and follow Audre’s footsteps. This book contributes to ensuring that they remain both visible and tangible.”

Ika Hügel-Marshall, Ria Cheatom, Jasmin Eding, and Judy Gummich

The Editors:

Heidi R. Lewis is a professor at Colorado College,Dana Maria Asbury is an activist based in Toronto, andJazlyn Andrews is a writer based in Denver.

In Audre’s Footsteps makes a timely and invaluable contribution to the growing canon of the emerging field of Black German Studies. Not only do the authors provide an academic audience with rich and illuminating “kitchen table” conversations that reveal the perspectives of Black and BIPOC feminist scholars and activists in Germany, they are also gifting the diaspora community of Black Germans by articulating living history in a manner that is accessible and empowering to non-academic readers. Importantly, in the spirit of Audre Lorde, this book helps to dispel societal myths that linger on both sides of the Atlantic and dauntlessly exposes the ethical and institutional challenges inherent in scholarly activism.

Dr. Rosemarie Peña

President, Black German Heritage and Research Association

In Audre’s Footsteps is a celebration and honoring of the long-term, groundbreaking, grassroots activist and scholarly intersectional work to uncover hidden narratives in Berlin, Germany. Dr. Heidi R. Lewis and Dana Maria Asbury provide readers with an engaged, non-voyeuristic view of their global, Black feminist-centered table where members from minoritized communities in Berlin and the U.S. gather. This beautiful collection of intergenerational conversations underscores the power of storytelling and how it is both radical activist movement-building and intellectual rigor. Lewis and Asbury, with former student Jazlyn Andrews, provide readers with a divine gift that is an embodiment of Audre Lorde’s words, “Without community, there is no liberation.” May the circle be unbroken.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons

Producer/ Director, NO! The Rape Documentary

Editor, Love WITH Accountability

This book has opened a space of conversation for me. I read it in one sitting and will keep it at hand from now on, just beside Audre Lorde’s essays, for whenever I need support and inspiration.

Dr. Elisa Diallo

Author of Französisch verlernen

Rights Director at Schöffling Verlag

In Audre’s Footsteps makes profound contributions to Black and transnational feminist studies, providing a picture of Germany many readers likely haven’t encountered before. In centering Black women and women of color, this work asks us to take seriously what transnational and intersectional readings illuminate about power and resistance. This book is an important example of Black transnational feminist work that values reflexivity, reciprocity, and is attentive to lived realities. Because of that, Dr. Lewis continues to inspire my interrogations of transnational connections to be made in Germany and will inspire interrogations of these hidden spaces and hidden narratives for years to come.

Judy Lynne Fisher

Ph.D. Student, Purdue University

In Audre’s Footsteps is a testament to Audre Lorde and the diverse women of the Black German movement, past and present. Black German women’s intimacy and vulnerability in the volume reflect the affective practices and politics that not only helped to sustain them, but also guided their activism and movement. Lewis and Asbury offer a bold contribution that complicates discussions on race, racialization, gender, and history in Germany. It is a unique volume that is not only generative and powerful, but important and timely!

Dr. Tiffany N. Florvil

Associate Professor of History, University of New Mexico

FOR AUDRE

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar.

Heidi R. Lewis and Dana Maria Asbury with Jazlyn Andrews

IN AUDRE’S FOOTSTEPS

Transnational Kitchen Table Talk

Witnessed Book Series Edition 7 ~ Sharon Dodua Otoo

1. Auflage, 2021

ISBN: 978-3-96042-111-5

edition assemblage

Postfach 27 46

D-48041 Münster

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Eigentumsvorbehalt:

Dieses Buch bleibt Eigentum des Verlages, bis es der gefangenen Person direkt ausgehändigt wurde. Zur-Habe-Nahme ist keine Aushändigung im Sinne dieses Vorbehalts.

Bei Nichtaushändigung ist es unter Mitteilung des Grundes zurückzusenden.

