Damani James Partridge OCCUPYING AMERICAN “BLACK”BODIES AND RECONFIGURING EUROPEAN SPACES—THE POSSIBILITIES FOR NONCITIZEN ARTICULATIONS IN BERLIN AND BEYOND

INTRODUCTION of “Blackness.” Other than the word “Negro,” his In what follows, I am working through the circu- clothing did not assume an aesthetic that Ameri- lations and transformations American “Blackness” cans or Europeans would immediately associate undergoes as it moves from the United States and with being “Black.” The way he wore his clothing occupies other places with other people (e.g., non- seemed more typical of Berlin urban style, which citizens) who may or may not be considered is often in conversation with the images and imagi- “Black.” This is not simply an essay about images nations of the New York streets but also always or representations, it is one that analyzes these slightly different—skinnier, narrower, not usually dimensions of occupation as they relate to perfor- oversized. mance, embodiment, and ultimately also to social But the word “Negro” was clearly racial. Was mobility and the possibilities for social change. he aware of this? The jacket was clearly not home- The occupying presence of American “Blackness” made but a product that appeared to be the result in what I describe below takes on social, psychic, of a mass production. But for which bodies was and physical dimensions. Reading the contempo- this product intended? rary reception of MTV and Hollywood in Perhaps this jacket caught my attention Germany are not enough to sustain this analysis, because I was already thinking about the relation- and occupation is not only significant as a result ships between marked bodies, occupation, Ameri- of its military history. canization, Europeanness, and “Blackness.” What advantage, what pleasure, could his wearing this AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ENTREE –RIDING jacket entail for this young man, sitting on the Ber- THROUGH BERLIN lin UBahn, whose body most likely would not be As I sat on the UBahn (the subway) in the summer read, by most “White” Germans, as being in con- of 2011 in Berlin, I noticed that the young man versation with American “Blackness” were it not across from me, with very short, straight, black for the word “Negro” stitched into his jacket? hair and an olive light-brown complexion was Without that word, most Germans would probably wearing a track jacket (blue, with black and white see his body simply as “foreign” or “immigrant,” stripes down the arms) with the word “Negro” definitely not as German. Even hearing his voice embossed over his right pectoral. I wanted to ask would not significantly alter this latter finding. him why he was wearing this jacket and what it Responding to the national context in which meant. I wanted to take a picture so that others this young man wears this jacket, one “Afro- would believe what I actually saw, but I did not. German” woman recounts: My daughter was sitting next to me and I was not I have dark skin, too, but I am a German. No sure where this conversation would lead or how he one believes that, without some further expla- would react. Maybe I should have asked him nation. …When I respond to the remark, “Oh, something innocent like, “Where did you get that you speak German so well” by saying “So do jacket?” But maybe he would have taken offense. you,” people’s mouths drop open. He was young, slim, and athletic. He did not make eye contact, even though I was obviously looking It is only recently that I have been able to feel at his jacket. He did not smile or frown either. He more comfortable in my brown skin and come just looked straight ahead. to terms with my blackness. After a long hard As he sat across from us, it struck me that he struggle through psychoanalysis, I can say, did not embody any stereo- or phenotypical ideal “Yes, I am Black”. (Opitz et al. 1991:109–110)

Transforming Anthropology, Vol. 21, Number 1, pp. 41–56, ISSN 1051-0559, electronic ISSN 1548-7466. © 2013 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/traa.12006. 41 But was the wearing of the word “Negro” on transformation might be achieved through aesthetic a track jacket part of this same struggle? Was the borrowings, new embodiments, new circulations, young man also saying, “Yes, I am Black,” even and reformulations based on a shared experience though, in his case, it could not be easily read that is shaped more by what is happening now than from his skin? If so, what could be the benefit? by any search for lost origins. Arjun Appadurai’s To what political effect could this statement be (1996) notion of ethnoscapes also does not account oriented? for these potential audiences, that is, racialized subjects who identify with and structure their lives “DIASPORIC AESTHETICS” AND in relation to Americanized “Blackness,” even if UNANTICIPATED SUBJECTS they themselves are not of the “African Diaspora.” Thinking through the German example and the Appadurai’s notions of media-, techno-, finance-, example of “African American” occupation, I and ideo-scapes (Ibid), though, open up the possi- have been working through some of the unantici- bility of analyzing these situations differently (see pated implications of what Stuart Hall (1990) also Sharma 2010). refers to as the promise of a “diasporic aesthetic.” “African American” cultural forms not only OCCUPATION AND EMBODIMENT— gained an unanticipated profundity via the actual BECOMING AMERICAN “BLACK” presence of “African American” soldiers and their In a much earlier twist on German identifications children in post-World War II Germany, but their with “Blackness,” in the immediate post-World actual presence created possibilities for new access, War II period, Hans Jurgen€ Massaquoi, the son of new identifications, and new enunciations (i.e., a “White” German mother and a Liberian diplo- places and positions from which to speak [see Hall mat, recalls not only his identification with, but 1990]) for noncitizens, including African immi- also his impersonation of an “African American” grants, Palestinian subjects, Turkish subjects, and GI (Massaquoi 1998; see also Partridge and Larry African-, Palestinian-, and Turkish-Germans, A Greene 2011). Fresh from masquerading as an among others. In Hall’s formulation, “diasporic American GI and then being evicted from a U.S. aesthetics” are configured via artistic practices Army base in post-World War II Germany, he (such as filmmaking and photography) that allow enters another scene of (African) American occu- African diasporic subjects to reassemble a past, to pation. In this instance, he and a German friend imagine a different future: “We have been trying decide not to wait for their train with the allied to theorize identity as constituted, not outside but personnel but in the German waiting hall, where within representation; and hence of cinema, not as travelers seem much less affluent than their military a second-order mirror held up to reflect what occupiers. Mistaking them for Americans, “Black” already exists, but as that form of representation MPs approach Massaquoi and his friend and tell which is able to constitute us as new kinds of sub- them to move to be with the Allied personnel and jects, and thereby enable us to discover places away from the Germans (see Massaquoi 1998:320). from which to speak” (op. cit., pp. 236–237). He In this instance, Massaquoi’s “Blackness,” goes on to note that the point of these aesthetics is which had exposed him to racial exclusion under not to create an “authentic” singular past, but “to the Nazis now has a transformed meaning. In the construct those points of identification, those posi- era of post-War occupation, his “Blackness” tionalities we call in retrospect our ‘cultural identi- would mean that he would be read as “Black” ties’” (op. cit., p. 237). In this formulation, Hall’s American. This interpellation comes through the notion of “diasporic aesthetics” offers new possi- enforcement power of occupying “Black” Ameri- bilities for transnational affiliation and support for can Military Police.1 Theirs and others reading of subjects who might otherwise have no “anchor” his body as “Black” American has the effect of (Fanon in Hall, p. 226) to keep them from being changing his life. In fact, Massaquoi ultimately permanently adrift amid the nation-state- turns this post-War performance (one that origi- centered organization of contemporary life (see nated in an attraction to and performance of Anderson 1991) in which they live in a place where American Jazz) into a vehicle for his movement to they are not a “natural” part of that nation-state. the United States where he ultimately becomes a Hall’s formulation, however, does not account middle-class American and even managing editor for the possibility that unanticipated audiences of Ebony magazine. find power in an aesthetics that never had them “African American” occupation since World in mind, that authenticity, pleasure, and social War II in Germany, in particular, is simultaneously

