Who's Afraid of the Cis White Man?
une étude by Ayoto
After releasing Sadness of Pleasure: Zen and the Art of Squirt, I contemplated my next project, with the working title, “Who’s Afraid of the Cis White Man?”
A potential follow-up to my documentary, My Film with Andrei, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Document a Sex Party, I wanted to continue the conversations on privilege and the paradoxes of diversity and inclusion.
In the meantime, I’m drowned with potential dialogues and exchanges that I thought to put some use to. Sometimes in private, sometimes in passing, but rarely in public. I’d like to include one slice of exchange here as a prelude, or more precisely, une étude.
Dear Ayoto,
Now, it took time for me as well to react to your message. Many things are in progress. All of the things that I wrote are based on my current knowledge, my current understanding and also on my wishes/hopes. Phoinix says I could lack education; you say it could be that I lack empathy. I say it's probably both.
The thinkers you wrote, I heard of Achille Mbembe and Edward Said but never got into that deeply. I bought the book Violence: Six Sideways Reflections by Slavoj Žižek that you recommended. And I started reading a book by Muriel Asseburg on the history of Palestine. I also started to listen again to an audiobook by Tupoka Ogette - Exit Racism, that I began a while ago but never finished for some reason. Maybe I wasn't ready for that back then.
The video of the person speaking about the difference between peace and freedom moved me.
You said you're not interested in debate, not interested in winning or who is right. You said you are curious about what I can't speak about and why. What do you mean by that?
And what are your intentions? Don't you have a position?
Until soon,
(. )
Dear (. ),
I appreciate your engagement. Every day, the US and European colonizing nations are taking fast steps to solidify fascism. Every day, mountains of misinformation distract the public. This, as outlined in the research done in the 20th century about the propaganda model, later renamed to Public Relations, has taken over everything from advertising, journalism to academic research.
It’s appalling how we have been shaped to move away from empathy and toward individualism—a nihilism so indoctrinated, that we don’t ask critical questions and demand responsibility from those setting us against one another. How have we lost so much curiosity?
Achille Mbembe, Edward Said, and Frantz Fanon are all very important thinkers; they’ve stood the test of time and maintained a steadfast interest within and outside academia. Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, for example, was banned immediately after its publication in France, because it touched on the truth, namely the role of violence in liberation struggles, because the nature of colonisation itself is a form of violent oppression.
I looked into Exit Racism by Tupoka Ogette, which refers to racism in the German context. What I have learned, from personal experience, to racialized people in this country, from academics to activists, is that racism is frequently conflated with only antisemitism in Germany. This racism, which often manifests in racial stereotypes and physical assaults, has been a long-standing issue in the country and was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This DW article highlights that these prejudices against Asians have been evident for a long time in Germany. Ferat Ali Kocak, a Berlin-based anti-racism activist and German politician as well as a member of the Berlin House of Representatives, mentioned that anti-Asian racism, though not always visible, is deeply rooted in German society.
Furhtermore, Islamophobia is a significant issue in Germany that is often overlooked. According to a survey by the German Council of Experts on Integration and Migration, between one-third to one-half of 15,000 respondents expressed anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic attitudes. Incidents of property damage and graffiti at mosques are reported almost weekly. Abdassamad El Yazidi, the secretary general of Germany's Central Council of Muslims, highlighted that Islamophobia has become a mainstream form of misanthropy in Germany, openly expressed and even prevalent in political spheres such as the Bundestag and state parliaments. El Yazidi further noted that while there are many commissioners for various forms of discrimination in Germany, a commissioner for Muslim life has not been appointed, reflecting a reluctance to acknowledge the problem of anti-Muslim racism.
The right-wing party members like AfD have their origins with the SS. They have learned and coopted this talking point into their contemporary political strategy:
Christian Lüth, a former press officer for the AfD, was recorded saying, “The worse things get for Germany, the better they are for the AfD.” He also said, “We can always shoot them later, that’s not an issue. Or gas them, as you wish. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Beatrix von Storch, a European lawmaker from the AfD, advocated for anti-immigrant rhetoric and suggested using violence against those who refuse to stop at Germany's borders, including women and children.
