okay and now some analysis on my deep rooted interest in anything associated with African background and my desire to be black

well, as it is raining outside I think this is the best moment to start writing about what I announced here if you are interested in how it feels like to be a white girl who grew up in (the former) Western Germany while having the deep rooted feeling that there is sth wrong with that, you are welcome to read the following post(s).

It's not always been Africa. When I was a kid I really wanted to be Chinese. I guess because of the eyes and also because of the most amazing acrobatics I have ever seen and the marshall arts.
Then of course it was all about American Natives. My Mom is from Alaska and although she is not native she kind of looks like a native American from the midwest or so. I was always very aware of the desaster of environmental destruction and the mentality that underlies that. I remember sitting in Ma's car, listening to 'Deep Forest' (great music by the way), and crying because I felt that it was utterly wrong to be in germany, to be white. There was nothing that I wished more than having grown up in a native tribe (american or african), receiving proper education, discipline (not the German discipline of course) and knowledge about nature. I was sure, if I had grown up in such environment I would have become a shaman. I was desperate about my situation here. I was longing out for some sort of INITIATION.

Considerations how to get there included:

• becoming a nun ( which religion not so important)
  
• going to the military (for the sake of becoming fit and disciplined)
• trying to take part in some shaman rituals
• living in a Native tribe
  

I did none of these things but for sure I had my own little rituals and rules. (of which I got rid recently by the way. they fulfilled their purpose in protecting me as long as i deemed it necessary and now I feel i have to move on).

So when did Africa come into play?

I guess it was 1997. Listening to Jululuka, Johnny Clegg and the Suvuka Band. I danced my ass off in our kitchen, listening to them and imagined with a burning heart that one day I would myself have concerts on big stages in Africa in the heat and sweat like hell and feel FREE, and GOOD and RIGHT. Maybe my interest in birds also led me to Africa in the end, as Birds who flee winter in Europe go to Africa. As simple as that. I was totally fascinated by African cultures, mentalities and images, music, art... I started saying that once I am grown up I will move to Africa.

Another very important moment in my life was when my interest moved a little from environmental issues to social issues which of course switched the focus to Africa (whereas before that it had been rather on South America. Today it is likewise in Africa and South America that I feel vibrant interest for. The issue of the 'desaparecidos' in Argentinia for example makes me cry and angry each time I get into it and kind of supports my wish to study law and work for ai). I hooked up with Organizations that are concerned with social issues in Africa and are aware of the fact that development aid more than often sucks big time. This has ever since been a real important issue for me, the question how to deal with these problems without causing more problems. At times I was very desperate because I felt I shouldn't interfere at all with these things (although I so very much longed out to) but be concerned about the problems in Europe.

(the point is that in the Western Civilization problems will eventually escalate because too little people take them seriously if you ask me. The whole problem is that on a spiritual and emotional level WE are the third world so to say. There won't be a solution unless we ALL understand that help of any sort can and must be only reciprocal and actually not help but exchange and assistance.
Of course things get worse when in a so called third world country, lets say, Nigeria, you have physical problems of poverty, starvation, war, corruption and so on PLUS a desaster on spiritual and subsequently emotional levels. It s been a month or so that there were fundamental Christians in Nigeria who burned the old shrines of traditional Nigerian beliefs because they blamed them for all the bad things. IT IS A DESASTER of the worst sort. People who want to continue worshipping their traditional gods have to do it secretly. FUCKED UP I say. FUCKED UP. Or take the example of the last Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai in whose country (Kenya) an environmenal desaster was incited by people who dropped the ancient knowledge and as they were christianized ruined huge parts of their own land....the list goes on and on as you may imagine...)

As I grew older I became aware of the african diaspora and got more and more involved in the mannifold cultures of the 'black atlantic'. As I did a project on the whole Afro-American issue for my English class I finally felt I couldn't escape this deep interest I felt for everything that is associated with some Afro-background no longer. Reading 'black like me' by J.H. Griffin was just a beginning and it totally drew me in. I haven't experienced racism in any form in my sweet little dreamy black forest home but in what I read and heard. My mind revolted at the very thought as it had revolted against what it had come to know about the second world war for example. I have often wondered how I would have been in such circumstances. Would I have fought against the injustices as I do now or would I have participated in the common horrifying practices???????? I wish I could say no. I think I can say no. but you never know. Human Nature is tricky. Just think of Mugabe as an example for fucked upness of our nature. and hell, don't say its because he is african. damn no!.- He had the best intentions in the beginning.

So this is just the intellectual background somehow.

emotional wise I was coined due to some happening in my young life that I will share here with you:

When I was 16 I was at a concert of my cousin Jewel in Stuttgart, Germany. My friend Iliana and I didn't know where to sleep and decided to stay awake the whole night. Well, in short, we got to know a person I ever since called 'Sun' (as this was part of his name) who was African and of course musician (I almost only meet artists and musicians for some rediculous reason). He invited us to join drinking wine in one of the beautiful parks in S. My friend was apalled but how I am I agreed of course after checking my inner feeling which has proven to be right most of the time... He was really aware of the fact that it must be scary to go to a park at night with a black guy whom those sweet little 16 year old girls don't know. So he told us the whole time 'look, there it is kind of dark, we don't go there, ....' and so on. In fact it was the first time for me to drink so much wine but I had a really good time. I think we talked a great deal about love and sex which scared my friend who then just climbed a tree out of some sort of 'illusions of safety' reasons.

The point why I mention this is, that Sun realized, when we left, that we didn't know the way at all and as he felt that we hadn't trusted him totally he wanted to give us a lesson about that and lead us back, but instead of taking the short way out of the park he led us through the whole 6 km of park that were there and he and I argued the whole way on whether this was right or wrong considering that we were only 16 and some innocent girls. hahaha.
he introduced to me the idea of 'true love in the moment' which many Africans ever since have proposed to me and which kind of sticks with me ever since. I really wonder what this is about and whether or not I would and could agree with that.

As a matter of fact this was just the beginning of many encounters I had with black folks and I have to admit that I have ever since been attracted more to black people than whites. Although my big love of teenage years was a German guy I realized this trend in my preferences.

But it is not only that I am attracted more to black people (every black person deserves a second look from me. it is totally subconscious and I have realized that only recently. it s weird in a way. gender doesn't matter. its more that I am totally fascinated and filled with joy seeing beauty in general and well, hum, I just think that black is beautiful I guess...

yeah so all in all you can figure that all this interest, longings, attraction and stuff had to result in some weird longing to be myself black. be it just to be fully part of this background that I totally love or just to be myself that beautiful. i don' t know myself what the fuck this longing is about.

the most fucked up part is, however, yet to come: not too long ago I was thinking about what I would do I f I was pregnant from a gu y I had a one night stand with. well guess what the efelings boiled down to in the end???? (please be aware that these are feelings and NOT thoughts, as intellectually I disapprove of those feelings vehemently): if the guy had been black I wouldn't by any means want to have an abortion. If the guy was white and an asshole...I would abort. so , in the end this is some sort of converted racisim that even goes so far as to kill babies due to their colour of skin.
and now THAT is FUCKED UP!!!