with WINGS and ROOTS

Why I Teach

Sonny Singh — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 03:59:02 +0000

Sonny after a workshop using our film Article of Faith

Sometimes my students just blow my mind. Today I was running my weekly afterschool program at a middle school in Hunts Point in the South Bronx, digging deeper into understanding stereotypes and addressing bullying in schools, which we’ve been focusing on for the last three weeks.

We had a great session last week where we unpacked a couple of case studies of students being harassed because of their identities. This week, I decided to share more of my own story with them (as I often do with students) by screening Christina Antonakos-Wallace’s ten-minute documentary (which is sort of about me and my work), Article of Faith. Every time I am present for a screening, I get a little emotional and have to take some deep breaths before the discussion. The film is really personal, as it documents some of my experiences with being harassed on a regular basis.

There is something so intense about showing this film to students I’m working with. Especially today, a day when a student yelled “Osama” at me as I walked through the doors of the school to facilitate a session on bullying and bigotry. It’s such a frequent occurrence at most schools I’ve worked at that I have come to expect it.

The thing is that this shit is vulnerable. It’s painful. I facilitate discussions about racism and other forms of oppression on a regular basis with young people, but today I realized (maybe not for the first time) how healing this work can really be—for me.

In sharing my story with students, they suddenly open up to sharing their own stories in a way they wouldn’t have otherwise done. Maybe when young people hear my voice quivering as I tell them about the time my turban was pulled off on the subway, we are collectively blurring the clear lines between teacher and student. (shout out to Paolo Freire).

One of the ways the trauma of harassment has always (and continues to) affect me is through feeling a deep sense of isolation. It’s what I felt throughout elementary and middle school on a very regular basis, and it still comes up for me, at my worst.

But today, I did not feel alone.

After watching the film and hearing about my experiences, one Dominican student (all my students at this school are Black or Latino/a) told us about how her dad has a big beard and has been called a terrorist many times. Another Latina student talked about her father who also has a beard had experienced similar things, including being harassed by the police. Another Black student talked about being followed around in a store where the owner assumed he was trying to steal something. After he shared that story, many more hands darted up with stories of their fathers or brothers being questioned by the cops, unjustly arrested, or treated with suspicion solely because of their skin color.

High School screening of "Article of Faith"

I asked the class by a show of hands how many of them have a friend or family who has been arrested and every single one of them put their hand up. We talked about how the response to that question is very different in the mostly white middle school in Gramercy Park I taught at earlier in the day.

One student with dreadlocks half way down her back told us how her hair “has been like this since I was little,” how kids used to make fun of her hair and think it’s weird, and how one day someone cut off some pieces of her locks and passed them around the class. She said, “That’s why my hair is so uneven now.”

The teacher/student divide continued to breakdown as my eyes filled with tears and I tried to maintain my composure.

We talked about Trayvon Martin and Shamia Alawdi. We talked about how seemingly harmless bullying or teasing in school based on someone’s identity in fact is a part of what makes violent hate attacks possible. We talked about how cops bully people of color on a regular basis and how this sets a precedent for how we treat each other and how society perceives certain communities.

I told them the story of how I was interrogated by two undercover cops near ground zero a few months back because I was standing on a corner for a suspiciously long amount of time (waiting for some family members). One student responded that if that happened to her, she would feel violated and that the whole world was against her.

Sometimes it does feel like the whole world is against us. But that’s not how I feel today. Today I know those 15-20 middle schoolers in Hunts Point are with me. And I with them.

Many of us talk a lot about education for liberation. In fact, it’s been a big part of my life’s work since I was a teenager. But on days like today I remember that this work as an educator is just as much about my own liberation and healing as that of my students. And maybe only together, teacher-student and student-teachers, can we get closer to liberating our hearts and minds from the horrific traumas of this oppressive system, and in turn, radically transforming it.

Screenings in Munich

Christina Antonakos-Wallace — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:55:22 +0000

“Where are you from from?” will be screened as part of the “International weeks against racism” in Munich in cooperation with the Anti-Discrimination Agency of Munich (AMIGRA) as a public event on March 20th, 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm at the Jugendinformationszentrum Munich (Herzogspitalstraße 24).

