The Privileged American
A few thoughts on what it means to be a Black person from the imperial core during a time of global crisis. It’s been over a year, so I can finally start digging more deeply into some absolutely nuts experiences I went through while living in Twilight Zone Berlin last summer. This one in particular concerns why I became interested in exploring the figure of the Uncle Tom. Never in a million years would I have expected someone to be yelling at me calling me privileged, but that’s exactly what happened when pro-Israel fascist Germans sent this Black immigrant guy from South America to confront me at this leftist space I was staying at.
Quick backstory: last year I made plans to move to Germany for good but, long story short, it did not work out as expected. Instead of returning immediately to the States with my tail between my legs I decided to try my luck in Berlin and see if I could work on my project, make some connections, and try making Germany happen by a different route. Little did I know how vicious and irrational the hatred is in Germany for Palestinians and their supporters. While going through the stress of finding housing in Berlin I landed in a place called Rote Insel, a former anarchist squat that had been incorporated into an official housing project. Looking back, it appears the pro-Israel fascists aka “anti-Deutsch” targeted me soon after I arrived and decided I wouldn’t be staying there. Some nonsense was engineered around my cat being there, and it was turned into a whole unnecessary drama. I’ll be recounting the ridiculously stupid events that transpired in detail elsewhere. For now know that these white Germans and a smattering of other Europeans who were there conspired to kick me out of the guest space despite knowing that I was in a precarious situation.
When the deadline day came, I decided that I was not going to leave because I had the support of all of the other people who were staying in the guest area, as well as some of the residents. My supporters had been outvoted by the others, but they also thought the behavior of the house residents was ridiculous, and that it smacked of racism in the context of other past issues in the house. Everyone was in agreement that the Germans were just threatening to kick me out but would not actually follow through on it. So, imagine my surprise when that evening one of the white German women who wanted me out breezes in, looks around, sees me, and then mutters “we shall see.” Looking back, it was a somewhat ominous moment. I was laying there on the couch in the dimness of the main guest room while the remnants of a thunderstorm rumbled outside listening to Beth Gibbon’s haunting collaboration with the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra. The German woman entered just as my listening session was coming to an end; she didn’t acknowledge me at all but I could sense from her attitude and deranged energy that something was up.
About ten minutes after the German woman left the guest area the only Black guy who lives in Rote Insel walked in and declared that I had to get out of the house right away, saying something about people wanting me to leave because I had been seen taking photos. Of course they had already decided to kick me out and were now making up reasons to justify it. The only thing I’d taken photos of was of some of the interesting graffiti adorning the place, and I was hardly alone in doing so. The Black guy they sent to confront me with this bullshit was not exactly a pushover. He was shorter than me, but muscular. The problem for him is that I’m bigger. When I saw that he was not listening to what I was saying about not having anywhere to go, I stood up to emphasize the point. He then started backing away towards the door and I don’t blame him. I informed him quite sharply that of course I wanted to get out of that shitty place, but I would be leaving only when I’d found other accommodations, and that they weren’t going to abruptly push me out into the street.
As this Black guy they sent to harrass me was leaving he shouted something about me being a “privileged American” and I absolutely lost it. I jumped up off the couch, ran into the hallway where he was just turning the knob to leave, and yelled at him that he didn’t know shit about me, had no fucking idea about anything, and that he was an Uncle Tom coon running errands and being a henchman for white people. He scurried out of there and no one bothered me anymore that evening, but it took me a while to calm down. A bit later the other residents of the guest area sat with me to console me and I could sense that these Europeans were bewildered by what was going on. These folks were not Germans; they were from Italy, France and Finland, and like me these folks were going through their own struggles with housing. For me it was another example of how poor and struggling people often help each other out the most. While I soon found another place to go, the comment about me being a “privileged American” stuck with me.
One aspect of my life that I will be talking about soon as a part of my artistic practice is how my upbringing and influences have been different from most other people’s here. I was a runaway, leaving the deep poverty, physical abuse and neglect of a redlined ghetto at the age of twelve because I knew I deserved better. I aged out of the foster care system at twenty-one, and like many others in a similar predicament I became technically homeless and a chronic guest/couch surfer. I worked during this time at an adult bookstore because that was the first place to call me back after putting in dozens upon dozens of applications elsewhere. At twenty-two going on twenty-three I found myself in Germany working in the sex industry. When I returned a year and a half later I had to rebuild by health and my life. And on and on I could go, but the point is that I would never in a million years have ever considered myself to be privileged. However, the reality is that as an American, despite what I’ve been through here I actually am in reality privileged compared to many people who live outside of the imperial core.
This has been a difficult realization to come to terms with, but it is one that all Americans need to digest. We are privileged here, even those of us at the lower end of the totem pole, because we benefit materially and in other ways from imperialism. The guy who those Germans sent to confront me was a Black person from Columbia or Venezuela. I’m sure his life growing up was not easy, and most likely he was impacted by U.S. imperialism. I met this interesting Spanish guy at the gym recently who at first thought I was in the military; and this is a reflection of the first impression I usually give off. People usually think I’m a soldier, security guard, cop, etc, because in fact these are the roles that people like me are often meant to fulfill in this society. But I have rejected that. Yet when I was living in Germany last year in Berlin in these neighborhoods with lots of Arabs and Muslims, I knew that I could never begrudge any of them for throwing a suspicious glance my way. And it hurts, because deep down I feel that this place has harmed me as well; it’s destroyed my family as well… “I’m not like them!” is what you almost want to scream sometimes. But there’s no escaping the reality that despite everything I am in fact an American, with all the baggage associated with that these days.