42 Transforming Anthropology VOL. 21(1) military and imaginary. Its efficacy is established post-War “African American” military occupation, in the movements of otherwise marginalized sub- and German citizenship. How does the doubly jects alongside post-War Americanized re-educa- displaced performance of and desire for “Black” tion programs including military funds to American bodies figure in relation to the European promote American film and American Jazz (see performance of citizenship? How do the desire for Schroer 2007). The programs also included the and expressions of Americanized “Blackness” performances of Negro spirituals at U.S. State relate to the success of this performance? How are Department-funded America Houses based in “African American” bodies transformed in their Germany (Schroer 2007): German translations? What are the political possi- bilities of these reconfigurations? What new oppor- American officials seeking to convince tunities for coalition arise? Germans of the quality of American music Moving from the immediate post-War period favored spirituals…The capstone…was an to Stuart Hall’s analysis and articulations of African American choir’s 1949 tour of every “diasporic aesthetics” to their actual practice in major city in the American zone… In Munich, contemporary Berlin, through street scenes, artistic ‘[o]ver 800 people jammed the theater and the performances, and their representations, I have hall immediate[ly] outside the theater and gave been analyzing both the possibilities and the limits overwhelming applause to the Choir.’… for occupying “Blackness” as it relates to coalition [According to the U.S. information center, in building and social transformation through the Heidelberg,] [t]he audiences for the perfor- practices and aesthetics of these art scenes. In mances grew from at least 800 at the first what follows, I examine the multiple shifts of sub- concert to 2,000 at the second. (op. cit., pp. jectivity as the “Black” American soldier’s body 159-160) helps to reconfigure the national gaze and mobil- ity of Othered and non-Germans. I end by analyz- The point, here, is not to valorize American- ing how these expressions are also always ization or militarization, but to think critically gendered. through the ways in which “African American” (as opposed to simply American) occupation shifts AFRICAN OCCUPYING AFRICAN the dynamics of occupation, Americanization, and AMERICAN social mobility.2 Americanization is not always In a conversation several years ago in the United unmarked, as is often imagined. It is not simply States with a theater director from the Congo the expansion of private property, free markets, or about my research on hypersexuality and “Black” imperial Whiteness, it also involves African Ameri- bodies in Germany (see also Partridge 2012), I can (among other hyphenated) occupiers. Further- learned that even in sub-Saharan Africa, young more, it involves not only the occupation merely men planning to migrate to Europe were practic- of territories but also of imaginations. In this ing their performance of “Black” American mas- sense, I ask: What unexpected possibilities does culinity, learning to dance, speak, and move like this occupation reveal? What unexpected audiences “African Americans.” In my own observations gain access to social mobility, and thus get trans- (beginning in the mid-1990s) in contemporary formed in the process? Given this history, the German clubs and asylum hostels, I saw African word “Negro” on the young man’s jacket takes on men wearing American baseball caps and FUBU a different significance, as do the meanings of jackets, dancing to what Germans now call “Black occupation and Americanization. music” (e.g., R&B, hip-hop, and soul). In the mid- Complicating the position of “African Ameri- 1990s, from asylum camps to dance clubs, I can” occupiers themselves, as Heide Fehrenbach observed this performance as one of the only ways (2005) points out in Race after Hitler, many in which they could be intelligible as (“modern”— “Black”3 soldiers found the notion of post-War not starving, humanitarian aid dependent) human German occupation-as-liberation contradictory, beings in contemporary Germany. Even if “White” inasmuch as they felt freer in Germany than they German women seemed to be saying it is really ever had in the segregated Army or under Jim Africa they desire,4 Americanized “Blackness” Crow (which was still in effect) in the United offered the reassurance of something familiar. States. Moving from the immediate post-War English became the mode of speech. Hip-hop period to the present, I have been examining the clothing became critical attire, and grinding to relationships between contemporary aesthetics, R&B became central.

Damani James Partridge 43 In many ways, a history of “African Ameri- stationed on Berlin’s outskirts. “They showed can” occupation suggests the possibility of up as rappers at hip-hop parties,” Mr. Celik national recognition for contemporary African said of the Americans, “and hip-hop and men through the performance of “African Ameri- gangs belong together.” can” subjectivity. (Of course, as Judith Butler Mr. Celik’s own gang was called the Thirty- [1993] notes, recognition always comes at a cost; sixers, named after the last two digits of see also Partridge 2008).5 “Black-only” GI clubs in Kreuzberg’s postal code.7 There were battles post-War Germany prefigure contemporary clubs with the Black Panthers, a rival Turkish gang where “African-Diasporic” men go to meet from Wedding, another heavily immigrant dis- German women and vice versa. trict of Berlin. In the student film Falsche Soldaten (Fake Sol- diers [Mora-Kapi 1999]), the Benin-born director “We all took drugs and went to these parties,” depicts the ways in which African immigrants in Mr. Celik said, “but we weren’t criminals, and Germany begin to impersonate American GIs by the police kept a pretty close eye on us. And speaking English, carrying fake IDs, and driving we were all Turks because there were so many American cars to gain access to, and social and of us.” legal recognition (often via marriage) by, “White” Then, in another adaptation of urban Ameri- German women. The possibility of social reconfig- can culture, Mr. Celik became what he called uration, for example, Africans finding a legally a graffiti sprayer….(New York Times 2003, recognized place in Germany, often requires p. A2, col. 2–3) occupying the symbolic space of the “African American” body. In a prior conversation with Celik in 2002 at a OTHER MODES OF OCCUPATION: film conference at the British Council that featured TURKISH-GERMANS EMBODY “BLACK” Turkish-German and British Asian filmmakers, I AMERICANS asked him how he managed to become a film- maker and get funding without getting any formal A New York Times article entitled “A Bold New film training or attending one of the prestigious View of Turkish-German Youth” reported on German film schools. He remarked: “Have you April 12, 2003: seen Training Day?” “Yes,” I said. “You know how he [Denzel Washington’s character] said you The film “Alltag” [Everyday Life] has been have to be like a wolf? …I was a wolf.” Celik’s criticized by some in the German press as too reference to extrahuman embodiment is simulta- American in its sensibility and direction. But 6 neously a reference to Denzel Washington’s hyper- Kreuzberg’s youth, in Mr. Celik’s recounting bolic performance of American “Blackness.” Celik was strongly influenced by Hollywood and by does not refer to the actor directly, but to the per- the presence of Americans in Germany. It was formance of “Black” masculinity, and the necessity also shaped by the black urban subculture of this performance to make it in Germany. transposed onto the children of Turkish immi- In the New York Times’ text and in his use of grants in Germany, a force adapted by Mr. Training Day (Fuqua 2002 [2001]), it becomes clear Celik into his movie. that Celik is participating in his own authentication “Everything has to do with American movies,” as a “modern” subject—in which he demonstrates he said, explaining the Kreuzberg world that, “modernness” by demonstrating his “Blackness.” he believes, shaped him and his generation, In this sense, one must read Training Day as a train- the second, of Turkish-Germans. “There”s ing film not only for Ethan Hawke’s character—the also the Turkish culture and our group men- “White” American rookie who Denzel Washing- tality, but mostly it was American movies.” ton’s character trains to police the urban L.A. streets—but also for Neco Celik. Beyond the film, “In the 1980s, everybody saw “Scarface,” and Celik’s training and authentication comes through everybody here called himself Tony Montana,” an identification with oppositional youth culture in Mr. Celik said. He was talking about the ruth- the United States as transported through the bodies less drug trafficker played by Al Pacino. of occupying “Black” youth in Germany—the Hip-hop was introduced to the neighborhood children of American GIs on the American base in by the children of American servicemen pre-unification (pre-1989) West Berlin. It is worth

