{"id":3841,"date":"2025-09-02T14:44:49","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T12:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/?p=3841"},"modified":"2025-09-09T17:00:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T15:00:19","slug":"jenaba-samura-walking-the-line-crossing-borders-caryl-phillips-evening-stroll-through-east-berlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2025\/09\/02\/jenaba-samura-walking-the-line-crossing-borders-caryl-phillips-evening-stroll-through-east-berlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Jenaba Samura: WALKING THE LINE \/ CROSSING BORDERS: CARYL PHILLIPS\u2019 EVENING STROLL THROUGH EAST BERLIN"},"content":{"rendered":"

That the stares of hostility were motivated as much by envy as by racial antagonism did little to ease my discomfort.<\/em>
\n<\/span>Caryl Phillips, The European Tribe<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Exploring Black Europe via travel, Black British journalist and photographer Johny Pitts (*1987) and his \u201cmentor\u201d Caryl Phillips (*1958) push the margins of how \u201cEuropeanness\u201d can be defined.[1]<\/a> As both come from a working-class background and grew up in the British countryside, there are many similarities not only in their biographies but also in their works, especially in their engagement with Europe, which they feel \u201cboth of and not of.\u201d[2]<\/a> In Afropean. <\/em>Notes from Black Europe <\/em>(2019), Pitts mentions the book\u2019s connection to Phillips\u2019 earlier travelogue The European Tribe <\/em>(1987). He describes it as \u201cone of the few direct precursors to this book\u201d and praises it for being both \u201cquietly subver\u00adsive\u201d and a normalization of the Black gaze (116\u2013117). Pondering the question of who and what defines Europe\/Europeanness, both Phillips and Pitts passed through Berlin on their travels around Western, Central, and Eastern Europe. <\/span><\/p>\n

Phillips, in the mid-1980s, first came to West Berlin. At that time, the colorfulness of the city reminded him of the atmo\u00adsphere of a Walt Disney movie. From there, he continued his journey to East Berlin, then the capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which he in contrast describes as \u201cantiseptically clean\u201d (88). During an evening stroll along the Eastern side of the wall, he not only observes the particular \u201cEuro\u00adpean tribe\u201d that inhabits East Berlin, but also reflects on his own positionality. In the chapter \u201cA German Interlude,\u201d he demonstrates how borders are significant not only as manifest physical reality, but also as an ideological and racial color line.[3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Upon entering the GDR by train, this color line is reinforced by the border police. Phillips describes how \u201c[t]he passport man laughed when I said I was not from Africa or Cuba. Britain seemed so unlikely\u201d (88). This interrogation symbolically places Phillips\u2019 Black body outside of Europe and underlines his perceived otherness, making Blackness and Europeanness appear as mutually exclusive. Although the certification of Europeanness\u2014through the British passport\u2014is at hand, it is still met with disbelief. Phillips\u2019 experience mirrors a common scenario of everyday racism in which non-white <\/em>people are asked \u201cWhere are you from?\u201d and \u201cWhere are you really from?\u201d Under the guise of a harmless indication of pure interest, these inquiries instead suggest that Black people do not belong to Europe, fortifying the idea of Europe as a homo\u00adgeneous, white <\/em>territory. Ironically, it is the \u201cpassport man,\u201d a representative of the supposedly raceless GDR, who does not believe in Phillips\u2019 Europeanness. Thus, for Phillips, as for other Black people, the equation of Europeanness with white<\/em>ness is in itself \u201cborderless\u201d: It is not limited to Western European countries, in relation to which it has most often been described, but also persists on the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall, re\u00adgardless of the state\u2019s otherwise contrary political ideology and its self-image as \u201can anti-racist, anti-imperialist state.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

However, Phillips\u2019 account comes with a twist: Upon arriving in East Berlin, he \u201csensed that being from the West was at least as important, in the eyes of the populace, as the fact that I was [B]lack\u201d (88). The political circumstances of time and place elevate his identity and social status. No longer is Phillips just a Black man; he is also, equally important, a Westerner. This intersection of perceived identity categories adds a sudden privilege to his lifelong experience of racial discrimination and thereby reforms his positionality: \u201cI had the ability to escape \u2013 something many of them desired but might never achieve. […] what did I know about having to queue three hours for a train ticket, or buying bruised and already decaying fruit on the black mar\u00adket?\u201d (88) Phillips chooses a potentially paternalistic tone when he pities the East Berliners who \u201cgaze over the wall\u201d on their \u201cnostalgic evening stroll\u201d (89) and miss out on the alleged advantages of the \u201cdevelopment in West Berlin\u201d (89). Adopting an ethnographic gaze, Phillips sees them as people who have \u201ca troubled and contradictory sense of self\u201d (89). This observation also reflects his own feelings of (un)belonging. There\u00adfore, Phillips\u2019 statement that \u201cthe stares of hostility were motivated as much by envy as by racial antagonism\u201d reveals the fragility of identity concepts and their dependence on the specific context.<\/span><\/p>\n

