Advertising Poster for the panel discussion Living with contradictions as a mixed-race person.

Living with Contradictions as a Mixed-Race Person

Deborah Ekoka, Kwanza Musi Dos Santos & Samia Mohammed

11/16/2023 7:00 pm 9:00 pm

Kukoon Kulturzentrum | Buntentorsteinweg 29-31, 28201 Bremen

Being a black person in Europe can be challenging, but the experience is even more arduous for mixed races. Navigating between multiple cultural identities and belongingness, an interracial individual often confronts conflicting expectations and may feel marginalised in a world that can be inhospitable.

“I am black and I am white; I am not black and I am not white”. This quote comes from Deborah Ekoka, in her article and in the collective book (Metamba Miago) which she coordinated and contributed to as a co-author, the duality and self-contradiction that a person of mixed-race faces in regard to their racial identity is explored. This experience is further complicated when others attempt to categorise and label the individual into a rigid identity box, failing to recognise the intricacies and complexities of their construction as a subject. In a society fixated on binary distinctions, mixed-race individuals must navigate and construct their own identity through the negotiation between various forms of otherness.  This event features a conversation between Deborah Ekoka (Afro-Spanish), Kwanza Musi Dos Santos (Afro-Italian) and Samia Mohammed (Afro-German) who will be sharing their personal insights about the complexities of identity construction and the subjectivation of mixed-race individuals in Europe.

Kukoon Kulturzentrum | Bundentorsteinweg 29-31, 28201 Bremen. Doors open at 18:00.

Back to overview
problem to be solved

“Contradiction is not primarily a problem to be solved but a motor we cannot do without.”

Martin Nonhoff
l’illusion d’une unité

“Foucault speaks of contradiction as l’illusion d’une unité.”

Ingo H. Warnke
Is contradiction eurocentric?

“Is contradiction a eurocentric concept, operational phenomenon, and instrument of power?”

Kerstin Knopf
paradox

“The basis of law is not an idea as a systematic unified principle but a paradox.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano
limits

“Resistance is a democratic right, sometimes a duty. With literature we can find models for this right and think about its limits.”

Gisela Febel