44 Transforming Anthropology VOL. 21(1) noting that he refers to the actual physical presence could be that one life time is not enough for of these youth and not only to popular processes of this long trek.” Americanization as they are experienced in German But if Neco Celik had told one ten years ago movie theaters or on German TV. Celik came of that he wanted to make films, real feature age in the youth center the Naunyn Ritze. As he films with real actors, closed-off streets, and a notes, “I am, myself, a graffiti artist from the 80s.” crane that carries the camera into the sky This is the same place where he later became a above Kreuzberg, then the reply would have youth worker. He recalls that the youth center was assuredly been the following: “Grow up Neco, a project started by the allies to teach democracy. get your Abitur [pre-university high school And then, Celik points out, the “guest worker chil- degree], or learn something Practical! Film- dren” came, “and they had other problems.” The making is a dream, on the order of becoming occupying presence, however, also had an impact a jet pilot, or the captain of a Tanker. You on these unanticipated subjects. As Celik’s artistic don’t have a clue Neco. You don’t have any initiation as graffiti sprayer suggests, the occupying connections. You don’t have a chance.” presence provides real possibilities for transnational affiliation of an aesthetic politics that counteracts This is the way, or nearly the way, that Neco forces and feelings of displacement. He moves from Celik’s father speaks today. As the son was youth participant, to youth worker, to film, theater, filming, the father was invited onto the set. and then opera director. On the other hand, inas- “Look here, Kreuzberg is blocked-off for three much as the “Turkish-German” never quite weeks. Look at the big lights and the actors achieves the status of becoming “Black” American, and the whole film crew. Of all of these peo- he has to insist even more on the authenticity of his ple, I’m the boss.” The father was not performance (as “Black”) to gain broader social impressed, Neco Celik explains: His brothers recognition—to be on center stage. had acquired more practical skills. One is a In a Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung (a mechanic, the other a police officer. This national newspaper) article entitled “Der Spike impresses the father who came in the 70s from Lee von Kreuzberg” (The Spike Lee of Kreuzberg) Anatolia. (Ibid, my translation) (2003), the tone, at some points, seems mocking, perhaps reflecting a broader public skepticism Here, the journalist contrasts the film industry about the place of “Turkish-Germans,” even the (read Americanized life, values, and dreams) with refusal to recognize that such a hyphenated subjec- the values, dreams, and hopes of rural Anatolia. tivity could or does exist. Clear, however, even in He contrasts Neco Celik and his father, creating the title of the article, is the central place African fake quotes to suggest that the “traditional” prac- Americanness as a model for the possibility of ticality impedes modern Americanized life. inclusion and recognition. Celik’s authenticity as In the end, it seems that establishing gang “Black” is at stake in understanding him as “mod- affiliations and connections to American soldiers ern.”8 African Americanness becomes the grounds was part of establishing authenticity and place. through which recognizability by the broader Ger- Spike Lee was a mark of intelligibility for a main- man public can be obtained. These grounds are stream German media. For the Frankfurter All- critical both for Celik and for the journalist, which gemeine, though, it was not yet clear whether or might explain the journalist’s insistence on refer- not Celik had succeeded, whereas for the New ring to Celik’s Turkishness and refusing to authen- York Times, he had already demonstrated the ticate his Americanized “Blackness,” as can be never-ending presence and supposed “superiority” seen in the journalist’s representation of Celik’s of Americanized desire and American becoming. difficulty in becoming Spike Lee. The critical tone, In a later conversation with Celik whose film which reflects the broader relationship to Turkish- “Alltag” (Everyday Life) subsequently aired on Germanness, is found in the extended title of the ARD (the most-watched German television sta- article itself (“The Spike Lee of Kreuzberg: Ear- tion), he pointed out that it was only after an lier, Neco Celik was in a gang, today, he makes interview with him and review of his film appeared films, tomorrow, he wants to be world famous”). in the New York Times article that a number of The journalist writes: German journalists began to change their opinion about him and the film: “Since when did the New “It’s a long damned way from Kreuzberg to York Times become the Maßstab (standard) for Hollywood,” one wants to say to him. “It the German press?” he questioned. Yet, through

