by Nellie Shani

Created on: March 28, 2008

My skin color did not really matter to me. I was living in my native country where the majority of people were the same color as me. I did not know that I was going to encounter this ugly animal up close! My line of business necessitated my going to Berlin, Germany for a Trade Fair. The interesting thing was that I always associated racism with America where there was a history of slavery, but Germany - please!

It was the end of the day and I had sold well that day so I decided to go to a small foreign exchange bureau change my deutchmarks into dollars. While in the bureau manned by a plump sleepy- looking middle aged man who reminded me of a cartoon character from Disney Land, I heard a commotion outside. Now if I was in Africa, I would have completely ignored that noise. In Africa people get suspicious when it is too quiet! Realizing that I was in Germany and not some small cheerful town in my homeland, I decided to walk to the glass doors and look outside. What I saw shook me to my core. There was a skinny looking black young man carrying a weather-beaten backpack who was trying to defend himself from a group of four rowdy white young men who looked about the same age as him. From where I was peeking, I could see the frightened black man being rough-housed and pushed by his assailants. I did not know whether they knew each other or not. Since they were speaking in German and I only knew German worth two cents, I did not have the foggiest idea why the animosity! The young men were causing quite a fracas as they shouted what sounded like obscenities judging from the facial expressions and the vehemence with with they spate out the words like Bengali tigers! All this was going on as they cornered the black boy and pushed him closer and closer to the wall. Don't completely pity the black guy. He held his ground and shouted back in German. I looked around to see if perhaps a police man or police woman was around, to stop what could turn into an ugly incident - fat chance! I noticed that people walked by quite oblivious (or pretending to be)to the drama that had unfolded. My African instinct made me want to leap out and help the black man. After all in Africa, everybody's business is your business! In Africa if you people start talking to each other in a heated manner, a crowd will begin to form around them! Then I looked around and realized that other than my black "brother" out there facing marauding lions, the only other black person was me! I quickly walked back into the For-ex Bureau much to the consternation of my comical friend. I felt unsafe, like if I walked out the young men harassing the black boy would turn on me! I am also not a long-distance runner! "Can I help you madam?" The teller asked me with a strong foreign accent. His accent really comforted me. "Can I please stay here until those people have moved away?" he raised his left bushy eye brow and shrugged. As I waited for the rowdy young men to be over and done with whatever they had planned to do, I longed to be back on African soil.

Learn more about this author, Nellie Shani.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.