Korrektorat [Proofreading]: Jade Pearl Frost

Projektkoordinierung: [Project coordination]: Carla Schäfer

Umschlag & Satz [Cover & Layout]: Carina Büker | edition assemblage

E-Book-Herstellung [E-book production]: Zeilenwert GmbH

HEIDI R. LEWIS

Professor at Colorado College

DANA MARIA ASBURY

Activist based in Toronto

JAZLYN ANDREWS

Writer based in Denver

CONTENTS

Cover

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dr. Heidi R. Lewis

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dana Maria Asbury

PREFACE

Sharon Dodua Otoo

FOREWORD

Ria Cheatom, Ika Hügel-Marshall, Jasmin Eding, and Judy Gummich

INTRODUCTION

Dr. Heidi R. Lewis

CREATING SPACES TO FULLY EXPRESS OUR BLACKNESS

A Conversation with Katja Kinder, Peggy Piesche, and Prof. Dr. Maisha M. Auma of Generation Adefra: Black Women in Germany

WE HAVE TO STOP SOLELY REACTING

A Conversation with Iris Rajanayagam

I’M NOT HERE TO SAVE YOUR SOUL

A Conversation with Josephine Apraku

I’M CHALLENGING THEM TO SEE

A Conversation with Dr. Rebecca Brückmann

INTEGRATION ISN’T EVEN WHAT WE’RE DEMANDING

A Conversation with Jamile da Silva e Silva and Melody LaVerne Bettencourt

THAT’S MY GIRL

A Conversation with Mona El Omari

WE’RE HERE TO CONNECT AND DO INTERSECTIONAL WORK

A Conversation with Dr. Céline Barry

A LOVE LETTER TO KATHARINA OGUNTOYE: AN AFTERWORD

Dr. Heidi R. Lewis and Sharon Dodua Otoo

THE CONTRIBUTORS

ENDNOTES

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DR. HEIDI R. LEWIS

I have so many people to thank for supporting the work I’ve done in Berlin that led to the creation of this book. I love all of you – always in all ways.

Thank you, first and foremost, to my husband Antonio and our children, AJ and Chase. Almost every summer since 2014, I’ve spent 3 to 5 weeks in Berlin. Sometimes, you’ve come. Most of the time, you haven’t. And we have not been immune to the stresses of being apart for those long periods of time, especially since we spend so much time together. However, you have never made me feel like going to Berlin was a problem. You have always been supportive and encouraging of my work there and at home. I could not have asked for a better husband or children. You are my favorite dreams come true, and I love you most of all.

Thank you to the late Black lesbian, mother, warrior, poet Audre Lorde for accepting that first invitation to visit Berlin. Thank you for lovingly and powerfully co-creating worlds that have served as the primary inspiration for all of my work, especially this book.

Thank you to every contributor to and supporter of the genesis for this book, my study abroad course, “Hidden Spaces, Hidden Narratives: Intersectionality Studies in Berlin,” especially my students, the #FemGeniusesinBerlin. Thank you for your kindness, generosity, thoughtfulness, and encouragement. This project is possible, in large part, because of your trust in me and interest in my work.

Thank you to our Starshine, my unicorn, one of the best friends I have ever had, my co-author Dana Maria Asbury. Thank you for everything you are. Thank you for teaching me even though I’m hard-headed. Thank you for debating me thoughtfully and compassionately. Thank you for carefully challenging my ideas. Thank you for listening to me even when my thoughts and feelings are wild and chaotic. Thank you for encouraging me to be big. Thank you for sharing and making space with me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for everything that is you. I love you more than any words could ever “say.”

Thank you to every contributor to and supporter of this project, including Jade Pearl Frost, our copyeditor and member of the 2015 #FemGeniusesinBerlin. Special thanks to Mae Eskenazi, member of the 2016 #FemGeniusesinBerlin and the audiovisual engineer who beautifully and thoughtfully captured the photographs and audiovisual footage that led to the creation of this book. Special thanks to Jazlyn Tate Andrews, also a member of the 2015 #Fem-GeniusesinBerlin, who listened carefully and compassionately to every conversation, even parts not included in this text, and created the most beautiful prose that so clearly and powerfully reflects our precious, intimate conversations. Thank you to one of my closest and dearest friends, Dr. Naomi Pueo Wood, for giving me the idea to trust Jazlyn with this project during a moment when I wasn’t sure I could carry it any further. Collectivity has always been one of my guiding principles from the moment I had the idea to teach a course abroad. Thank you for reminding me of that when I grew weary. You all are some of the most brilliant, loving, and compassionate people I’ve ever had the pleasure of resisting and building with, and I wouldn’t want to imagine a life without you in it.

