In 1998 I traveled to the USA with a delegation of the ISD, at the invitation of the University of Chicago and Howard University in Washington, DC. It was an encounter between representatives of two diasporic minorities from different corners of the white-dominated world. We discovered that we had many things in common, but also many differences. Black people in white societies are always victims of discrimination and race hate. But the different attitudes to skin color were striking. Among the African Americans there was an enormous range, from very light to very dark, black. The lighter, the better, the darker, the worse; this valuation applied in both societies. We observed that it applied and was also put into practice everywhere. Lighterskinned people often saw themselves as more significant than darkskinned ones. In America there's the concept of “passing for white”, for people whose African heritage is no longer visible. In such cases they are able to distance themselves from their families and friends where circumstances permit. Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain gives an excellent account of this conflict. In Germany on the other hand someone like that wouldn't be seen and wouldn't see themselves as Afro-German.

The biggest difference between Afro-Germans and African Americans is in their history. In the USA belonging to African America means partaking in a centuries-old culture that is quite distinct socially and linguistically from that of the majority of the population. That doesn't exist in Germany. There have always been people of African heritage here, but there were always far too few of them for the development to have been comparable. They barely left any traces in the majority society. That is still true today, in spite of the arrival of new groups of black people from Africa or North and South America.