Damani James Partridge 45 the process of becoming publicly recognizable, glu, to become a German celebrity. Celik calls him through the release of his first feature film, on the his favorite author in Germany. path toward establishing his authenticity by con- Zaimoglu writes: “Analogous to the Black necting his work and his life to the American consciousness movement in the USA, the individ- “ghetto,” to American “Blackness,” Neco Celik ual Kanak subidentities will increasingly become has, according to his own observations, begun to aware of overlapping relationships and contents. be recognized as a German filmmaker. Inasmuch The demystification has been introduced; the way as “Turkish-Germans” can become Germany’s to a new realism has been set. In the middle of a “Blacks,” inasmuch as they can be consumed, they mainstream culture, the first raw proposal for an relink Germany to an Americanized process, ethnic structure in Germany has come into being” which simultaneously includes consumption, (2000 [1995]: 17, my translation). Here, an “Afri- “modernity,” and globalization. In many ways, the can American” social movement, a movement that persistence of this reality remains part of the followed the Second World War, provides a model national subconscious. “[T]he cultural hegemony for Kanak articulation in Germany. Kanak (a rac- of the United States was perhaps never as domi- ist term usually used against “Turkish-Germans” nant as it is now, but—and this is my point—it is and “Turks” in Germany) stands for a particularly not perceived as such. For West German artists German form of positioning that immediately and intellectuals in their twenties and thirties, the points to the contradictions of national citizenship, import of American culture is not part of a cul- in this case, for Turkish and other racialized tural imperialism or an unwanted Americanization Germans, through the analogous contradictions of but, rather, an accepted part of life” (Gemunden€ “African American” experience. Again, it is 1998:210).9 What is significant about Celik’s and through the occupation of and by “Black” bodies the related cases I have been describing thus far is that a form of enunciation can take place. that incorporation happens through the occupying Linking Zaimoglu’s published work to his power of “Black” Americanness, in particular. public interviews, literary theorist, B. Venkat Mani If one watches German TV, goes to the Ger- notes, “The journalistic portrait of Zaimoglu as a man movie theater, or listens to much of German young author established him on the one hand as popular radio, one experiences the undeniable per- an assimilated Other who can communicate and sistence of what Timothy Brown (2006) has called can be comprehended in the language of the “(African-)Americanization” in German everyday majority, indeed, in the vocabularies of assimila- life.10 More broadly, “In recent years American tion, and on the other hand as the Other who films have accounted for 75 percent to 85 percent protects and sustains his Otherness through a per- of the German market, whereas German films sistent defiance of assimilation” (2007:127). As in make up about 10 percent of the domestic exhibi- the case of Celik, Zaimoglu achieves popular rec- tion market” (Gemunden€ 1998:203). Furthermore, ognition and is viewed as “authentic,” not as a “Since the introduction of cable television in the result of the perception of some authentic Turkish- mid-1980s more and more American programs ness but via the language of the African American- have been imported to fill the greatly expanded ized street: “[H]e defines this [his] public work as a time slots…”(op. cit., p. 204). Within this context, process of empowerment of minorities and the the presence of “Black” bodies is critical not only reclaiming of cultural hegemony” (op. cit.: 132). I to processes of Americanization but also to the read this “reclaiming of cultural hegemony” possibilities of social mobility, in Germany. After directly in relation to a process of occupation, all, many of the imported images are also which then also exceeds the initial relationships “Black.” established in the post-War moment. In this sense, occupation directly engages the politics of cultural OCCUPYING “BLACK POWER” citizenship (see Ong 1996, 2003). It reformulates Informally called “the Turkish Malcolm X” by how one can be in Germany. It means that one German critics (see Qantara.de 2008), Faridun need not only think of effecting social change as it Zaimoglu introduces his book Kanak Sprak. 24 relates to the context of the federal government or Mißtone€ vom Rande der Gesellschaft (Kanak Talk. formal politics. It offers different political possibili- 24 Dissonant Tones from the Edge of the Society) ties. Graffiti, also as articulated, for example, in with the figure of American “Black Power” to Celik’s films and other artistic works, operates as a intervene in the German literary imaginary. In form of occupation, as does the reconfiguration of fact, this move is what helps him, Feridun Zaimo- the German language offered in Zaimoglu’s books,

46 Transforming Anthropology VOL. 21(1) Celik’s films, in schools, youth centers, and on the including the opening up of—social and physical street. Of course, the difference between the other space as the normal rules give way (at least in part) aesthetic renderings and the street formulations is to the rules of occupation—including those of and that the mainstream (normative) public no longer enforced by the “Black” occupiers. Finally, I have sees the theater, film, and published versions as been thinking about the cultural politics of occupa- negative. In these articulations, it is critical to tion. In this case, occupation is not only significant understand occupation in the double sense I have as a result of its military presence but also as a been suggesting thus far, that is, both as a physical result of the fact that it is involved in creative refor- and as an imaginary (psychic) form. Graffiti occu- mulation of consumption and desire. But to a large pies physical space and is simultaneously an aes- extent, occupation is necessary, because noncitizen- thetic that occupies the imaginations and desires of ship persists. Berlin and other cities. There are government poli- In this respect, it must be noted that Germany cies to remove it and yet there are also special paid has not traditionally defined itself as a “country of tours to go see it. immigration.” Even if immigration has been a criti- On the West Side of the Berlin Wall during cal part of its history (see Herbert 1990), those the Cold War, it was seen as an articulation of who did not blend in, with the exception of a few “freedom,” while the East German side was, of officially recognized “minorities,” have historically course, unmarked. As I witnessed it in 1989, as faced severe sanctions. While the citizenship law the Wall was falling and street hawkers began was liberalized in 2000 to make it easier for those removing and selling pieces, the most valuable with parents with permanent residence to become pieces were those that had been spray painted. In legal citizens, the social regimes that regulate incor- fact, in Berlin in 1989, after renting a chisel to get poration have been dragging their feet, so to speak, my own pieces of the Wall, I noticed that to make on the possibility of full inclusion. Within this them appear more valuable, men who were selling arena, Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akın has the interior pieces would first spray paint them been an Ausnahme (an exception). He is arguably before removal, as if the suggestion of graffiti the most famous contemporary German filmmaker would insure its authenticity. After the Wall fell, both nationally and internationally. He won the an artist project known as the East Side Gallery Golden Bear, the highest and most prestigious was commissioned to have a large portion of the prize, at the Berlin International Film Festival in formerly unmarked East side painted by interna- 2004 and the award for the best screenplay at Can- tional artists. Twenty years later, the (street) artists nes in 2007. In 2008, he was the president of the were invited back again to renew their work. Cannes jury (see Festival de Cannes 2010). Never- Now, graffiti on gentrifying housing blocks may theless, in a public discussion with Feridun Zaimo- be responsible for keeping rents down, as one glu at the Free University Berlin (Zaimoglu 2008), sprayer put it, according to a recent tour guide of Neco Celik recalled his own difficulty with the real- Berlin graffiti and street art: “Because of the graffi- ity of Fatih Akın’s success. Speaking about the ti on this building, your rent is lower.” making of his first short films and trailers on his path to making his first feature, Celik recounts: THE NECESSITY TO OCCUPY REVEALED IN THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF BECOMING At the same time, I was working on a feature “WHITE” film in which I wanted to tell a story from the In addition, the physical marks left by graffiti to neighborhood. Then, Fatih Akın came and aesthetically and symbolically claim space, in this made his films—In July, Solino, Head-On. essay, I have been using the term occupation to And the people said: “Yes, but Fatih Akın has mean a form of embodiment—noncitizen youth already made that kind of film. We don’t want embodying Americanized “Blackness” through pos- any more Turk-films.” I said: “I’m not making tures and positions, writing, dancing, and dress. I a Turk-film. This is Kreuzberg [Berlin]; that is have also been using the term to describe a Altona [Hamburg]. What’s the problem? I’m particular history of military occupation in which Neco and that’s Fatih”. They still came back claims of liberation carried with them a necessary and said: “No, it’s too much” reconfiguration of globalized racial politics in a way …After five years, I came to the understand- that even the American post-War planners had not ing, that this story, even though I had never anticipated. Furthermore, I have been using occu- noticed it, was in fact a Turkish story. I then pation to think through the reconfiguration—