Last, but certainly not least, special thanks to my dear friend, Sharon Dodua Otoo, the editor of the powerful, groundbreaking Witnessed Series. I will never forget the first time we met at BrezelBar in November 2013, and you pulled out your notepad and pen to write down the names of all the people I should meet and places I should go. You were the one who said, “You have to meet Mona El Omari!” and look at us now. Years later, when I asked if you would be interested in publishing this book, you didn’t hesitate, and I’ll be forever grateful. Thank you for allowing Witnessed to be the home of my very first book.

Dear readers, I hope you enjoy this offering. I hope you learn something. I hope it allows you to teach something. Thank you for reading. Stay tuned. It ain’t over. We ain’t done.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DANA MARIA ASBURY

I struggle to translate big feelings into private words. I struggle again to translate private words into public text. One of the first times I met Katja Kinder, she shared that it’s not necessary to archive everything. It is not necessary to write everything down. That you are living it in the moment is enough. I felt a great sense of recognition and affirmation sitting across from her that day, and feel it again whenever I remember. Prof. Dr. Maisha Auma and Heidi felt differently about the necessity of writing. The fact this book exists is proof that archiving and sharing beyond the immediate circle is important, too.

My place in this book and overall project has been to linger and learn in the in-between space, holding very much private, internal, and close, while being stretched to communicate and become legible to a broader community of siblings.

I am so grateful to every person who has shared space and time and love with me and Heidi these past 7 years in Berlin and across digital geographies. I know each and every one of you is intentional about who you choose to live beside. Some of the greatest privileges of my life have been to share silliness, laughter, vulnerability, food, smokes, afternoon rooftops, rage, cemetery walks, garden BBQs, fast breaking, hugs, and memories with you. Thank you for always making this weird, quiet lurker feel loved, at home, and worthy.

Thank you, #FemGeniusesinBerlin, for modeling curiosity, creativity, and so many ways of being in and shaping the world. Thank you Mae and Jazlyn and Jade for your labour, artistic visions, and collaboration.

Thank you Carleen and James and Christopher and Sherwin and Hermione for the purpose, presence, and gratitude I feel as we share this basement space in Darby Township, Pennsylvania.

Heidi, you are very precious to me. Our friendship is important. I would not and could not exist if not for you and our relationship. This is a fact and in no way hyperbole. I love you very, very much. Thank you for your commitments and for living and saying and writing exactly what you mean to.

PREFACE

One of the first ideas I had while dreaming up the Witnessed Series was to curate a book based on correspondence between different Black community organisations in Germany and Black organisations in different English-speaking countries around the world: conversations which would transcend borders. I imagined an exchange between Black communities sharing wisdom and knowledge about empowerment, resistance, healing, and Black joy. I loved the book already before a single word had been written, before I could imagine what the cover would look like. However, I also knew that putting together a precious publication like this would require months and years of relationship-building. I would need to earn the deep-seated trust of people who would be most probably and quite understandably suspicious of my intentions. I quickly realised I would not be able to dedicate the emotional and physical energy required for such an undertaking.

And then, I received an email from one Heidi R. Lewis.

At the time, I had no idea what our contact would come to mean to me, but I did feel an instant connection. It was obvious Heidi shared my passion for people, for connecting, for Black feminism. I loved the idea she had for her new course: “Hidden Spaces, Hidden Narratives: Intersectionality Studies in Berlin” and was keen to lend my support. Her plan was ambitious, and her budget was modest (intentionally – so that the course would be accessible to students who need financial assistance), yet her commitment was sincere, and – a quality I always admire in a person – we could really laugh together. Since our initial contact back in November 2013, Heidi has put in a phenomenal amount of work into building lasting relationships with Black individuals and communities, as well as other people of color in Berlin. This was never exclusively an academic project. In Berlin she has found friends, family, loved-ones. The intensity of the relationships I describe is reflected in the quality of the intimate conversations published in this book. Relationships which have involved both joy and pain. Heidi has never shied away from navigating conflicts – rather she has embraced them, viewing them as learning opportunities. And in turn I have learnt so much from her.

