Blackface in Germany
Racist codes used in the name of tradition
Some weeks ago here on medium, I read the story “Seeing Blackface in Public Is Worse Than I Expected” by Morgan Jerkins.¹ The author writes about the Dutch tradition of “Zwarte Piet” (“Black Pete” in English), the companion of “Sinterklaas”, who essentially is the Dutch version of Santa Claus. The tradition includes blackfaced people dressed as Zwarte Piet, celebrating on the streets around Christmas time. In her story, the Morgan Jenkins expresses the dismay she felt when she was confronted with this ritual in person.
The story and the underlying personal experiences impressed me so much that I decided to add some related content of my own. Being German, not Dutch, I thought about similar phenomenons in my country, and I found two of them. In other words, as it was called in a 2014 headline: “Germany Has a Blackface Problem”.² Now it’s Christmas time and the end of the year is coming, so it’s the perfect time to write a story about this topic.
I’m not a colored person (I’m rather pale, actually). I also hadn’t much contact with the topic in my life before. So why I’m interested in this? Because I feel that I am just another case in point of the white (“Caucasian”) variant of the species homo sapiens: Grown up in a mostly white environment, I knew about blackface traditions in my country. But, as our society in general, I needed a long time to realize that they are hurting people. Besides Morgan Jenkin’s story, I had a personal encounter that made me think a lot as well. I will tell you later what it was.
First, what are the two traditions I mentioned above?
#1 — The Star singers
The Star singers, or Epiphany singers, are a huge tradition in Germany.³ Around January 6 (the feast of Epiphany), groups of children walk from house to house, collecting donations. They often carry a star on a rod and wear dresses that resemble the biblical Three Magi (aka Three Kings or Three Wise Men), as described in the Gospel of Matthew:
“Now when the birth of Jesus took place in Bethlehem of Judaea, in the days of Herod the king, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is the King of the Jews whose birth has now taken place? We have seen his star in the east and have come to give him worship […] And after hearing the king, they went on their way; and the star which they saw in the east went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the young child was. And when they saw the star they were full of joy. And they came into the house, and saw the young child with Mary, his mother; and falling down on their faces they gave him worship; and from their store they gave him offerings of gold, perfume, and spices.” (Mt. 2,1–11)⁴
The tradition has its roots in medieval times. It’s especially strong in Germany because the relics of the Three Magi are believed to be kept in Cologne Cathedral.⁵ Today, there are about 300.000 children and young people active as star singers in Germany each year.⁶
One of the magi, the later so-named Balthazar, traditionally is depicted as a man with dark skin. This is based on Bede the Venerable, an English Benedictine monk, who described Balthazar in the 8th century as being of “black complexion”.⁸ Following that paradigm, people in Europe later on portrayed and played Balthazar as a Moor with dark skin. Star singers embodying that role frequently painted their faces black because in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era there were almost no black people in Europe who could take over this part.
Today, many organizations and individuals are aware of the fact that this very old tradition is no longer acceptable. Of course, one still sees some blackfaced kids in costumes around January 6, but now there are two commonly chosen ways many star singer groups have found to avoid blackfacing:
A kid with a naturally dark complexion can play the role, or this part of the story is just neglected at all. Balthazar simply needs no dark skin to do his job. On the other hand, nothing speaks against a child with dark skin being one of the other Magi.
Sometimes it seems easy to solve problems once you’re aware of them.
#2 — Carnival costumes
I’ll start this section with the personal encounter I had some time ago. As mentioned above, this incident as well made me think. Carnival is another huge tradition, at least in the western part of Germany. It climaxes in February or March, around “Rosenmontag” (“Rose Monday”). This tradition also dates back to medieval times, developing and changing over the centuries. Today, celebrations include dressing up in costumes, dancing, drinking, and parades with all kinds of public displays.