Damani James Partridge 47 rewrote it as a German story. (Celik in Zaimo- a distinctive aesthetic) as a European dynamic, I glu 2008:135-137, my translation) would argue that the mix of ethno-racial neighbor- hood dynamics and auteurism is also part and par- In this instance, telling a “German story” cel of the success of filmmakers such as Spike Lee. means not veering too far away from normative In Gokt€ urk€ (n.d.) and Mennel’s (2002b) analyses, tropes. If one does, one needs permission. they argue that the aesthetic forms that Akın used In another articulation of this story, Celik were already a departure from the ethnicized reveals that the producer told him that the major- Turkish productions, what Deniz Gokt€ urk,€ adopt- ity of the German audience could not identify with ing a model from the British case (see Malik the story if a “Turk” were the main character. In 1996), identifies as a (potential) shift from a “‘cin- the rewriting, while keeping it as a story about his ema of duty’ to ‘the pleasures of hybridity’” neighborhood, Celik relented and made the main (Gokt€ urk€ n.d.). (I should note that I have prob- character a “White” German. Until he did this, lems both with the terms “hybridity” and the iden- the producers, who had the power to decide tification of Akın’s aesthetic in his first feature as whether or not Celik’s film would be financed, “ghetto,” but I will return to this point below.) rejected it precisely because of their perception of Describing the shift from duty to the contem- its Turkishness and thus perceived lack of appeal porary “ghetto” form, Mennel (2002b) writes: to the German main stream. On the other hand, “The ‘cinema of duty’ remains for Malik ‘social what film theorist Barbra Mennel (2002a,b) identi- issue in content, documentary-realist in style, fies as a “ghetto” milieu (but what Celik, himself, firmly responsible in intention.’ It ‘positions its calls a neighborhood film—in the spirit of Spike subjects in relation to social crisis, and attempts to Lee) is appealing to the mainstream funders, per- articulate “problems” and “solutions to problems” haps precisely because of Spike Lee’s success. In a within a framework of centre and margin, white discussion about the interview in the Frankfurter and non-white communities” (pp. 136-137). As Allgemeine Zeitung, Celik told me that he thought both Mennel (2002b) and Gokt€ urk€ (n.d.) note, the it was an honor to be compared to Spike Lee. In films associated with this genre emphasize the other words, the sociocultural space that Spike social and spatial boundedness of Turkish immi- Lee occupies in the German imagination makes grants. They thematize problematic gender dynam- some breathing room (if not total liberation) ics, including women cut off from the society by possible for Celik. dominant men. While made by Turkish, Turkish- Addressing the problematics of racialized film German, and “White” German directors, these production in Germany, a number of Germanist films, both Gokt€ urk€ and Mennel suggest, leave film scholars have written about the links between both the male and female (but primarily the German funding and the particular genres in female) Turkish immigrant as voiceless victims which “Turkish-German” film directors are able to with little power to change their situation. The sig- operate. In these analyses, the critics point out nificance of the filmic form here has to do with that funding for film in Germany primarily comes the fact that while fictional, these films take the from television—the principle moneymaker for place of documentary, fulfilling mainstream German-produced film/video productions (see expectations about the “backwardness” of the Halle 2008; Mennel 2002a, b, Gokt€ urk).€ This immigrant Turk. Furthermore, and this cannot be funding, in turn, has been primarily public—sup- emphasized enough, the fact that these, as plied by federal and state sources. In other words, opposed to other films, get made at all is linked to as with the politics of occupation and the promo- the vision of the state-backed funders. “[W]e find tion of “African American” among other aesthetic that schemes of film financing and subsidy forms, artistic production becomes a state matter (‘Filmforderung’)€ on a federal or regional level as linked directly to the contemporary politics of well as through co-productions with television, democracy and citizenship. mainly with the public broadcasting channel ZDF, In analyzing Akın’s success, one should note have sometimes proved to be counterproductive that he began his career by complying with some and limiting, in the sense of reinforcing a patroniz- of the then acceptable “African-Americanized” ing and marginalizing attitude towards formulas, including what Mennel (2002b:134) calls ‘Auslanderkultur’,€ the culture of foreigners” an aesthetic of “ghettocentrism and auteurism.” (Gokt€ urk,€ n.d.). The already existing supposed While Mennel (2002b) and Randall Halle (2008) “sociological perspective” is authenticated in fic- see auteurism (in which the film director establishes tion film, which gets read as documentary—with

48 Transforming Anthropology VOL. 21(1) the “authentic” behind-the-scenes images now In her work, based on “Black British” cinema, supplied to the “White” German viewer. “Malik sees a shift from ‘in-betweenness’ to ‘diasp- One such film thematizes a Turkish woman oric experiences [that] are not limited to victim- who joins her Turkish husband in Germany, per- hood and struggle’” (Mennel 2002b:137). But, haps in line with the family reunification policies ultimately, Mennel (2002a) suggests that “perform- of the German government since the early 1970s. ing the pleasures of hybridity might just have The film takes place entirely in one room until the become the new duty” (Mennel 2002a:53). In the end, when the female protagonist kills her hus- examples above, this involves sensationalizing the band. Confirming the power of this image, “40qm representations of the “migrant” in film and popu- Deutschland [40 square meters of Germany] (1986) lar culture. From this argument, it follows that … received the Bundesfilmpreis [the Federal Film recognized “Turkish-German” films are now stuck Prize] in 1987, an award given by the Federal Min- in a new problematic dynamic of what Ed istry of Internal Affairs—dutiful national acknowl- Guerroro (1993) has called “neo-Blaxploitative” edgement, which paradoxically seemed to cement filmmaking. the subnational status of ‘Auslanderkultur’”€ Moving beyond this point, I ask: To what (Gokt€ urk,€ n.d.). If there were just one film, per- extent is the German national culture, itself, haps this portrayal could be seen as the exception, imprisoned in and by its own images of the “Turk- but, as others have demonstrated, this is part of a ish-German” other? How might this imprisonment trend with films made by different filmmakers, all reduce possibilities for a more vibrant exchange of whom received official backing. and even more vibrant aesthetics? On the other In the 1990s, however, the commercial success hand, how does the occupation by and of “African of a number of “African American” filmmakers American Blackness” shift this dynamic, providing also opens up new possibilities for “Turkish- some grounds for a conversation, even if it German” cinema. Spike Lee, the Hughes Brothers, involves translation and transposition? Ultimately, and John Singleton (among others) in the United Germanness via “Blackness” offers a different pos- States reconfigure the possibilities for filmmakers sibility for the wider distribution of Akın’s, and writers such as Celik, Akın, and Zaimoglu in Celik’s, and Arslan’s artistic production. Occupa- the sense that these films then become viable as tion via American “Blacknesss” becomes the condi- forms that have already proven to be popular. tion under which the two audiences—”White” Guerrero (1993 [quoted in Mennel 2002b]) refers to German and racialized Germans—are brought a “black movie boom” (p. 138), which consists of together. This coming together, however, is not American films of the early 1990s. Mennel (2002b) equivalent to assimilation. Even as the filmmakers problematizes the masculinist dimensions of these gain new audiences, they cannot become normative possibilties. Of course, these possibilties are being citizens with access to the full range of creative pos- realized, just as the broader public and the German sibility. While it opens up space, the occupation of media continue to be troubled by the image of the and by American “Blackness” also constrains Muslim/Turkish/Arab woman under the headscarf. movement. The Turkish-German filmmakers have In Akın’s, Celik’s, and Arslan’s11 films, Islam is not (and most likely cannot) become “White.” not a primary emphasis, and women are sexual- ized, some even as prostitutes. In Akın’s break- IMPORTING A MODEL OF ETHNIC through film, Gegen die Wand, there was a major SUCCESSION?—A BLENDING OF THE controversy surrounding the fact that the lead FILMIC AND THE REAL female character had appeared previously in In analyzing Fatih Akın’s success in Germany, pornographic films. (This protest noticeably did one should note that Hamburg, where Akın grew not come from the mainstream “White” Christian up, was not, in fact, part of the American zone of German public.) While Celik once remarked to one post-War military occupation. In Akın’s films, of his colleagues, in my presence, that even though respectively, one sees that America (and specifi- they did not want to believe it, he is a practicing cally American “Blackness” as an African diaspor- Muslim, when I was transferring his first feature ic presence) is less immediately apparent, although film Alltag to a different video format at a public the tropes of ethnicized and racialized American- venue at the University of Michigan, someone ized possibility remain central. From a Hollywood called the security, claiming that he/she was being Italian mob-stylized aesthetic to the visual and exposed to explicit sexual images. In my defense, I aural insistence on hip-hop and graffiti among should add that the film contains no nudity. other aesthetic forms, one sees in Akın’s first

