Catherine Oguntoye

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Katharina Oguntoye (2016)
Katharina Oguntoye (2016)

Katharina Oguntoye (born January 21, 1959 in Zwickau ) is a German writer , historian , activist and poet . She gained particular fame through co-editing the book color confess with May Ayim (then May Opitz) and Dagmar Schultz . It played an important role in the Afro-German movement from the start . She lives in Berlin .

Life

Katharina Oguntoye grew up in Leipzig , Heidelberg and Nigeria . According to Oguntoye, her mother met her father at the University of Leipzig, who was studying there with the help of a GDR scholarship . In 1965 Oguntoye's father returned to Nigeria to accept a professorship there. Her mother followed Oguntoye and her younger brother a year later, the family lived on the university campus, and Oguntye met her father's family there. Two years later, in 1967, the Biafra War broke out, which is why Oguntoye's mother returned with her to Germany, to her sister's hometown, Heidelberg. Oguntoye's brother stayed with his father.

Oguntoye describes her youth in Heidelberg in view of the fact that few other Afro-Germans lived there as not easy. The time she had previously spent in Nigeria was essential for her to distinguish between external attribution and her own images. At the same time, Oguntoye began to get involved politically in the emerging environmental movement, later also in the women's movement.

In 1982 Katharina Oguntoye moved to Berlin to catch up on her Abitur at the Kreuzberg School for Adult Education . She was the only black woman in her class in the 1980s. At the same time, the framework of a self-organized school gave her the opportunity to empower herself and become noticeable together with other women in mixed-gender discussions. During this time she also had her lesbian coming out .

She is partnered with her longtime partner, the author and translator Carolyn Gammon.

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In 1984 Oguntoye attended seminars by the American poet and activist Audre Lorde , who taught at the Free University of Berlin as a guest lecturer. Lorde had the offer to publish a book in the Orlanda-Verlag, but instead asked May Ayim , then 22 years old, and Oguntoye, 24 years old, to publish a work about and for Afro-Germans in Germany: “Face each other and the world before. ” Show your colors was published in 1986, jointly edited by Oguntoye, Ayim and Dagmar Schultz .

Confess your color was the first book that described everyday racist experiences of Afro-Germans in Germany. The work is regarded as a (co-) trigger for a politicization of the Afro-German movement. For the first time black people in Germany came into contact with one another and became politicized.

Unlike today, it found little response in white feminist circles at the time, according to journalist Laura Freisberg on a BR-Zündfunk broadcast . In an interview with L-Mag in 2019, Oguntoye recalls: “Our coming out as black Germans meant that white feminists had to reflect more and it became clear: These are privileges. The white Germans had the 'Check-Card of Privileges': labor law, right of settlement, freedom of travel. We, as Afro-Germans, have a bit of a passport with the German passport, but we keep talking about it. "

In 1985 Oguntoye had started a history degree at the Technical University . Her master's thesis, published in 1997, entitled An Afro-German History: On the Living Situation of Africans and Afro-Germans in Germany from 1884 to 1950 will be published in 2020 in a new edition by the Orlanda Verlag . In this historical work she focused on black people in Germany with a focus on the realities of life and the perspective of Africans and Afro-Germans beyond the view of the German majority society.

Political commitment

Oguntoye was a co-founder of the Initiative Black People in Germany (ISD) and the Afro-German women's group ADEFRA . In 1997 she also founded the intercultural network Joliba e. V., which mainly makes offers to families of African, Afro-German and Afro-American origin. In addition to children's parties and parent-child groups, the association organizes exhibitions, readings and seminars. Oguntoye justifies her motivation for her commitment mainly with the fact that black people in Germany are still invisible and are not perceived as having equal rights. She has also been the project manager and managing director of the association since it was founded.

