More than half of black people living in Germany have experienced racism, with nearly 20% saying they have been subjected to repeated threats or harassment, a first-time survey of more than 21,000 people across the country has revealed.
The findings, published this week by the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM), also showed that about 13% of Muslims and 12% of Asians experienced threats or harassment at least several times a year.
“This most often affects population groups that are racially marked and whose affiliation to Germany is repeatedly the subject of public debate: Black, Asian and Muslim people,” Naika Foroutan, the centre’s director, said in a statement.
The incidents spanned the public sphere, taking place anywhere from public transport to sports clubs and banks, said Cihan Sinanoğlu, who heads the office that carried out the survey, known as the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor.
Sinanoğlu said the findings challenged a deep-rooted “self-perception” in German society that “racism was something that ended in 1945” or “something on the extremes, used as a synonym for rightwing extremism, or something that happens in the US, UK or France but not in Germany”.
These arguments are thought have been supported by the historical reluctance of Germany to collect demographic data on ethnicity. In 2020, after the killing of nine people in an apparently racially motivated shooting attack in the German town of Hanau and amid the global debate on systemic racial discrimination set off by the killing of George Floyd in the US, the German government suggested a national monitor to track discrimination and racism as part of its dozens of recommendations to combat racism.
Even for those who were aware that racism exists in Germany, the survey’s findings were surprising, said Sinanoğlu. “It’s not just the numbers, it’s the reality that black communities are facing. It’s shocking.”
Overall, it found 54% of black people in Germany had experienced racism at least once.
Sinanoğlu pointed to the finding that 41% of black men and 39% of Muslim men reported being discriminated against by police. “These are major institutions that are built to protect people.”
The findings echo a recently published EU survey that found racism to be “pervasive and relentless” and on the rise across Europe, with nearly half of black people in member states surveyed reporting incidents that ranged from the verbal abuse of their children to being blocked by landlords from renting homes.
In Germany, the plan is to carry out the survey annually, each time including questions on different sectors such as housing and labour.
This time around, the survey homed in on the respondents’ experience of the healthcare system. More than a third of black and Muslim women, as well as 29% of Asian women surveyed, said they had been treated unfairly on occasion or had felt their health concerns had not been taken seriously.
For white women, the figure was 26%. “Which tells us that there is a dynamic of racism and sexism,” said Sinanoğlu.
Interviews delved into the details of the discrimination in play. Black women said they were treated as though they were hypersexualised, with healthcare providers regularly offering them HIV/STI testing, while Muslim women said they were likely to be provided sexuality-related health services, said Sinanoğlu.
The result was at times a sort of healthcare avoidance, with about 13% of Black, Asian and Muslim women saying that concerns about discrimination had led them to delay or avoid treatment.
The consequences risk being far-reaching, as they pile on top of the health impacts caused by racism, said Sinanoğlu. “Our data shows that experiences of discrimination and racism are also very clearly linked to anxiety disorders or depressive symptoms.”
It’s a glimpse of how racism and discrimination often snowball, accruing power as a series of small aggressions add up, he added.
“All these small, subtle details have a big impact,” he said. “It’s a cumulative thing, racism isn’t one big thing happening all the time. It’s these small details.”