Damani James Partridge 49 feature, Kurz und Schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock), Turkish. The mobster foreground finds its place in a blending of a Hollywood Italian-American trope Germany via a hip-hop background (in music and alongside an African American aesthetic backdrop images of graffiti in the diegesis) representing the shot on location in a filmic Hamburg including materialization of everyday ethnicized life in Ger- urban surfaces decorated with graffiti and a dance many. Akın does not make an explicit issue of this club scene that revels in hip-hop and that places background in the film, but it is very visible in the its racialized youth squarely into “modernized” frame, and he comments publicly on his affinity urban life. for hip-hop among other musical influences. Thinking more concretely about how Italian- The question, however, remains: To what American Hollywood tropes fit in relation to extent can the racialized other become a “White” American “Blackness” and ultimately recognition German and find a permanent place in the Ger- in Germany (the possibility of success that also man mainstream? While the “Turkish-German” comes at a cost), one should have in mind Ameri- main character in the film suggests that he will can models of “ethnic succession”: “a set of expec- give up and escape to Turkey, the filmmaker, him- tations that in a just and moral world, ethnic self, remains in Germany and does this to great minorities will attain entry to the mainstream of acclaim. In fact, in his filmic oeuvre, the tension American society through gains achieved in succes- between origin and Heimat (homeland) remains a sive generations” (Ong 2003:3). In these examples, constant theme, with characters usually traveling there is an important parallel between ethnic and to Turkey to recover or redeem some part of racialized immigrants and histories of labor migra- themselves that has been (perhaps permanently) tion in Germany and the United States. In the lost. American context, however, one identifies ethnic Given that Akın never becomes a “White” succession not only with the process of becoming German filmmaker, even if he does become a Ger- a formal citizen, as Ong notes, but also with the man one, it seems that this is possible precisely process of becoming “White” (Ong 2003:11; see because of the space that American “Blackness” also Roediger 2002 [1991]).12 Furthermore, Roedi- (in his case implicitly) opens up for the possibility ger (2002 [1991]), and Rogin (1996) have linked of being in the social imaginary. Hip-hop is the Jewish and Irish ethnic succession to the successful springboard for racialized incorporation as performance of “Blackface” in the United States. opposed to ethnic succession, in which, as Michael By performing “Blackface,” one distances him/her- Omi and Howard (1994) argue, ethnicity as self from “Blackness,” unless one is seen as the opposed to “race” implies the possibility of “authentic” “Black.” becoming “White.” A central concern for this essay is the extent In the context of Berlin, and particularly to which “Turkish- Germans” can also fit this Kreuzberg, actually part of the formally Ameri- model of ethnic succession, particularly in a con- can-occupied zone, the relationship to American text in which there is much less space for hyphen- “Blackness” is less abstract. As Celik recounts: ated belonging than in the United States. The “The next thing that I was involved in was the other question is: To what extent has American hip-hop scene…I did Graffiti” (Celik in Zaimoglu “Blackness” opened the possibility of at least par- 2008:129-131, my translation). Even in the narra- tial incorporation? What possibilities does this tion of his story; however, there is an important incorporation exclude? In Akın’s artistic reper- relationship between the filmic model of ethnic toire, one sees a blending of the filmic and the succession and the production as a German real. The filmic is represented via the form of his “Black” artist, revealing the open but constrained first feature film itself, a film inspired (according (and problematic) possibility of recognition. In his to his own commentary [see Akin 2004]) by Mar- introduction, as part of his residence at the Free tin Scorsese’s first feature Mean Streets (1998 University, an educational institution that is itself [1973]), a film, like Akın’s, featuring a story of a result of American occupation and post- friendship and the (Italian) mob but shot in New War rebuilding,13 Zaimoglu introduces Celik as York as opposed to Hamburg. follows: Akın’s film, Kurz und Schmerzlos, also por- trays the ethnicized and criminalized fringe; it He was hyped by the American media as the includes pimps, prostitutes, and a portrayal of “Spike Lee of Germany.” Neco and I met a friendship among characters who are immediately couple of years ago. One should picture it in identified via onscreen titles as Greek, Serb, and their mind as follows—even if it is not so nice