André Poggenburg, former head of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, made extreme remarks in 2017, using language derived from Nazi terminology to describe measures against the extreme left-wing.
What I have experienced with racism in Germany is that first, it’s a topic that white identifying Germans are very defensive and scared to talk about perhaps due to proximity to power which is called out or called in. I hope that we can go further than silence. I hope that I can express clearly to you that, whilst I have feelings of pain and fear, I intend to find a way that we can create an exchange of empathy and understanding, and not of punishment or vindictiveness that leads to ethnonationalism. As we speak, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz is now issuing mass deportation and given into the right wing political parties after poor performances by his coalition in response to what has happened since October 7th, 2023.
When I was invited to speak at a panel about what does it mean to be German last month, there were many white men present; we had many disagreements. But what I found interesting was one German-born woman, who had an Arabic background and is not white identifying, has refused to speak German for the last 16 years here in Germany! She said that when she communicates in German, people look down on her. But when she speaks in English, she is given respect.
Another woman, a second-generation German, who is the daughter of Vietnamese in exile, said after the panel discussion that she was shaking with fury in reaction to what the white Bavarian man was saying—who spoke of his hear of the loss of the German language. Shall we skip the appetizer and head straight to discussing white supmeracist theories like the Great Replacement theory?
She finally found the courage to confront this man, but she was faced with a refusal to listen. She told me she was so angry and wanted to scream, but instead chose to walk away. I spoke to her later; she said her friend teaches German to recent arrivals of Vietnamese children in exile. Her boss is an immigration officer, and he constantly spouts racist comments about Asians coming into the country, about their slanty eyes, and other dehumanizing statements. She told me about his unapologetic efforts to “deport as many foreigners as he could,” how he enjoyed it.
These are very common experiences amongst non-white identifying Germans. Even more disastrous is the refusal to listen or the extreme defensiveness about these conversations.
My friend in Holland found the book White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race by Gloria Wekker to be a very helpful book about Dutch racism. I wonder how you might find the arguments in this book in contrast to your understanding of racism in Germany.
Regarding Muriel Asseburg’s Palästina und die Palästinenser, I have not read the book and will look into it. On the first encounter, I would ask why you chose to only engage with a subject that is written by someone with blonde hair and blue eyes, and works for the state department?
A more direct question: why do you read a subject regarding the Middle East, with not only European writers but, in your case, a German professor who works at the SWP of the German Institute for International Politics and Security in Berlin? As an organization, it is akin to U.S. think tanks such as the RAND Corporation, which provides research and analysis for the United States Armed Forces on international and security issues. Would there not be a conflict of interest here? It would be a conflict of interest to refer to the War in Vietnam based on their perspective as an example. The genocide in Palestine is not a Middle East problem; it is a European problem. It is a problem that was started by European antisemitism, and the expulsion of Jews from Europe, with the use of colonial strategies which Palestinians pay the price for today.
Therefore, one must consider that European scholars have, unfortunately, fallen into the trappings of Orientalism for a very long time, as thoroughly explained and documented by Edward Said. Furthermore, Europeans and the US have national interests and take part in the process of colonization. Therefore, a priori, the views and writings of Muriel Asseburg would regarded as self-serving statements (selbstbegünstigende Aussage) in a court of law.
Edward Said writes, "The history of Palestine is the history of a people whose existence as a nation, whose rights to a homeland, whose very historical presence in the area now known as Israel and the occupied territories, has been not only ignored but actively suppressed in the Zionist and Western official narrative." (Said, Edward W. "The Question of Palestine." New York: Vintage Books, 1979, p. 27).
It would it be much more interesting to read about those with a claim against interest.
One candidate for this would be Norman Finkelstein, who, being the son of Holocaust survivors, occupies a unique position in his critique of aspects of how the Holocaust is remembered and used politically. He has infamously declared and referred to “the Holocaust Industry”; the idea that the memory of the Holocaust has been exploited for political and financial gain. Further, his outspoken views on Israel and the Holocaut have led to his professional setbacks, including denial of tenure at DePaul University, which suggests that his claims are not made for personal or professional gain.
