Straight Outta Happyland: Racism and Activism in Germany

Description

Join this important conversation with Germany's leading anti-racism trainer, Tupoka Ogette, and her partner, the artist Stephen Lawson, moderated by Aja Lans and Sabine Mohamed, faculty in the Department of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University.

In June 2020, in response to the brutal killing of George Floyd, protests against police violence and racism swept across the U.S. and the globe, including Germany. The marches under the banner of Black Lives Matter in hundreds of German cities surprised many. In a population of 83 million, barely over one million identify as Afro German and/or Black German. Moreover, while the U.S. discourse on race and racism dominates academic debates in Europe, white Germans have proven particularly reluctant to confront their country's colonial, anti-Black racist past and its structural racism today.

Tupoka Ogette has emerged as a leading voice in the fight against racism and for the empowerment of Black Germans, especially Black youth. She offers popular workshops in Berlin, throughout the country, and abroad. She has published two bestselling books and runs a weekly podcast, tupodcast, an essential resource and source of inspiration for many.

Tupoka defines "Happyland" as "the condition in which white people live, before they actively and consciously reflect on racism," where white has remained the unchallenged and uncontested default, where "everyone knows racism to be bad, to be despicable." Happyland's inhabitants consider an act only racist or racially motivated if they can detect "intent." They react offended and aggrieved when BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) describe Happyland's society, schools, workplaces, and white people's interactions with POC as racist. That Happyland of white fragility is Germany.

This event is put on with generous support from the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, the Department of Anthropology, the Center for Africana Studies, and the Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, and Colonialism. Catering and beverages will be provided. Transportation information is on the registration page.