50 Transforming Anthropology VOL. 21(1) for him that I put it this way: It was some- AUDIENCE MEMBER: Does it have some- thing like a scene in the film Godfather. I have thing to do with the feeling of being an under- seen it a couple of times. Real thugs and dog? Like the Blacks in the USA, who stylize fighter-types—at least by their looks—came to such terms? Is that practice adopted here? him, kissed him on the hand, and said: “Big NECO CELIK: Yes, surely MTV plays a huge brother Neco…”(The audience and Zaimoglu role. MTV rears our kids. The youth in the laugh.) So we should call him: “The Godfather Naunyn Ritze [the youth center where Celik of Kreuzberg”. (Zaimoglu 2008:118, my trans- has worked] won’t have much to do with with lation) Blacks. But strangely enough, they rap. They want to be like the Black rappers on MTV. In his response to this introduction, Celik It’s a paradox. (Zaimoglu 2008:139) immediately plays down Zaimoglu’s stylization of their initial encounter: “Okay, about the hand From the perspective of Celik’s generation (he kissing: That was my younger nephew (general was born in 1972), one wonders about the extent laughter) who kissed my hand because he wanted to which the absence of actual “African Ameri- to show respect, because I’m his uncle. I told him: can” occupying troops in the post-1989/post-Cold ‘Stop that!’He(Celik signals toward Zaimoglu) is, War era contributes to the distancing of the of course, dramatizing that moment.” (Zaimoglu contemporary “Turkish German” youth from the 2008:118, my translation). The dramatization to politics and the physical presence of African- which Celik refers (and tries to soften), is, of Diasporic “Blackness.” While American “Black- course, the staging of him (Celik) as a mob-type ness” may continue to act as a social resource in figure. While he might have been involved in a Germany and beyond (see Brown 1998), the dis- neighborhood gang as a youth, Celik is now a tance from its physical presence as an occupying thin, stylish, easy-going, sharp, but friendly, artist force produces new challenges for coalition work. and youth worker. The play between the models of ethnic succession and American “Blackness,” OTHER TENSIONS OF COALITION: however, is important to the strategy of making it GENDERS OF OCCUPATION AND in Germany. If one looks back to the New York “AFRO-GERMAN” SUBJECTIVITY Times article that launched Celik on the global While occupation through “African American” and national scene, then one can see the ways in GIs and a hip-hop aesthetic emphasizes a mascu- which he, himself, plays with this ethnic/”Black” linization of “African American” occupation, the American dynamic. “Black” bodies by and through which occupation “Blackness,” however, represents both the pos- has taken and continues to take place are not sibility and the limit of ethnic succession in Ger- necessarily male. As the authors of Farbe Beken- many (and the United States). The “Black” nen (Showing Our Colors) note, part of their American referent (and its popular global con- response to the exclusion of “White” West Ger- sumption), however, means that the German pub- man feminists in the 1980s was to assert their lic at large will be able to distinguish between his place as “Afro-Germans” and to point to the and his father’s background in rural Anatolia. necessary links between race and gender. This This differentiation, however, reifies his father’s intervention is inspired, empowered, and informed marginality (even if Celik would (and he does) by the U.S. Civil Rights movement and the pres- vehemently fight against it). ence and articulation of “Black” women: “With It is important to note here that in spite of Audre Lorde we created the term “Afro-Ger- this occupation with and by “Blackness,” in every- man,” borrowing from AfroÀAmerican, as the day life, there can simultaneously be a distancing term of our cultural heritage” (Opitz et al. 1991 from African-Diasporic people: [1986], p. XXII). According to Lorde: “In the spring of 1984, I NECO CELIK: The hip-hop scene is—espe- spent three months at the Free University in Berlin cially here in Berlin— shaped by youth of teaching a course in Black American women poets Turkish descent. This issue of “honor” is and a poetry workshop in English, for German implanted by their parents who come from students. One of my goals on this trip was to meet Turkey and raise their kids traditionally. The Black German women, for I had been told there youth use these words, but they don’t do any- were quite a few in Berlin” (1992, p. vii).14 thing to back them up.

Damani James Partridge 51 Since the end of the Second World War, it I asked one of my Black students how she had has been through the term Besatzungskinder thought about herself growing up. “The nicest (occupation children), that many “Afro-Germans” thing they ever called us was ‘warbaby,’” she have come to be popularly known (again, said. But the existence of most Black Germans through the occupation of “Black” American has nothing to do with the Second World bodies) even if this is not the sociological reality. War, and, in fact, predates it by many dec- “After World War II there was hardly any fur- ades. I have Black German women in my class ther mention of the Afro-Germans born before who trace their Afro-German heritage back to or after 1919,” (Opitz et al. 1991:79). Here, the the 1890s. (1991: VII) authors refer to so-called “Rheinlandbastarde” (“Rheinland Bastards,” i.e., children of French Here, in spite of the social reality, the social African troops and “White” German women) and imagination is critical, as is the possibility for visi- the disappearance of their presence from social bility (even if at first negative) that occupation memory, following their sterilization and stigmati- makes possible. It is only after the Second World zation. However, the shift in the social imagina- War that a social space for “Afro-Germans,” even tion from “Rheinland Bastards” to “Occupation if as “war babies” or “Besatzungskinder,” becomes Babies,” suggests a significant shift in the possi- part of the broader social imaginary beyond the bilities for “Black” belonging, even if the term post-World War I obsessions with racial purity “occupation” in this context is sometimes under- and eugenics. This later occupation provides the stood and used negatively. grounds for social reconfiguration. As historian Heide Fehrenbach notes: “As fed- eral and state officials became all too aware, their CONCLUSION response to the children was an important early I have pointed to many of the ways in which “Afri- testing case for postwar German democracy” can American” occupation is linked to processes of (2001, p. 164). She continues: social transformation—i.e., the reconfiguration of social and physical space, shifting positions of What emerged from reports by native local “Blackness” from ones of marginality to those authorities were not narratives of German anthropologist Jacqueline Nassy Brown calls female victimization similar to the ‘black hor- “diasporic resources” (Brown 1998; see also Campt ror’ stories that circulated after the First 2004). But here, these resources are rearticulated, to World War or tales of mass rape by Soviet include not only those originally perceived as being troops in the East during the spring of 1945, of “African descent,” but also those in other spaces but narratives of national disorder that linked of displacement or noncitizenship. racialized American masculinity with unre- Furthermore, while this essay is heavily influ- strained native female sexuality, criminality enced by the specific histories of military occupa- and materialism. (op. cit., p. 168) tion, in the end, this is not the most significant meaning of the term or its possibilities. It is only a These qualities, at least materialism and starting point for thinking about articulations and female sexuality, would eventually be embraced limits, histories, and futures. Through this by critical components of the German public in research, it has become clear that transformative the post-World War II (“African-”) American- occupation must possess both material and imagi- ized era. nary dimensions. It must both inspire displaced Beyond this initial move toward the possibil- subjects and occupy dominant space. Occupation, ity of acceptance, as the author’s of Farbe beken- itself, can become a position from which to speak, nen make clear, the presence and politics of Audre but speech alone will not be adequate. Lorde in post-World War II Berlin becomes criti- In conclusion, I would like to return to a cal to processes of “Afro-German” politicization quote from the beginning of this essay: “We have in their attempts to effect a broader social trans- been trying to theorize identity as constituted, not formation beyond the scope of military occupa- outside but within representation; and hence of tion. In a foreword to Farbe bekennen, Audre cinema, not as a second-order mirror held up to Lorde recalls: reflect what already exists, but as that form of rep- resentation which is able to constitute us as new Afro-German. The women say they’ve never kinds of subjects, and thereby enable us to dis- heard that term used before. cover places from which to speak” (Hall 1990). To

