00:00Over and over again, there are those who are dismembered, sold off and distributed.
00:06Those who always are, were and shall remain the others, over and over again.
00:12These words by the Afro-German poet Maya Yim still highlight how power works, even 30 years on.
00:20What she questioned back then in Germany is something many societies are still grappling with today.
00:26Who decides? Who belongs?
00:29In Berlin, Justice Mvemba shows the power structure still at work.
00:33As the founder of Decolonial Tours, she and her colleague Thil guide participants through Berlin on their Black and Queer
00:41Feminism Tour.
00:45The imbalance when it comes to power structures is still there.
00:49And so we try to highlight that across different aspects, whether it is global trade, whether it is sexism,
00:57whether it is racism, ableism or homophobia.
01:02Justice knows that imbalance from her own background in the DRC.
01:06I think the topic of colonialism is a very academic discussion.
01:10There is a discourse, but most of the times it stays within those academic spaces and doesn't reach the public
01:18space.
01:19Debates about colonial history aren't settled.
01:22In February, this sign was forcibly removed for documenting Germany's rule in Africa.
01:32On their Black and Queer Feminism Tour, Justice and Thil speak about differences and about the many possibilities for people
01:40to engage.
01:41At least Western Germany at that time to get a lot of people to join together.
01:44They discuss how problems arise out of colorblindness.
01:51They stress, for instance, how even feminism often ignores key issues of Black, Indigenous and people of color,
02:00undermining the complexities of discrimination.
02:08Maya Yim grew up in a white nuclear family.
02:12She was also exposed to racism within her own family, and that is yet another factor which can affect mental
02:20health.
02:21She didn't have a safe space there either.
02:27Ayim worked closely with Black feminist Audre Lorde, whose former apartment is one of the stops on the Black and
02:33Queer Feminism Tour.
02:36It's easier to talk about how different forms of discrimination are intertwined when you're on location.
02:43It's the aspect of understanding that all of our identities, our experiences, our interventions are so interconnected from a variety
02:49of different experiences.
02:51You can be a woman, you can be Black, and you can be queer, and this creates a very unique
02:56experience than just the woman's experience,
02:58or just the queer experience, or just the Black experience.
03:00So that's why I think intersectionality is such important work, because it really does bring in this visibility towards people,
03:06and how we're very interconnected, but also quite different too, and I think that's a beautiful thing about what human
03:10beings are about.
03:15We're trying also to promote the understanding of how, why is it relevant for even white people to engage with
03:23racism.
03:24How does sexism also not only limit women as a spectrum, but also maybe men?
03:33Maya Yim framed discrimination not as personal, but as systemic, extending from history into the present,
03:40a perspective she articulated in her writing on German reunification.
03:45Germany celebrates itself in 1990.
03:49Without its immigrants, refugees, Jewish and Black people, it celebrates in its intimate circle.
03:55It celebrates in white.
03:58I can know and respect your differences.
04:01You must know and respect mine.
04:04That is the only way we can work together.
04:07Power is relative, but it is real.
04:10And if you do not use whatever power you possess, it will be used against you.
04:15Audrey Lorde.
04:17In memory of Lorde and Ayim, the decolonial tours explore four key dimensions of discrimination.
04:24Individual, structural, institutional and historical.
04:29In terms of democratic values, I think we grew up with a very romanticized idea of it.
04:35I think we grew up with the idea that as long as the Nazi era is over, we do have
04:41democratic values and therefore we don't have nothing to worry about.
04:45There is still a lot of work to do to really understand them and to feel responsible and have that
04:55accountability also to keep the peace that we longed for for such a long time.
05:04You
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