Black on White exposes casual racism in Germany

Black on White (Schwarz auf Weiss) exposes casual racism in Germany by showing the difficulties faced by Kwami, a Somali, when he tries to rent an apartment, buy a gold watch or stay at a campsite.

The twist: Kwami is actually Günter Wallraff, Germany’s best-known investigative journalist, who blacked up and wore an Afro wig for this film.

When I went to the screening at the Centre for Investigative Journalism at City University in London, I thought the film would be very predictable – but found it very disturbing. The everyday racism towards people of a different skin colour was much worse than I expected and ranged from casual disparaging remarks to outright aggression.

It won’t come as a big surprise that Kwami does not get the apartment (the landlady says afterwards: “He was so black, like Heidi Klum’s guy, horrible!) and is not welcome at a German campsite (where he is openly told by the attendant that his skin colour is the problem) or on allotments in Berlin (there is a comical scene where he wants to take away an allotment application form but the official in charge won’t let him take it home). When he and a (real) black friend want to apply for a hunting licence in Bavaria and offer to show a driving licence rather than a passport as ID, the officials threaten to call the police. And at a city festival, other people move away when he sits down with his beer on the same bench.

Kwami doesn’t get any sympathy when he tells the owner of a guard-dog training centre in Cologne that he has already been attacked twice by skinheads and wants his dog to defend him. The owner first tells him the centre is full, then quotes absurdly high joining and membership fees. A little while later, after Kwami has left a white German manages to sign up immediately for a much lower fee.

Racism appears to be worse in East Germany where people are less used to seeing black faces, and in conservative Bavaria. The film features a lot of highly prejudiced older people. But younger people can be equally racist, for example a group of football fans, and even in Cologne Kwami can’t get into a nightclub because he is black, and gets thrown out of a local pub at the end.

Speaking at the screening, the director, Pagonis Pagonakis, stressed that the film isn’t purely about racism – it’s about the instant rejection of those who look/are different, whether they are black, punks or simply outsiders that don’t seem to fit into the local community.

Wallraff, 67, and his team travelled across Germany for over a year to make this film. Black on White was filmed with tiny cameras hidden in Wallraff’s clothing and Pagonakis’ glasses, as well as small HD cameras used by the team from a distance. “People thought we were tourists,” said Pagonakis. “Even when I was standing next to him, because I am white and he is black, they never thought that we could be friends.” Amazingly, most people in the film gave their permission for the footage to be used afterwards – because they thought they’d done nothing wrong.

The film sparked a huge debate in Germany and is the most controversial of Wallraff’s films to date. He was criticised by Germany’s black community, including the Berlin Africa Council, who said he can’t claim to be a spokesman for black people and can’t really imagine what it is like to be black in Germany.

In the film, casual racism turns into aggression when Kwami is threatened with physical violence on a train with east German football fans but is saved by an 18-year-old policewoman. He narrowly escapes a fight in the opening scene when he is told “White people in Europe, and apes in Africa” and also gets punched in a bar. The only positive moments are when other customers step in to protect him in the bar and in another scene when he and a black mate manage to get work.

The reality is even worse: Pagonakis said Wallraff’s black friend never goes out alone at night in Berlin for fear of being attacked.

Little known over here, Wallraff is a household name in Germany. He made his reputation as an undercover reporter in the 1980s when he posed as a Turkish guest worker in Lowest of the Low (Ganz unten), exposing the poor working conditions faced by immigrants. He was sued by the Axel Springer publishing house after he worked for the right-leaning tabloid Bild for four months in 1977 and wrote two books about the experience, accusing the paper of questionable journalistic methods.

In his other recent films, he worked in the callcentre industry and slept rough as a homeless person.

Casual racism is by no means restricted to Germany. After the screening, a black woman in the audience said she had experienced similar problems outside London. Holidaying in the Lake District and Devon, she was told on several occasions that a B&B was full when her white friends were able to get a room. And in France, it is very hard to rent an apartment when you have an Arab name.