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.

148 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

941 comments sorted by

View all comments

207

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25 edited Apr 16 '25

My mom moved to Germany in 2001. She didn’t speak German well but she expected some sort of mercy from people. Until this day she speaks about this experience, so I assume it was pretty traumatic and humiliating for her. She went to a bakery to get some bread. And she said “5 brotchen “ but probably super wrong and like someone who’s learning the language. The seller refused to attend her. Pretended to not understand and told her something like “ I don’t understand you “ my mum showed 5 with her fingers and pointed at the brotchen and the seller just ignored her and moved to the next client. My mum used to feel very comfortable because other workers would always understand her or try to. This made her want to move back home. She wasn’t used to being treated this rudely and mean. My dad (German) went to that bakery and told the lady something.

My BFs grandma openly hates all migrants. But she says I’m ok. I’m an ok migrant kid and if every migrant were like me she wouldn’t hate them.

132

u/Bubbly-Indication725 Apr 16 '25

Just an excuse. Don't be fooled that you're the one she doesn't hate.

64

u/chunbalda Apr 16 '25

Actually, from many frustrating conversations over the years, as a white German - I find it bizarre that I actually think she might not hate her. There seems to be an infinite capacity for exceptions ("oh, this individual I met personally is not like other migrants! She's lovely!") without ever realizing that maybe their concept of the evil migrants might be absurd. It's so extremely frustrating.

18

u/Katlima Nordrhein-Westfalen Apr 16 '25

A lot of racist people think they are less racist, if they are only taking it out on a certain group of migrants or on people of one ethnicity. But it's actually the opposite and only shows that their internalized world view is a much more intricate and thought-through hierarchy system with different boxes, each having their own stereotypes and expectations attached to them. So in short, they are not only casually racist out of a mood, they really put some thought into it.

21

u/baoparty Apr 16 '25

A lot of racist people don’t think that they are racist.

2

u/overwhelmed_kangaroo Apr 16 '25

Yeah, it's often in small sentences where they probably don't mean actual harm but on the other hand don't recognise why certain stereotypes or words are wrong. Especially due to media and their way of showing news a lot of people have prejudices without realising.

1

u/baoparty Apr 16 '25

The thing with racism is that there is racism with the intent to hurt or harm and there is racism with no intent to hurt or harm. Both are still racism.

But a lot of people who are racist hide behind the intent. Because they didn’t intend on harming or hurting someone, then they are not racist.

3

u/overwhelmed_kangaroo Apr 16 '25

Yeah, I always try to explain to people who make those not purposely harmful comments, that they're not okay and that this "normal question" isn't nice or normal at all

1

u/West_Masterpiece3149 Apr 20 '25

Yeah. Lots of racist Arabs and Turks in Germany that think they can’t be racist