In Audre’s Footsteps beautifully portrays intergenerational, queer feminist conversations, which reach across national boundaries and honor the visions of our ancestors. Each encounter is marked by a vulnerability and openness to express pain, and yet, simultaneously, the resulting exchange focuses on how to transform and transcend. To look beyond. This book is an incredible addition to the Witnessed Series and a precious gift to us all.

Sharon Dodua Otoo

Series Editor, Witnessed

October 2021

FOREWORD

RIA CHEATOM, IKA HÜGEL-MARSHALL, JASMIN EDING, AND JUDY GUMMICH

In Audre’s Footsteps: Transnational Kitchen Table Talk is a valuable addition to the growing number of publications on Black life and history in Germany. This collection of conversations with Berlin-based Black women and women of color political and social protagonists explicitly traces the influences Audre Lorde had on activists and Black German organizations.

We, activists and founding women of ADEFRA: Black Women in Germany and partly also the Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (Initiative Black People in Germany, ISD), had the chance to get to know Audre directly, experience the work she did in Germany, discuss it with her, and exchange ideas. These encounters gave us strength for our commitments, raising our voices, and demanding our respect and our rights. It was Audre who gave important impulses for the emergence of ADEFRA and ISD and who continuously accompanied and supported our paths throughout the years and during her periods of residence in Berlin. Also, without Audre’s effectiveness, Farbe bekennen: Afrodeutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out) perhaps would not have existed.

Today, it has become a matter of course in the German-speaking media to speak of “Afro-Germans” or “Black Germans,” but in the mid-1980s, such formulations were met with incomprehension and rejection. Audre made a significant contribution to this change by underscoring our right to define ourselves. We were all the more pleased, then, when Heidi asked us to write the “Foreword” to this book, which is being published, figuratively speaking, in Audre’s “footsteps.”

Since the mid-1980s, there has been interest and repeated inquiries from U.S. scholars and students about Black history in Germany, especially in Berlin. We have given interviews and provided access to our archives, and often, we never heard from those scholars and students again. For this reason, we were initially a bit hesitant when we received requests from Heidi in 2013 to speak with her students from the U.S. about the beginnings of our Black movement and Audre Lorde’s influence. Ika received that first request along with Dagmar Schultz, the filmmaker of Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984-1992, managing director and owner of the Orlanda publishing house for many years, and co-editor of Farbe bekennen. A year later, Heidi invited Ika to discuss her book Invisible Woman: Growing Up Black in Germany (1993) and Dagmar to screen her film. They were also joined by Ria. So, the students got to know another part of Audre Lorde’s life that often does not get much attention in the U.S.

Heidi then had the idea of pursuing Audre’s trail in Berlin with her students to experience what influence Audre had on the Afro-German community and what significance it still has for the younger generation of (not only) Black activists in Germany. This is how she and the students got to know us ADEFRA women and other activists in various Berlin communities. In addition to talking to us, they visited various organizations and projects, including the Joliba Interkulturelles Netzwerk in Berlin e.V., the Schwules Museum*, Reach Out-Ariba e.V. (a counseling center for victims of right-wing and racist violence), S.U.S.I. (Intercultural Women’s Centre), Each One Teach One e.V. (including, among other things, a Black history archive and a project for Black youth), and ISD.

We were surprised how well-informed her students were and how motivated they were to learn about Black German history. They were very interested in finding out how Afro-Germans/Black people and other minoritized groups in Germany live in the white majority society. They also wanted to know how we fight and resist racism and all forms of discrimination today and how we create empowerment spaces for our communities. In this way, the voices of the marginalized, stories about their struggles, stories about resistance, empowerment, and intersectionality could be conveyed directly. Thanks to this wide range of encounters, Heidi is able to familiarize the students with Germany’s diversity.

Many years have now passed, and Heidi is still interested in the further development of the Black Diasporic movement in Germany and in transnational exchange. She remains committed to ensuring students broaden their view of Germany with its still too obscure Black history, especially because many in the U.S. who are familiar with the work of Audre Lorde often do not know her impact and the significance of her Berlin years. It is precisely these lessons that Heidi makes possible for her students through direct experiences and encounters.