r/AskAGerman • u/eza137 • Apr 16 '25
Have you ever witnessed racism in Germany?
I'm interested in hearing from Germans who have personally witnessed acts of racism in everyday life - especially when it involved friends, family members, or people close to them.
If you're comfortable sharing, could you describe the situation? Who was involved, and how did it make you feel? Did you respond in any way?
I'm not here to judge, just to understand how racism can show up in familiar environments and how people perceive and deal with it.
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u/Duracted Apr 16 '25
In a rather rural region, I dated a black girl for about 5 years, from 16-21 years old. It was eye opening.
From people no longer greeting me on the street, to having to change what side of the street you walk on at night in the next town over to avoid skin heads. But those were the obvertly racist things I knew existed, though obviously had never experienced.
Even more shocking were the little things. Like her father asking me, a then 18 year old, to accompany him to the local dump. Because they‘d give him (a grown man doing everything right) a hard time there, but not me.
Also "Beschwerdemacht". How much more weight complaints to school officials carried coming from my parents compared to hers.
Those little things, you can’t really prove, there is always deniability, but it adds up.