Madeline Dow
Writing for Strat. Comm.
2/19/14
Tuesday, February 4th, Dr. Cynthia Chapa presented to a
variety of TCU students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members about
the unknown Afro-German race. She called her speech, “Afro-Germans: A Dawning
Awareness,” which was highly appropriate given the information and untold
stories about this rarely spoken about race.
Although Chapa’s
presentation went on for over an hour, she explained to us that she had only
scratched the surface of the Afro-German race, which is now an emerging topic.
Chapa’s passion and expertise about the topic was ever apparent and allowed for
her to capture the attention of her audience. She went to a seminar in Berlin
in 2011, and has been interested in this study ever since then. She began
discussing the topic with the headline, “Black Germans? Are you serious?” which
I assume was the subconscious thoughts of almost everyone in the room.
Chapa discussed
Auma Obama, who is President Obama’s sister, and her life struggles and
successes in both Kenya and Germany. Audience members appeared to be enthralled
by this story as she discussed Auma’s experiences with stereotypes about the
way she dressed, spoke, and interacted with other in Germany, while studying
abroad. Chapa then led to narrate the stories of several other Afro-Germans who
have had much success before exploring the history of German colonialism.
Most of the crowd
was either wide-eyed or heavily disturbed after hearing the multitude of
oppression that the Afro-German’s encountered during the Holocaust. We were
told that the race had to band together to keep a low profile so that they
would not be the next targeted race. We were then told about their roles as
circus characters and how they were treated like zoo animals.
The stories told by Chapa during the luncheon
truly intrigued and enlightened the audience members to further their knowledge
to understand more of these underground races.
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