Strangely, the whole affair reminded me of being on a porn set, and I couldn’t shake the idea that porn stars and black Germans are a lot alike. Two neglected and attention-starved communities of people who, despite their public nakedness, remain “invisible” to a society that pretends not to see them.
Paul Beatty cutting deep in Slumberland, p. 179. It’s the story of a L.A. based DJ in Germany and I finished this book flying back.
I don’t know any black German, but I believe that this description works for all black Europeans.
When in the Paris suburbs, it’s easy to think that half the French population is black or brown. Yet, all black folks there have this emptiness in their eyes. I remember it. The sense that you don’t really feel like being part of this. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. You’re still not fully part of it. And I guess, never really will, even when you score 2 goals against Italy.
Yes, I can technically die faster in America, from a cop or a brother. But I do exist more. I am considered which leads to respect and opportunities. The difference between how customs gauge me in Los Angeles or Paris is… Interesting.
Sometimes I feel like white folks’ propension to being obsessed with the past is to avoid dealing with the now, which is about making a better society by for instance, truly embracing diversity instead of telling it how it should be invisible. It is not and it can’t be.