At the carnival celebration in our son’s kindergarten, I saw one of the kindergarten teachers talking to one of the other kid’s mum. She was dressed up as a stereotypical African woman, with a black painted face and a bast skirt. A quick google search for such carnival costumes gives a good impression. The special thing about the incident was that the child’s mother herself had naturally dark skin. She was German, with a migration background from somewhere in Africa. She didn’t show any sign of disturbance, and unfortunately, in this situation, it did not occur to me to ask the teacher about it. Only later on, it came to my mind how awful such situations must be. The teacher simply wasn’t aware of the problem, from her point of view, she was just wearing a fancy homemade costume, being in a good mood, celebrating carnival.
The recent discussion in German society
In Germany, the debate on racism concentrated a long time on the holocaust, the greatest tragedy in modern history. The murder of millions of Jews in the Third Reich and Europe determined the debate after World War II until recently. Just for some years now it has been expanded to include racism against black people.
Carnival organizations, for example, are now moving away from costumes that are supposed to represent Africans because they would otherwise be exposed to harsh accusations, as documented here.⁹ Encounters like the one I described above should therefore become rarer.
To take another example, there was a debate about the name of a popular pastry, formerly known as “Mohrenkopf” (“Moorish head”). For obvious reasons, the name was changed to “Schokoladenkuss” (“Chocolate Kiss”), or similar. If the old name or allusions to the old meaning are still used today, there are usually numerous complaints (as documented here).¹⁰
Accordingly, a similar debate is going on in The Netherlands about the innate racism of the “Zwarte Piet” tradition (as described here).¹¹
In Germany, there are several reasons why the debate is changing. First of all, black people more and more become an integrated part of our society. There is continuing immigration, but today many people with dark complexion are already born in Germany as Germans. Their voice becoming louder, our society starts to reflect on how to interact with each other — including old, cherished traditions (of course, this is amplified further by the recent debate in the US.
Germany is late in having a growing number of black citizens because we only have a short colonial history. In essence, this era only lasted from 1884 to 1918. Other European countries with a more extended colonial history, such as the UK, France, or The Netherlands, much earlier had significant numbers of immigrants from southern countries.
Still, Germany has a colonial history. The so-called Second Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm II claimed territories in Western, Central, Southern and Eastern Africa as well as in Indonesia, and Oceania. Around 1900, German soldiers and colonists committed crimes against diverse native populations — beginning with stealing and plundering, ending with genocide.
It has taken a long time after World War II since the German public started to accept the crimes committed in the nation’s name before World War I. It would be a story of its own to write about the developments that are currently changing the debate about German colonial history, debating about what happened in the past but still affects the present.
Blackfacing is one of the remainders of past times, when racism was a recognized standard in European societies. Today, our society is divers and includes many different facets. First of all, we should work on becoming aware of the daily racism that still permeates our everyday life. But that surely wouldn’t be enough. We also should work on a change.
References
(All links were accessed on December 29, 2020.)
¹ Jenkins, Morgan: Seeing Blackface in Public Is Worse Than I Expected, on: medium.com (3 Jul 2020).
² Davies, Madeleine: Germany Has a Blackface Problem, on: jezebel.com (February 13, 2014).
³ Why children dress up as the Three Magi in Germany, on: dw.com (January 5, 2016).
⁵ Wikipedia (Engl.), s. v. “Cologne Cathedral”.
⁶ Das Sternsinger-Hilfswerk | Kindermissionswerk “Die Sternsinger” (sternsinger.de).
⁷ Wikipedia (Engl.), s. v. “Shrine of the Three Kings”.
⁸ Wikipedia (Engl.), s. v. “Balthazar (magus)”.
⁹ Haswell, Julius: Carnival troop who ‘black up’ get police escort after racism row, on: thelocal.de (February 24, 2017).
¹⁰ German bakery selling blackface pastries stirs racism debate, on: dw.com (February 16, 2020).
¹¹ ‘Black Pete’ makes some see red, on: dw.com (November 18, 2013).
About the author
I’m an archaeologist from Germany. On medium purely private. Love asking questions, especially about myself. Trying to stay curious and open-minded, writing mostly about archaeology, history, and topics related to the field of Anthrozoology. Drop me a line if you want to get in contact with me (patrickjung.medium@gmail.com).
