Racism is hidden in everyday life. And in almost every one of us – whether we wanted it or not. Diversity trainer Tupoka Ogette explains how to learn anti-racism and is our strong woman in July.
Can you learn not to be racist? Yes, you just have to understand beforehand that you are. Because Berlin-based diversity trainer Tupoka Ogette is convinced that racism can hardly be avoided if you belong to the white majority in Germany.
Education about unconscious racism
It is a hard path of self-awareness that Tupoka Ogette sends the people who book their courses to. For eight years she has been using workshops, readings and lectures to raise awareness about unconscious racism and its consequences, in companies, cultural institutions, schools, adoption agencies. Her handbook "Exit Racism – learn to think critically about racism", which was published in 2017, has meanwhile become the standard guide for anyone who wants to question common thinking and language patterns.
She compares racism to a kind of smog that everyone inhales from a young age, whether they like it or not. "Racism is found in the way we speak, in the books we read, in the jokes we make, in the way we learn to think about ourselves and others, and it is found accordingly in the systems we create ", she says. "That makes him difficult to recognize for those who are not affected by him. As a black person or person of color, you are constantly exposed to these everyday racisms."
Tupoka Ogette, 40, comes from Leipzig, her mother is white German, her father was a student from Tanzania who did not live permanently in the GDR. At the age of eight she moved to West Berlin with her mother, later studied African Studies and German as a Foreign Language at the University of Leipzig, did an economics master in France and worked there for the German Academic Exchange Service for six years.
The five phases of self-knowledge
It became clear to her that she wanted to actively educate about racism when her younger son, nine today, had similar experiences in Germany as she did in childhood. "It made me very angry," she says. "But anger can be used proactively. I kind of transformed it."
According to Tupoka Ogette, you have to go through five phases of self-knowledge in order to become clear about your own thinking patterns: Understand that you live in a world that white people have created for white people. Realize that the topic affects you, even if you think that you never define others by their origin. Endure this knowledge, then the feelings of shame and guilt that go with it. And finally: accept what it is and tackle the roots.
If someone tells you in the seminar that he has black friends after all, she explains that it doesn't work like a vaccine against racist socialization; but open listening when black people or people of color talk about their experiences – without teaching, relativizing, showing solutions. It does not want to make people feel guilty, but to sensitize them. That is why she starts in the daycare, trains parents and educators. "Children need prejudiced environments," she says, "a language to name injustices."
Right now, in the wake of the protests against racism in the USA and also in Germany, Tupoka Ogette is a frequently asked expert, her book went into its 7th edition in June. Racism is also deeply anchored institutionally and structurally in Germany, she says. The biggest problem is the way it is addressed. "Too often we pretend that racism is only in the right corner. But that's only part of the problem. We have to address the issue as a whole and develop a culture of conversation about racism, among other things. Because the real confrontation with racism gives us a new perspective on ourselves. "
Tupoka Ogette, 40, is a diversity expert and trainer in the field of anti-racism, since 2016 together with her husband, the sculptor Stephen Lawson. Her book "exit Racism" (Unrast Verlag) is the standard work in anti-racist education. She lives in Berlin and has two children, nine and 21 years old.
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