We are also giving a workshop centered around the themes in “Where are you from from?” for City of Munich civil-servant trainee’s in administration and informatics from 10:00-12:00am at the 20.3.2012.

Who’s to blame?! On the current debate on “right-wing extremism” in Germany

Regina Knoll — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 06:21:02 +0000

Picture from Berliner Morgenpost - Antiracist Demo

Germany: between 2000 and 2006, Enver Şimsek, Abdurrahim Özüdoğru, Süleyman Taşköprü, Habil Kılıç, Yunus Turgut, İsmail Yaşar, Theodoros Boulgarides, Mehmet Kubaşık and Halit Yozgat were murdered by the extreme right-wing organization “National Socialist Underground” (NSU). The group was well structured and targeted specific individuals, receiving enormous financial and strategic support from their local surroundings. No actions were taken against the NSU by the authorities for almost 13 years – who referred to a lack claim of responsibility from the group or evidence connecting the murders to a racist, extreme-right background.Today, there are even more incidents linked to this group. On July 27, 2000, a group of Jewish migrants was assaulted in a suburban metro station in Düsseldorf injuring 10 and resulting in the death of an unborn child. On June 9, 2004, a nail bomb attack in the Mühlheim district of Cologne injured 22 people. A predominantly Turkish and Turkish-German neighborhood, this was no random attack. Though many clues hinted at a racially motivated extreme right-wing agenda, police officers did not investigate these charges. Similar to the murders that took place between 2000 and 2006, these incidents were falsely associated with mafia structures or personal matters. Not only did those assumptions criminalize the murder victims, they were widely referred to as “döner murders”(1) another racializing term.Why were these cases neglected for such a long time? In contrast, why did the 2007 murder of a policewoman from Heilbronn — who, according to current evidence, was also assassinated by the NSU — gain so more public attention and a far more rapid investigation?

While the murder of a police officer may trigger the support and concern of colleague, it also seems that when it comes to the investigation and media coverage of these murders, it is important whether a murder victim is considered part of “white German” society or not. It is quite common that murder cases involving “racialized” victims like Oury Jalloh are not investigated, remain unsolved, and thus leave racism to spread without resistance.

Of course, racist incidents took place before the new millennium. Soon after the Berlin Wall fell, the first violent attacks, attributed to organized extreme right-wing groups, occurred in East Germany – and spread onwards to West Germany. The arson attack in Solingen in 1993, and the attacks on residences for refugees and contract workers in 1991 in Hoyerswerda and Rostock in 1992 have been discussed again recently.

But Hoyerswerda and Rostock-Lichterhagen also show that there were not only right-wing extremists involved. In both cases, local residents supported and cheered for the perpetrators, and/or attended the deportations of asylum seekers, expressing their rage by shouting slogans such as “Foreigners out!”

Racism was and still is a problem affecting the social structure in all of Germany – and not just in former East-Germany or among right-wing extremists, as has repeatedly been suggested by the media in the past few weeks. The idea that racism can only be found among certain groups is not very helpful, because it puts the blame for only on a specific part of the population. If instead racism is seen as a constructed racial system, that involves every aspect of social, political, economical and cultural part of society and privileges those who are not being targeted by it, then the understanding of it and the fight against it becomes easier.

The choice of words that has been used by the media already demonstrates how common it is to treat racism as a marginal problem. Some call it xenophobia, hostility toward “strangers,” or “foreigners.” Apparently, addressing “racism” as such is difficult for many people. It does not seem easy to acknowledge that in many cases violence is directed against people who have been living in Germany for many years, whose children were born here, who regard themselves as German and would rarely classify themselves as “strangers” or “foreigners.” Instead addressing this implicit “othering,” people spend a lot of time thinking about whether the National Democratic Party (2)should be banned, and how long right-wing extremism in Germany went by unnoticed. While these issues are important and demand immediate action, a lopsided focus on these the extreme-right might distract us from the most essential questions: How can we proceed against structural racism? How can we clarify that this problem does not just concern a few people, but everyone – victims and attackers as well as the racialized and the privileged?

