Bravery in the Face of Hatred: A Brief Look at Mo Asumang

By

Michelle Parson

Mo Asumang is an Afro-German woman whose work in the world of media has gained her critical acclaim.  Her titles include filmmaker, actress and TV moderator. 

While her name was already prominent in Germany, Asumang gained international exposure when she played the role of Condeleeza Rice in Roman Polanksi's movie Ghostwriter. 

After receiving a death threat by way of a song written by Neo-Nazi band, White Aryan Rebels entitled, "This Bullet Is For You Mo Asumang," she chose not to hide.  She set out to uncover the reason for so much hatred and racism towards her and people like her.   

In her first film, Roots Germania, she traveled to gain insight from both her Ghanaian father and her German mother on her roots and racism.

Since the start of her career in 1996, Asumang has won several awards, including the Adler award for Best Media Entertainer, in both 2006 and 2010.

She continues to use her many talents as a creative activist in the area of racism.

Asumang was born in Kassel, Germany, in 1963.  Throughout her childhood, she dealt with racism within her own family.  She was considered a disgrace because of the African blood that ran through her body.

Asumang continuously lectures about racism and social issues around the world, specifically Germany.  Asumang’s message is “We have color,” as she expressed to journalism students in a class at N.C. A&T on Nov. 9.  She stresses how she makes it her “mission to change the perception and idea of the way we think of Germans.”

Asumang speaks freely about her opinions on social issues in Germany.  The documentary Roots Germania was screened for the class during her visit.  She spoke of how difficult it was to find people to interview, because of her skin color.  She was able to interview a Neo-Nazi for the film, by not revealing that she was Afro-German.  During the interview the man wouldn’t look into her eyes.  He made general rude and disrespectful remarks, saying “I don’t want Germany to look like you in 200 years.” 

She did this interview during a time when the Neo-Nazi presence was dominant due to a Neo-Nazi convention and parade.  Asumang’s view on covering an event of that sort is “not every interview is easy.”  One student asked, how did it feel to interview him?  She said, “my hands were sweating.”

Sam Dorfler, 51, a Greensboro N.C. resident, was born in Germany and lived there until moving to the U.S. at the age of 18.  He was asked to give his view on the racial climate in Germany while living there. 

Dorfler is from Bavaria, in southern Germany, home of a U.S. military base.  He explains it was very rare in Bavaria for individuals not of German decent to be treated differently.  When asked if African-Americans that visited the neighborhood from the military base were accepted, Dorfler said, “Yes, they were accepted because we looked at them as soldiers that were protecting Germany.”

He explains how the Mayor told citizens to deal with it, referring to African-American soldiers, because the military is here to stay. 

Dorfler, being white, said personally he never dealt with such issues, but growing up he heard a few stories.  He discussed an incident that his mother, a waitress, had where she asked a white German man to be removed from the restaurant where she worked, for being disrespectful to a African-American soldier.

He told another story about a white female friend who was in an interracial relationship with an African-American soldier.  Initially this caused great division in her family.  Eventually they did grow to accept him and the couple married with all family members present. 

His only Neo-Nazi experience occurred six years ago, when he and his American born wife, visited Eastern Germany.  He explains how two young Germans with tattooed Neo-Nazi stickers on their elbows came into the restaurant where they were dining.  Not wanting them to know that his wife spoke English, he told her to use gestures or answer only “yes” and “no” in German.  When she forgot, they were approached.  Although the conversation proceeded in English and was civilized, he thought it best that it be kept short and cordial.

Leslie D. Hines, an A&T student and JOMC Journal Reporter who attended Asumang’s Nov. 9 lecture, stated “I feel that Mo is an incredibly brave and intelligent woman.”  “Just her message, and her work is so inspiring, she is stronger than her circumstance, and I admire that.”

When Hines was asked whether Asumang spoke specifically about the interracial differences between the U.S. and Germany, she indicated that Asumang said, “there was no Martin Luther King nor Nelson Mandela, and they needed one.”

Journalists often face challenges in America as well.  DeWayne Wickham, professor at N.C. A&T has also dealt with racial issues while being a reporter.  Wickham says, “as a journalist you have to go where the story is.”  Wickham states, he had an interview with George Wallace as well as David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.  He also says, “you have to talk to people who make you feel uncomfortable sometimes.”  Wickham also attended Journalism in the Global Village where Asumang spoke.  He states, in referring to her Neo-Nazi interview, “she handled it well, in fact not just well but courageously.”  “To be a woman, a black woman, in a mostly white society, having her life threatened by the Neo-Nazi, and determining to go find those people and confront them, takes a lot of courage.”

Asumang also shared with the class that the word race, is not used in Germany anymore because Hitler over used it, “it divides people,” she said.  “Race is mankind.”

Asumang Timeline