Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

The truth is that African Americans are essentially all mixed race. From the beginning, enslaved and other Africans had close relationships with poor and indentured servant whites, that’s one reason why so many black people have Irish last names. During slavery, sexual relationships between enslavers and the enslaved, occurring on a range of coercive levels, were routine. Children born to enslaved women from these encounters were identified as “black.” The one-drop rule—you are black if you have one drop of black blood—was an economic tool used to protect the institution of racialized slavery (by preserving the distinction between two increasingly indistinct racial groups) and enrich the individual enslaver (by producing another human being he could own). Those enslaved children grew up and had children with other enslaved people as well as other whites.

Lisa Wade, “Why It Was Easy for Rachel Dolezal to Pass as Black,” Pacific Standard, June 15. 2015. http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/why-it-was-easy-for-rachel-dolezal-to-pass-as-black.

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past

Posted in Autobiography, Biography, Books, Europe, History, Media Archive, Monographs on 2017-04-02 14:38Z by Steven

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past

The Experiment
2016-04-05
240 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 9781615192533
Paperback ISBN: 9781615193080

Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair
Translated by Carolin Sommer

At age 38, Jennifer Teege happened to pluck a library book from the shelf—and discovered a horrifying fact: Her grandfather was Amon Goeth, the vicious Nazi commandant depicted in Schindler’s List. Reviled as the “butcher of Płaszów,” Goeth was executed in 1946. The more Teege learned about him, the more certain she became: If her grandfather had met her—a black woman—he would have killed her.

Teege’s discovery sends her into a severe depression—and fills her with questions: Why did her birth mother withhold this chilling secret? How could her grandmother have loved a mass murderer? Can evil be inherited?

Teege’s story is cowritten by Nikola Sellmair, who also adds historical context and insight from Teege’s family and friends, in an interwoven narrative. Ultimately, Teege’s search for the truth leads her, step by step, to the possibility of her own liberation.

Tags: Afro-Germans, Amon Goeth, Carolin Sommer, Germany, Jennifer Teege, Nazi Germany, Nikola Sellmair, The Experiment

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Mixed-race descendant of Nazi murderer tells of life

Posted in Autobiography, Book/Video Reviews, Europe, Media Archive on 2015-11-20 02:33Z by Steven

Mixed-race descendant of Nazi murderer tells of life

San Diego Jewish World
2015-11-18

David Strom, Professor Emeritus of Education
San Diego State University, San Diego, California

My Grandfather Would have Shot Me [Amon: Mein Großvater hätte mich erschossen], by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair. The Experiment, Pub. 2015, 221pp

SAN DIEGO — At the age of 38 Jennifer Teege was at the Hamburg central library. There she glanced at a book with a red cover and was drawn to it. From photographs in the book, Jennifer discovered that it was about people she vaguely remembered—her mother and grandmother. She took the book home and read it from cover to cover. The most amazing and shocking thing she learned was that her maternal grandfather, Amon Goeth, the butcher commandant of Plaszow concentration camp near Krakow, was not killed fighting in the war but was hanged for his crimes (The actor Ralph Fiennes played Amon Goeth in the movie Schindler’s List.)

Now she understood why no one told her or spoke about her background. Jennifer knew that her grandfather would have murdered her since she was a mixed-race black German-Nigerian. Learning the truth about her ancestry threw Jennifer in a deep depression. But it did lead to a rather tentative reconnection with her mother, Monika Hertwig, who she hadn’t seen in years…

Read the entire review here.

Tags: Afro-Germans, Amon Goeth, David Strom, Germany, Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair, San Diego Jewish World

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Mixed Race Studies

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past

Mixed-race descendant of Nazi murderer tells of life

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