According to the Migration Council of Berlin-Brandenburg, this is only possible if the following actions are carried out:

Strict punishment of racist statements and assaults!
Immediate and complete investigations of racist murders!
Critical debates on racism in all its facets!
Disestablishment of all National Socialist (Nazi) structures!
Germany’s official change into an immigration country! (A new article in the Basic Law!)
Abandonment of all special laws for people without a German passport/ without a legal residence permit
Stop of the defamatory and ostracizing “Integration Debate”!
Support and decriminialization of anti-racist and anti-fascist work

(1) On November 29th 2011, the Migration Council invited more than 100 associations and individuals to form an alliance against racism. This assembly resulted in a call for demonstration held on December 10th 2011, the international “Human Rights Day,” kicking off at 11 a.m. at Karl-Liebknecht-Straße near Alexanderplatz. Please find further information regarding this event right here.

1) Some of the murdered people were shopowners of snack-bars that sell “Döner”. A popular Turkish-German food, that consists of pitta bread filled with vegetables and meat. By referring to the homicides as “Döner- Morde”, the existence of the snack-bar owners is degraded, because the assumption is made, as if those people did nothing else in their life but selling food. Furthermore the term is seen as racializing, because the term operates with generalization and supports the idea, that every person with a Turkish background is automatically seen as a “Döner” shop owner.

2) National Democratic Party is a far right nationalist party in Germany that is a legal part of the political party system. Since the suspicion has been raised, that members of the NPD have been partly involved in the current murder cases suggestions have been made to abolish the party.

Additional Links:

On November 13th 2011, the Turkish Association of Berlin-Brandenburg held a solemn vigil at the Brandenburg Gate, honoring all the victims murdered by the NSU. On December 3rd 2011, an anti-racist convoy drove up to the headquarters of the National Democratic Party in Berlin-Köpenick.

The Initiative Committee Against Racism points to a dossier which enlists all 182 previously reported murder cases displaying right-wing extremist or racist backgrounds, starting in 1990.

We hope that our work on with WINGS and ROOTS can contribute to these efforts to foster deeper dialogue about racism in German society, and will continue to engage with the efforts of many organizers to create change.

Interview with Migrazine

Christina Antonakos-Wallace — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:01:45 +0000

Check out an interview about with WINGS and ROOTS with Austrian online magazine Migrazine – from migrants, for all. Associate producer Cano Turan and I discuss the project and the concept of “second-generation,” among other things. We are excited to be featured on such a great platform!

Immigrants “dumbing down” Germany: Racist propaganda by mainstream politician Thilo Sarazzin sparks heated debates throughout Germany

Cano — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:30:43 +0000

The cultural, social and economic integration of minorities in Germany, especially the Turkish and Muslim community, has been a heavily discussed political issue for over 10 years now. It is a discussion that started 30 years after the beginning of the “guestworker” program, but has continued to take new forms.

Bias-based statements and racist views in German politics and media have never been the exception in this discourse, however in September of 2009 the misrepresentation of immigrants of color reached a new level. An interview given by Thilo Sarrazin, member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and former senator of finance for Berlin, given to the distinguished magazine “Lettre International” contained racism in the most obvious way: Sarrazin stated that Muslim immigrants are neither willing nor able to integrate into the German society, adding that he doesn’t have to “accept anybody who lives off the state, refuses this state, doesn’t take care of the education of their children, and produces permanently more little head scarf girls.” Wow! Here is not only the racist stereotype of the unemployed, uneducated immigrant, but also obvious Islamaphobia.

While the reactions of the German government and the vast majority of the politicians were rather reluctant, immigrant organizations like Migrationsrat Berlin-Brandenburg (Migration Board Berlin- Brandenburg) or the Turkish Community of Germany have continued their protests over the last year, demanding more government pressure on Sarrazin, his exclusion from the SPD and the dismissal of his position as chairman of the German Central Bank. Only the latter has happened, and only recently after the situation has become much worse.

