Icon: enlarge
Right-wing extremist threat scenarios: Attila Hildmann at a demonstration against Corona rules in Berlin
Photo: Christian Thiel / imago images
Can only
white
people be racists?
No of course not.
On the one hand, there is also resentment within minority groups: Turks against Kurds, Greeks against Turks, Muslims against Jews or vice versa.
On the other hand, there are also people who are perceived as Muslims, for example, and who express themselves racially about Muslims.
Or people with an obvious migration background who incite against migrants.
This was recently made visible in the case of Xavier Naidoo, the cuddly bard of the German citizens and melodic aluminum hat agitator.
The soul singer with immigrant parents has been singing anti-Semitic and right-wing codes for years.
But it wasn't until 2020 that RTL fired him as a juror for the program "Deutschland sucht den Superstar".
Why was he allowed to do so for so long?
Perhaps one thought that the questionable song passages were a misunderstanding because - a
black
person could not hate migrants?
Equally remarkable is the whip in the conspiracy milieu: Attila Hildmann, cookbook author and self-proclaimed "vegan king".
It's a little more complicated with him.
He has white, German adoptive parents, but his birth parents and first name are Turkish.
Hildmann does not hold back with his racist standpoints either.
As a star of the Corona denier scene, he chews right-wing extremist threat scenarios, propagates violence and has criminal charges for incitement to hatred on his neck.
Ferda Ataman Right Arrow
Photo:
ANDREAS LABES / Andreas Labes
Born in 1979, is a journalist and publicist.
In 2019 her pamphlet "Stop asking. I'm from here!"
published by S. Fischer Verlag.
Until February 2020 she wrote the column "Heimatkunde" for SPIEGEL.
She is the honorary chairwoman of the "New German Media Makers" and co-founder of the "New German Organizations", a post-migrant network of more than 120 initiatives that campaign for diversity and equal participation nationwide.
Akif Pirinçci, who made his living with cat novels in the 1990s, is almost forgotten.
For several years he has been successful as a vulgar Muslim hater, whose books are also available in the AfD fan shop.
At a Pegida demonstration in 2015, he even regretted that there were no more concentration camps.
Right-wing extremism among people who are themselves affected by racism?
Although Naidoo and Hildmann were discussed at length this summer, this topic received little attention.
It is also difficult to understand: Why does someone stir up hatred of a group to which he or she is assigned externally?
The topic has hardly been researched so far, there is little literature.
Attempted explanation: migrant self-hatred
Presumably, Xavier, Attila, Akif and Co. do not see themselves as part of the group they hate and want to clarify that by demarcating themselves as brutally as possible.
In some cases it goes so far that there are traits of
self-denial and
self-hatred
.
Self-hatred because they want to break out of the identity that they apparently find inferior and join the
hostile
side.
A flight into right-wing extremism in order to gain the longed-for recognition as a German?
There are countless migrants and people of color who want to compensate for their migrant handicap - the target for discrimination - by adapting themselves excessively and making perfect Germans.
For example, by drinking beer, eating pork knuckle and laughing particularly loudly along with racist jokes.
Some go further and settle for right-wing extremists and right-wing extremists, like the migrants in the AfD.
Presumably, Xavier, Attila, Akif and Co. do not see themselves as part of the group they hate and want to clarify that by demarcating themselves as brutally as possible.
Another explanation would be
internalized racism
.
People of color and black people have internalized negative clichés and stereotypes about minorities - some more, some less.
"Internalized racism can also make itself felt through the rejection of the cultural practices of one's own ethnic or racial group," explains journalist Ciani-Sophia Hoeder in a video in the Afro-German women's magazine "Rosamag".
The racist agitation can also be related to
nationalisms and racisms in the countries of origin
.
In some Iranian diaspora communities, there are Aryan feelings of superiority and hatred towards Muslims.
Some people who belonged to the upper, secular class of the "white Turks" in Turkey also behave condescendingly towards other Turks and devout Muslims in Germany.
There are many such examples.
No escape from discrimination
In right-wing extremist milieus, people of color will sooner or later find themselves in a quandary: no matter how fervently they shout racist slogans, they will remain part of the discriminated group.
Xavier, Attila and Akif are always seen in Germany as "migrants", "people with a migration background" or "German Turks" - regardless of what they do or say.
In closed, folkish worldviews there is only black and white, the gray area is already multicultural.
Migrants or (ex-) Muslims are allowed to participate in the legitimization of racism, but in the eyes of their right-wing extremist "friends" they will never really belong.
Black people who are involved in the AfD or Muslims who give lectures to right-wing populists are therefore playing a dangerous game.
They allow themselves to be instrumentalized and serve as key witnesses to hatred of culture.
They help right-wing extremists or right-wing extremists to be socially acceptable: "Look here, we also have Muslims, Jews, Turks and Africans on the road and share our points of view - so we cannot be racists or anti-Semites at all."
It's amazingly effective.
But racists and right-wing extremists cannot get away with referring to minorities in their own ranks.
more on the subject
Immigration and racism: German of course, a comment by Ferda Ataman
It is also annoying that some use the existence of racist migrants to morally exonerate themselves:
They are not better either.
However, the fact that all people can have racist attitudes does not change the fact that racism does not affect everyone equally: only white people are valued and have advantages, the others do not.
Racism always goes to the disadvantage of minorities - regardless of who it originates from.
So governments and societies still have a responsibility to protect their minorities from racism.
Icon: The mirror