Phillips\u2019 multiple positionalities pose an outer conflict as they make him unclassifiable\u2014not only to the white <\/em>GDR population but also to several Black students[5]<\/a> he encounters on his evening stroll. Here, borders appear in a more metaphorical and socio-psychological way, as interpersonal rather than physical boundaries. Contrary to the implicit expectation of a connection that is based on their shared Blackness, all his attempts to engage with the students fail: \u201cIn the streets of East Berlin I saw a few [B]lack people, usually students, but my casually nodded greetings were often rebuffed\u201d (88). \u201cThe Black nod\u201d is a commonly known sign of connection and solidarity between Black individuals who live in white <\/em>majority contexts. While Phillips explicitly notes how it hurts that his siblings turn their backs, he does not address the possible reasons for this failed act of communication.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two possible interpretations come to mind: Their refusal to engage could be an attempt to draw a line between them\u00adselves and other Black subjects in order to merge into the white<\/em>-dominated, sup\u00adposedly raceless society of the GDR in which they strive for acknowledgement. This could be due to a fear that their brittle, hard-earned status could be questioned if they associate with others marked as outsiders. They thus draw a boundary between the self and other Black individuals, hoping to support the struggle for survival in the face of everyday racism.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the students\u2019 behavior can also be read in a more empowering way. Their disengagement with Phillips as a tourist could be their way of refuting the stereotype that all Black people know each other, insisting instead on the uniqueness and individuality of Black people (in Europe) and acknowledging the difference in their social status. In any case, it was much easier for Phillips to connect with Europe\u2019s marginalized populations in West Berlin. When he writes about his visit to the Ankara Caf\u00e9 in Berlin Kreuzberg\u2014only a few kilometers away from his evening stroll\u2014 he notes how he had felt \u201cquite comfort\u00adable\u201d (87) there. Some 30 years later, Johny Pitts finds himself strolling through a very different East Berlin. After arriving at the same train station that Phillips once traveled through, he spends most of his time in the eastern part of the city. In the chapter \u201cGermaica\u201d of his book, he in\u00adterviews a German-Israeli couple who have adopted a daughter from Kenya. In terms of diversity, they see Berlin as a place that is radically different from the rest of Germany. Characterizing the city through its divided history, they use the term \u201cunderdeveloped\u201d that is usually appointed to places outside Europe:<\/span><\/p>\n

Berlin still feels a little underdeveloped for a big city \u2026 and that allows capacity for change and the possibility for us to take part in shaping it. (204)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During his stay, Pitts regularly visits the Sudanese food stall \u201cNil\u201d where he discusses politics and African history with other Afrodiasporic men. His way then leads him to the \u201cYoung African Art Market\u201d (YAAM), an important venue for Afro-descendent people that to this day showcases Afro-Caribbean music and offers African foods. Here, Pitts finds \u201ca piece of Afropea shining in the darkness of Friedrichshain\u201d (217). Despite these hopeful glimpses, the overall impression of Pitts\u2019 Berlin chapter is one of being lost, of not knowing where to go and whom to speak to.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pitts ends the chapter by addressing German reunification and its aftermath. He cites an excerpt from the 1990 poem \u201cborderless and brazen \u2013 a poem against the German u-not-y\u201d (\u201cgrenzenlos und unversch\u00e4mt \u2013 ein gedicht gegen die deutsche sch-einheit\u201d) by Afro-German feminist writer and scholar May Ayim:<\/span><\/p>\n

i will be African<\/span>
\neven if you want me to be german<\/span>
\nand i will be german<\/span>
\neven if my blackness does not suit you (204)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By concluding with Ayim\u2019s poem, Pitts establishes a historical perspective. Not only does he point to a writer that Phillips could have (but probably has not) met in the streets of West Berlin, but also to an experience reminiscent of Phillips\u2019 encounter with the East German border police. His reference to Ayim highlights how the fall of the Berlin Wall had an immense impact on Black Germans during the 1990s with the skyrocketing of right-wing violence and killings of \u201cimmigrants.\u201d The historical opening of the physical \u201ciron curtain\u201d led to the reinforcement of a strong color line that continues to equate \u201cGermanness\u201d with whiteness<\/em>,[6]<\/a> leaving the current generation of Afro-Germans with \u201cnew walls that are sprouting up\u201d which they \u201cwill have to tear down\u201d (204). For this ongoing endeavor, the narratives of Phillips and Pitts stand as both valuable reflections on Black life in Europe as well as identification frames for Afropeans today.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jenaba Samura<\/a> is a research team member in the ERC-project<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Black Narratives of Transcultural Appropriation: Constructing Afropean Worlds, Questioning European Foundations<\/a> at ZfL.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Caryl Phillips: The European Tribe<\/em>. London: Faber and Faber 1987; Johny Pitts: Afropean. Notes from Black Europe<\/em>. London: Penguin 2019. Quotations from the two travelogues are referenced directly in the text.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Johny Pitts: \u201cDaffodils: A Meeting with Caryl Phillips\u201d, in: Ariel: A Review of International English Literature<\/em> 48.3\u20134 (2017), 37\u201347 (37).<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> The concept of \u201ccolor line\u201d refers to a racialized segregation of space via social, economic, and ideological as well as legal barriers.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Sara Pugach: African Students in East Germany, 1949\u20131975<\/em>. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 2022, 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Presumably from so-called \u201csocialist brother states\u201d in Africa, such as Angola, Mozambique, Ghana, and others, cf. ibid.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> May Ayim: \u201cDas Jahr 1990. Heimat und Einheit aus afro-deutscher Perspektive\u201d, in: Ika H\u00fcgel et al. (eds.): Entfernte Verbindungen. Rassismus, Antisemitismus, Klassenunterdr\u00fcckung<\/em>. Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag 1993, 206\u2013220.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VORGESCHLAGENE ZITIERWEISE: Jenaba Samura: Walking the Line \/ Crossing Borders: Caryl Philipps\u2019 Evening Stroll through East Berlin, in: ZfL Blog, 2.9.2025, [https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2025\/09\/02\/jenaba-samura-walking-the-line-crossing-borders-caryl-phillips-evening-stroll-through-east-berlin\/<\/a>].<\/span>
\nDOI: <\/span>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.13151\/zfl-blog\/20250902-01<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n