This August, Sarrazin released a new book entitled “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (“Germany Abolishes Itself”). In it, Sarrazin warns against further immigration of Muslims into Germany because they would “dumb down” the population in a “natural”, “genetic way”. This is very scary stuff. The presentation of the book was to be made at the International Literature Festival of Berlin at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures) but was stopped through the powerful protests of various immigrant organizations.

Unfortunately, Sarrazin’s ideas are not the marginal ideas of a fringe extremist group, but the widely held and circulated words of a powerful political. They reflect the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim racism in widely held Germany, as well as most of Europe. Apart from crossing the line by mentioning genetics, his overt racism is the type most common in Germany – making gross generalizations based on accusations of cultural inferiority. His book was #1 on Amazon.com in Germany even before it went to print, and the first edition sold out within a few days.

There is much more to say about the source and impact about these ideas, but we thought it best to direct you to some already well-written articles. In the following German articles and radio features you can find a profound and critical analysis about the public discussion about the racist statements of Sarrazin in Germany:

“Der Haßprediger”, junge Welt 23.09.2010 http://www.jungewelt.de/2010/09-23/041.php

“Ein historischer Wiedergänger”, Deutschlandradio, 04.09.2010 http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/kommentar/1263967/

“Redefreiheit ohne Qualitätskontrolle”, 03.09.2010, taz http://taz.de/1/debatte/kolumnen/artikel/1/redefreiheit-ohne-qualitaetskontrolle/

“Eitelkeit und Fegefeuer”, Der Tagesspiegel, 28.08.2010 http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/eitelkeit-und-fegefeuer/1912970.html?p1912970=1

“Ist Sarrazin ein Vorlksverhetzer?”, taz, 02.10.2009, http://www.taz.de/1/politik/deutschland/artikel/1/ist-sarrazin-ein-volksverhetzer/

Press release of Migrationsrat Berlin-Brandenburg, 01.09.2010:

http://www.mrbb.de/dokumente/pressemitteilungen/mrbb_mitteilung_01092010_Auschluss_Sarrazin.pdf

http://blog.derbraunemob.info/2010/08/30/letter-of-protest-concerning-thilo-sarrazins-planned-appearance-in-the-house-of-world-cultures-haus-der-kulturen-der-welt-berlin/ (English version of protest letter)

Work in Progress screenings are great!

Christina Antonakos-Wallace — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:20:50 +0000

We were lucky to be invited to present a work-in-progress cut of with WINGS and ROOTS at Frauenkreise Berlin (http://www.frauenkreise-berlin.de/) as part of their screening series “Inside/Between.” Without very little publicity, the space was over capacity! It was a great chance to get feedback as we begin to edit the film, and I am looking forward to doing more such events. The discussion was lively, as always, and addressed both form and content. Collaborators were there, including Associate Producer Cano Turan, who sat up front with me speaking about her experience on the film team, New Media Team member Ludwig Kannicht, who documented the evening, and Ufuk Topkara, who tossed in some wise words during the discussion. The audience’s response was a strong reminder of how much there is need there is for this film right now in Germany. Thanks for all who came out!

Host a feedback session of the educational video?

Christina Antonakos-Wallace — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:09:01 +0000

We are currently finishing up editing an 18-minute educational video for high school classrooms. It draws upon the interviews conducted during pre-production with over forty children of immigrants New York and Berlin. The piece highlights five young people in each city and deals with issues of immigration, discrimination & bias-based harassment in schools, and identity. We have screened it in a number of classrooms, and are looking for a few more opportunities to get feedback from high school age youth. It works well as an hour long class session when partnered with our discussion guide. If you work with young people and would be interested in finding out more about hosting a feedback session, please contact: christina@withwingsandroots.com.

We Updated the Website!

Christina Antonakos-Wallace — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:54:00 +0000

We have recently recreated the website making it easier to update and expand, adding a new trailer, and more recent images. As the project moves forward, we plan to make this site increasingly interactive. Please share the link with your friends and families, become our fan on Facebook and other social networking sites, and let us know what you think. If you have ideas for the website or project as they develop, please share them with us! If you are interested in getting involved, check out the collaborate page.

Hope to hear from you,

Christina, César, Lu, and Alejandro (the web team)