Finkelstein states in The Holocaust Industry, "Invoking The Holocaust, Israel and its apologists routinely denounce anyone opposing its policies as an 'anti-Semite' or 'Holocaust-denier'." He continues, “The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a 'victim' state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status." (Finkelstein, Norman G. "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering." Verso, 2000, p. 4).
We have been overwhelmed by a generation of scholars, politicians, and elders who have sold us the fallacy of bothsideism, or false equivalency. It has led us down the normalization of extremism. It obfuscates moral clarity, and it manipulates discussions with the strategy for ambiguity while atrocities are made in our name and with our tax money. It is the way in which the people in power impede constructive discourse, while they continue with genocide and distort the reality of the situation.
You spoke frankly about the possibility that you were not ready back then for a book on racism. I understand how you feel. I too once felt overhwlemed with information. But once I did my own reading and stopped believing the news at face value, I found that it wasn’t so complex. I understood how the Palestinians need our help, for it’s the same struggle that we all face. Today, in a world that is on the brink of collapse, people are caught in psychosis because they’d rather return to a Disneyland that there never was.
A lesson from a monk while meditating in Kyoto—if your house is burning, that’s not the time to meditate—you need to put out the fire or get the fuck out of the house.
Since the pandemic, I observed so much priveleged nihilism. We refuse to face reality and dig our heels into escapism. It eventually leads to victim blaming. But who must suffer time and time again, the negligence of the global North?
You said you're not interested in debate, not interested in winning or who is right. You said you are curious about what I can't speak about and why. What do you mean by that?
Returning to your question, concerning the issue of debate, there are several problems. For one, it is built on a win-lose structure. It is focused on defeating the opponent rather than truth-seeking or understanding. I am more curious about what is not spoken; what are our defense mechanisms? What are we disavowing? What is it that we have foreclosed? What are we displacing?
Debate also impacts critical thinking. It teaches us to argue for a position rather than searching for truth or examining its validity. Culture and civilization is a flow state. Conservatism wants to insist on a point where certain people have a stronghold and privilege. As the wealth gap increases, as equality diminishes, the difference between the haves and have-nots worsens. What good is a society that accumilates money and wealth for some, while most people are suffering? Instead of working to resolve these issues, the oligarchs then displace these problems and scapegoat the issues on women, immigrants, Jews, Arabs, Asians, queers, disabled or monsters. Whoever else, but to accept responsibility.
And what are your intentions? Don't you have a position?
Your question made me think of Todd McGowan’s book, The Racist Fantasy Unconscious Roots of Hatred which suggests opting for universal nonbelonging over a racist belonging. My position is that I stand with the oppressed, the nonposition, the rejected. He writes: “The enjoyment that fantasy delivers emanates from the position of nonbelonging. All the liberal efforts to increase belonging, to include everyone, will always run aground on the fact of universal nonbelonging and the enjoyment that nonbelonging produces.”
I am in favor of a dialectical relationship with positionality. My intention would be to insist on a dynamic, not static and a humanist reality as opposed to a positivist, analytical aboslute.
What I find most exigent today is to speak against fascism, which Germany is dangerously reinvigorating. I think it’s time we move beyond the maps and lines drawn up by our colonizers. Look at the effects of the Berlin Conference or the insistent ideas of race (think back to the Rwandan or Bosnian genocide). How many more avoidable disasters can we afford, realistically speaking?
And what is my position and intention for today? Today, it is November 11th, 2023. The 35th day of Israel’s ongoing genocide on Gaza, and has since killed 11,025 Palestinians, 4,506 of them being children. An additional 2,700 remain trapped under rubble. There are now 1.6 million people displaced and forced to walk into the desert. And yet, Germany is still referring to this as a complicated issue, and to speak on the subject can result in arrest or deportation.
My position is to call for a ceasefire, to end apartheid, to end occupations and colonialism, to end mass deportation and displacement of humans and a return of our right to the freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
I’m curious about your intentions too. What is your position? You mentioned last time that you have been dealing with issues of identity and confidence. What troubles you? What do you find difficult?
I appreciate you writing and continuing the conversation.
Ayoto