Love conquers everything. Also discriminatory structures? Not by itself, that much is clear.
At the “fluctoplasma”, an interdisciplinary arts festival in Hamburg, which offers a stage for diverse perspectives from artists, collectives and speakers, Josephine Apraku recently presented the specially written book “Divide and Love: Why social inequality separates us in romantic relationships and how we find each other” before – and I felt caught.
I like to see myself as an accepting, reflective person who critically questions norms – as a queer person, this last quality is very important for one’s own salvation. After all, I live – and we all live – in a society that is normative, which means that a person is at “best” white, straight, and cisgender (identifying with the gender assigned to them at birth became).
But when Josephine read a passage from the book, I caught myself how I fell into the normative trap and realized again how ingrained discrimination is in my mind – and probably in the minds of many people.
“How did you imagine these people?” “Who do we think of when we think of love?” © annaspoka / Adobe Stock
The excerpt from the book is about two people who meet on the S-Bahn. One person watches the other reading a book and is curious. “If you’re still sitting there after three stations, I’ll talk to you,” she thinks and actually does.
The two strike up a conversation, go out to eat and have a good time together. At the snack bar, the other person goes into the shop, talks to the owner in Turkish and comes back. The two spend time together for weeks until one casually says to the other: “I love you.”
“How did you imagine these people?” Josephine asks the room afterwards. In fact, we listeners only knew that one of the two people speaks Turkish. Not more. But for my head it was enough that I read the person reading as a woman (Joesphine is non-binary and uses no pronouns) – so it was already clear to me that the one person in the story is probably also a woman. And automatically I thought of the other person as a man.
In fact, a cis man with black hair and beard and dark skin, just as my clichéd and prejudiced brain imagines a person coming from Turkey – otherwise why else would the person speak Turkish? And what else should a person from Turkey look like?
There were countless possible reasons, countless other physical characteristics, but instinctively I saw only this one possibility and didn’t question any of it. It wasn’t until Josephine asked us all the questions we could have come up with that I noticed my own thinking: “Was the person white? Of color? A man or a woman? What was her gender identity? Did she have a disability?”
I hadn’t thought of many of the possibilities at all, but before I self-criticized, Josephine summed up an important thought: “It’s important to be aware that you can be against discrimination and still reproduce it.” After all, we are all embedded in different forms of oppression.
Our idea of love is also shaped by the media and (lack of) representation What love looks like for us – and especially what it doesn’t – is strongly influenced by the media and society. © kichigin19 / Adobe Stock
This oppression is happening everywhere: on the streets, in our homes, in the media. According to the 2022 Hollywood Diversity Report, the number of leading roles played by people of color has nearly quadrupled since 2011: For example, 18 percent of Black people played the leading role – while they make up 13.4 percent of the US population and were “slightly over-represented” according to the report. It was different for people of Latin American origin (Latinx), for example. They starred 7.7 percent of the time, but they represent 18.7 percent of the US population, making them “grossly underrepresented.”
After all, something is happening in the media landscape. Shows like “Euphoria” (which starred Zendaya, a person of color) and films like “Moonlight” (also starring people of color) are no longer fringe, but mainstream. Yet, for the most part, love as it is shown to us in the media is one thing above all else: white. And privileged, because they often have access to money, are not physically restricted, are cisgender and heterosexual.
These notions of love, this “normed attractiveness”, as Josephine describes it, determine our attitude towards relationships – and towards the people with whom we would enter into a relationship.
What intersectional discrimination means
My idea of love and relationship was – and maybe still is – definitely shaped by the media and society. Even as a queer person, I felt and only feel represented to a limited extent, which is why, as a child, when I watched Disney films, I slipped into the role of the princess who found love in her (white, rich, heterosexual, cisgendered and physically unrestricted) found princes.
Later, I imagined my dream man as someone who vaguely resembled the actor Adam Driver: tall, quite muscular, with a square face and black, wavy hair. I found love somewhere else and not even with a man but with a non-binary person.
We both experience discrimination through society, but in different ways and on different levels, which is what the term “intersectional discrimination” means: We, both white and at least outwardly read male, as queer people have different challenges to overcome than, for example, a queer person of color with a disability. As a cis man, I have had different experiences when it comes to gender identity than my partner, who is fundamentally denied by many parts of society.
No one is ever just black or queer or a woman, or, or, according to Josephine in the reading on the “fluctoplasma”. Identity is always a mixture of different factors such as gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation and last but not least the place and time of birth.
The fact that my:e partner:in and I are allowed to marry has not been “allowed” by the state for a long time, but it prescribes us very precisely whether and how we are allowed to have children, for example. And the marriage certificate, as well as the adoption applications, will most likely refer to my romantic relationship person as “man” – and not as the person he:she is.
“Perhaps utopia is simply an attempt to confront oppression” Can we talk about discrimination in our relationship? Am I available for this? © Good Studio / Adobe Stock
The issue of intersectional oppression is not about which groups of people are more or less discriminated against, says Josephine. “We’re all in there and life is just complicated.” Rather, it must be about: Can we address this in our relationship? How do we become approachable for other people, how can we address them? Even beyond our love relationship. If my:e partner:in experiences discrimination because of his:her gender identity – am I there for him:her? In what way can I be?
The “fluctoplasma” festival also raises the question of utopias: which one do we want to live in? And which visions of the future would absolutely have to be disposed of? What could an alternative version of society that lives and celebrates diversity look like? At the reading of the book, the author Fikri Anıl Altıntaş was at Josephine’s side and led through the evening. His answer to these questions suggests a possible path: “Perhaps utopia is Attemptto counter oppression.”
We are all embedded in different forms of oppression, we all sometimes – consciously or unconsciously – reproduce discrimination in different ways, also and especially in our relationships. To become aware, to enter into a dialogue, to try together to face this oppression; the is perhaps the utopia we should aim for. For our loved ones and last but not least for ourselves.
Josephine Apraku wrote “Kluft und Liebe” and recently appeared at “fluctoplasma”.
© Daham Choi
Josephine Apraku is an African scholar and speaker for intersectional anti-racism educational work. As a lecturer, Josephine Apraku has taught at the Alice Salomon University and the Humboldt University in Berlin, among others, and has written as a columnist for magazines such as EDITION F and Missy Magazine.
Sources used: bbc.com, researchgate.com, deadline.com, bpb.de, fluctoplasma.com, reading “Kluft und Liebe”