52 Transforming Anthropology VOL. 21(1) what extent can occupying presences constitute us tion meetings in 2009, the organizers and audi- as new kinds of subjects? Including, but also mov- ence members at the “CAAS at 40: Research ing beyond film, how might the aesthetic dimen- and Community Partnerships” at the University sions of occupation open up real possibilities for of Michigan in 2010, participants in the 2012 social change? German Research Foundation-sponsored Young While emphasizing specific histories and Scholar’s Network workshop on “Blackness and relationships, this essay has suggested some possi- Performance” at the Amadeu Antonio Founda- bilities for and articulations of unanticipated tion in Berlin, the cultural anthropology writer’s alliances. To think more specifically and more group at the University of Michigan, Josephine strategically about occupation in particular might Allen, and Sunita Bose Partridge. I would also advance the efficacy of these social forms, already like to thank the anonymous reviewers and in process. While this essay has pointed to poten- Transforming Anthropology editors Dana-Ain tial alliances, as Neco Celik’s among other com- Davis and Aimee Cox for their close readings mentaries suggest, these alliances, for the most and helpful comments. part, are not yet formed strategically as such. Their infrastructures are thin and there is too little NOTES thinking about the political economy of their 1. As Butler notes, “In Althusser’s notion of sustenance. Occupation as a political strategy, of interpellation, it is the police who initiate the call course, means more than the simple adoption of or address by which a subject becomes socially aesthetic forms that happen to flow as the result constituted. There is the policeman, the one who of market forces. Critical occupation must be not only represents the law but whose address based on consciously coordinated efforts, ‘Hey you!’ has the effect of binding the law to the planning, and articulations with specific goals in one who is hailed.” (1993:122). mind. 2. While historian Timothy S. Brown (2006) has written about the process of “(African) Americanization and Hip Hop in Germany,” Damani James Partridge Anthropology and importantly pointing out the mass appeal of the Afro-American and African Studies, University of genre (also amongst “White” Germans), I am Michigan, 101 West Hall, 1085 S. University interested here in the longer trajectory of the rel- Avenue, Ann Arbor, 48109-1107, Michigan, USA; evance of “Blackness” to political mobilization in [email protected] unanticipated locations. Following Ayse Cßalgar (1998), I am also interested in the degree to which the promotion of the global connections to “Blackness” at times take on official state ACKNOWLEDGMENTS forms, such as in the work of social workers at In preparing this article for publication, I would youth centers in Berlin (see also Bennett 1999 like to thank the Berkeley-Tubingen-Wien€ for the connection between state-sponsored youth (Vienna)-Harvard Research Network for their centers and the promotion of hip-hop). In a initial inspiration as well as their rigorous and 2009 tour of his neighborhood, Neco Cßelik thoughtful comments. I would also like to thank pointed out that American officials had actively the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and participated in the programming of his youth the Departments of Anthropology and Afro- center where he grew up and ultimately became american and African Studies at the University a media pedagogue. of Michigan for their ongoing support. A num- 3. I use “Black” in quotes here and through- ber of others have also been involved in signifi- out, not only to point to the fact that this desig- cant ways in the writing process, including nation is a social construction (albeit one that is Andrew Shryock, Kelley Askew, Wolfgang Kas- political and that can be used to empower racial- chuba, the members of the American Association ized subjects), but also to point to the mobility of Teachers of German Seminars in Berlin, of the term and the various possibilities of its members and organizers of the “Black European uses. Studies in Transnational Perspective” conference 4. Of course, the desire for “African Ameri- in Berlin in 2006, participants in the “Migration, can” men and Africa are linked, as can be seen in Security and Belonging in Neoliberal Europe” the example of Leni Riefenstahl’s visual shift from panel at the American Anthropological Associa- Jesse Owens to “The Nuba.”

Damani James Partridge 53 5. “Althusser conjectures this ‘hailing’ or American experience, even in opposition, has ‘interpellation’ as a unilateral act, as the power something reactionary about it.’ Though Adorno and force of the law to compel fear at the same did not know Frank Zappa, he may well have time that it offers recognition at an expense” (But- been thinking about him when he made this out- ler 1993:122). The cost of recognition is a result of of-character statement because it captures Zappa’s the fact that the subject being hailed/interpellated obstinate, oppositional, and irreducible music” is simultaneously being identified as one who has (p. vii). trespassed—i.e., violated the law. Butler asks later: 10. Aihwa Ong (2003) points out that for “Are there are [sic] other ways of being addressed Southeast Asian immigrants to the United States, and constituted by the law, ways of being occu- there is not this same possibility, as they are more pied and occupying the law, that disarticulate the likely to become “Black” along the “Black”/ power of punishment from the power of recogni- “White” pole of American incorporation. tion?” This is a critical point underlying the poli- 11. Arslan is another “Turkish-German” tics of occupation. Under conditions of “African director who receives funding to make films about American” occupation, the performance of his neighborhood, what Mennel (problematically) “Black” Americanness opens up the possibilities analyzes under the rubric of a transnational for others to be recognized and not punished for “ghetto” aesthetic not living up to previous ideals of Germanness. 12. Aihwa Ong (2003) points out that for Occupation changes the conditions of enforcement Southeast Asian immigrants to the United States, while still referencing a politics of recognition, by there is not this same possibility, as they are more the Military Police in Massaquoi’s case—the fact likely to become “Black” along the “Black”/ that he is hailed does not lead to punishment but “White” pole of American incorporation. to a transformation of his status—to German 13. In recounting its history, the Free Univer- women who now openly desire and ultimately sity’s website recounts: “A protest meeting was recognize African men in spaces and contexts organized in the West part of the city as the Uni- made possible, in part, as a result of “African versity Unter den Linden withdrew the admission American” occupation. of three students on political grounds. On Decem- 6. In popular discourse, Kreuzberg has ber 4, 1948 active students and professors with become shorthand for Turkish German urban life, support from Berlin politicians and the American or, more crassly, “the Turkish ghetto.” On the occupation power founded the Free University’ other hand, one should note that since Cß elik’s (http://web.fu-berlin.de/chronik/chronik_Home.html youth, this position has changed significantly. (Accessed on February 28, 2010)). Kreuzberg, once on the edge of West Berlin, is 14. Again, one should note the relationship of now in the center of the unified city. Since the fall the founding of the Free University to the politics of the wall, it has rapidly become one of the most of the Cold War and American occupation. popular districts for hip students and partygoers, in addition to remaining a long-term mecca for 68 REFERENCES CITED generation bohemians, anarchist house squatters, Akin, Fatih dir and other cosmopolitans. 2004 [1998] Kurz und Schmerzlos. Hamburg, Germany: Uni- versal Studios. 7. This was part of one of the two original Anderson, Benedict postal codes. The postal code 36 still signifies the 1991 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and “rawer,” more radical side of Kreuzberg. Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Appadurai, Arjun 8. In the German context, one can link “Afri- 1996 Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of can Americanness” to “modernity” not only via Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota the history of occupation, but also via its link to Press. Bennett, Andy “urban culture” in contrast to “rural Anatolia,” 1999 Hip Hop am Main: The Localization of Rap Music and seen as a space of tradition, and linked (in the Hip Hop Culture. Media, Culture & Society 21:77–91. popular German imagination) to women wearing Brown, Jacqueline Nassy 1998 Black Liverpool, Black America, and the Gendering headscarves. of Diasporic Space. Cultural Anthropology 13(3):291– 9. Gemunden€ (1998) notes that Americaniza- 325. tion comes in part through a culture of opposition: Brown, Timothy S. 2006 ‘“Keeping it Real” in a Different ‘Hood: (African-) “As Theodor W. Adorno once remarked, ‘It is Americanization and Hip Hop in Germany’. In The scarcely an exaggeration to say that a contempo- Vinyl Ain’t Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of rary consciousness that has not appreciated the

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