Awards

  • 2020 Prize for Lesbians * Visibility of the State of Berlin

Works

  • Katharina Oguntoye, May Opitz / Ayim, Dagmar Schultz : Confessing colors. Afro-German women on the trail of their history. Orlanda Frauenverlag , Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-922166-21-0 .
  • Parallelism and balance / compensation. About the conflicts between the black and white women's movements . Self-published, documentation: 9th Berlin Lesbian Week 1993. Accepting the challenge - main topic: Racism, 1993, pp. 44–48.
  • Influences on socialization and life situation of Afro-German women / lesbians . In: Senate Department for Youth and Family (ed.): Pedagogical Congress: Life Forms and Sexuality. What does normal mean here? Lesbian - gay - straight . Series: Documents of Lesbian-Gay Emancipation of the Unit for Same-Sex Lifestyles No. 8, Berlin 1993, pp. 205–208.
  • Katharina Oguntoye: An Afro-German story: On the living situation of Africans and Afro-Germans in Germany from 1884 to 1950. Verlag Christine Hoffmann, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-929120-08-9 .
    • New edition under: Black Roots: Afro-German Family Stories from 1884 to 1950 . Orlanda Verlag, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3944666624 .
  • African immigration to Germany between 1884 and 1945 . In: Federal Agency for Civic Education of July 30, 2004, accessed on June 2, 2020.
  • My coming out as a black lesbian in Germany . In: Gabriele Dennert, Christiane Leidinger, Franziska Rauchut (eds.): Keep moving. 100 years of lesbian politics, culture and history . Querverlag , Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89656-148-0 , pp. 160-163.
  • Precarious subjects . Colonialism and its consequences - 125 years after the Berlin Africa Conference . In: INKOTA letter 149, September 2009.
  • Contribution in: Sara Lennox: Remapping Black Germany. New Perspectives on Afro-German History, Politics, and Culture . University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst 2016, ISBN 978-1-62534-231-7 .

further reading

  • Aija Poikane-Daumke: African Diasporas: Afro-German Literature in the Context of the African American Experience . Series Transnational and Trans Atlantic American Studies , ed. v. Kornelia Freitag, Walter Grünzweig, Randi Gunzenhäuser, Martina Pfeiler, Wilfried Raussert, Michael Wala. LIT Verlag , Münster 2006, ISBN 978-3825896126 .
  • Nicola Lauré al-Samarai: Katharina Oguntoye. In: Peggy Piesche (Ed.): Labor 89. Intersectional movement history * n from West and East . Publishing house Yılmaz-Günay, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-9817227-3-4 , pp. 30-48.

Web links

Commons : Katharina Oguntoye  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Katharina Oguntoye's website
  • Radio Dreyeckland , conversation with Katharina Oguntoye: “Blacks cannot be Germans”. On the situation of Africans and Afro-Germans during the Nazi era and afterwards. First broadcast on July 2, 2018, accessed on June 2, 2020.
  • Digital German Women's Archive , Interview with Katharina Oguntoye as part of the “Peaceful Revolution” project? Lesbian Feminist Perspectives on 1989. March 20, 2019, accessed June 2, 2020.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stella Schalamon: "We do not live on an island on which only one kind of person lives". In: udk-berlin.de. Retrieved June 2, 2020 .
  2. ^ A b Susanne Messmer: "Black people are still invisible". In: taz.de. January 21, 2017, accessed June 1, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c Ruby Morrigan: "In Europe, black people are not perceived as human beings". In: Vice. May 1, 2018, accessed January 25, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Ingolf Seidel: Recommendation Life Report Labor 89. Intersectional movement history * n from West and East. In : lern-aus-der-geschichte.de. Education Agency - History. Politics and media e. V., March 25, 2020, accessed April 5, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Lotte Laloire and Katharina Schwirkus: Feminism means having a backbone. In: neue-deutschland.de. March 7, 2020, accessed June 2, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Sharon Dodua Otoo: Audre Lorde "Black, Lesbian, Mother, Warrior, Poet". In: tagesspiegel.de. February 5, 2015, accessed June 2, 2020 .
  7. ^ Ciani-Sophia Hoeder: Katharina Oguntoye on Afro-German history: “It was my life's work to a certain extent”. In: rosa-mag.de. Ciani-Sophia Hoeder, Media Lab Bayern, February 27, 2020, accessed on June 2, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Ulrike Timm: Historian and activist Katharina Oguntoye: Intercultural understanding as a life issue. In: deutschlandfunkkultur.de. February 3, 2020, accessed June 2, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Laura Freisberg: Feminist classics in the Zündfunk: May Ayim and Katharina Oguntoye made the reality of Afro-German women their topic with their colors . In: br.de. April 21, 2020, accessed June 2, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Hannah Geiger: Laureate * in Katharina Oguntoye: "I needed two coming-outs: as a lesbian and as a black woman". In: siegessaeule.de. Special Media SDL, May 18, 2020, accessed June 2, 2020 . The contribution in the Victory Column is a republication of the contribution in L-Mag on the occasion of the award of the Prize for Lesbian Visibility of the State of Berlin to Katharina Oguntoye.
  11. ↑ Joliba project management. In: joliba-online.de. Retrieved June 2, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Congratulations, Katharina Oguntoye. In: orlanda.de. Retrieved June 2, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Lesbian visibility. The award ceremony 2020. In: berlin.de. Retrieved May 16, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Oguntoye, Catherine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Afro-German writer, historian, activist and poet
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Zwickau