I know the race card is very often employed by political groups in Germany. But atleast to the extent of my following of German Press, it has been very fair. Whereas in the US, the race card is a big deal both in Poltics as well as the Media. Please comment your thoughts.
by TheRealAzhu
45 comments
Race is not covered in German registration, not like in the US.
Maybe, just maybe, this his something to do with some dark spots in German history, I’m guessing here.
How often is positive news what’s focused on period?
Soooo you want more racism in Germany.
First of all.. there are no „races“ among humans.
Isn’t the whole point of a free and open society to not look into where a person comes from?
Do you want the origin be a thing when media reports about criminals?
I actually thought she was German. Her name sounds it, and it reminded me of Jörg Haider, the far-right leader from Austria.
What does “Afghan Roots” mean in this context?
Her name is Lina Heider which sounds pretty german to me.
And I can’t find anything on her “afghan roots”.
Besides the Bild? Close to never
I’ll put it like this: I saw a few headlines about a girl finishing her Abitur at 11 years old over the last few days. Not a single headline included anything about her ethnicity. The full articles probably did – I wouldn’t know, not my area of interest – but they do because they give the backstory about the wonderkid in general, which they are doing because of the achievement, not because of the ethnicity of the achiever.
Honestly, the whole question is weird to me. People who think about other people as a ‘race’ tend to be assholes.
There no such thing as race, especially not Afghan race.
OP it seems you believe in some pseudoscience. Get a proper education.
Ah OP is Indian, explains their inferiority complex and obsession with race.
The “race card” is stupid, incredibly so. And only really present in America. Everyone else (read: normal people) idenitify by their nationality or perhaps ethnicity at most. And honestly even going by ethnicity is a bit weird in most cases, when nationality seems a lot easier and better most the time. For my thoughts on the story itself- this is the first time I ever heard of it. What “German media” are we even talking about?
Even ignoring that, while ofcourse a proud and cool moment, news like this seem pretty insignificant compared to everything else, what do you mean with “afghan roots”? Her name is German, and “afghan roots” only means that some of her ancestors come from Afghanistan. They could be her parents, grandparents, great grandparents or even further back. Honestly this whole post is so weird.
There are no human races and people claiming otherwise are at best uneducated and otherwise Nazis. Made up human races are usually not mentioned in media.
This is a funny clip because you always see articles complaining how the police never reveal or the news doesn’t talk about the race of an individual involved in a crime here. Sure this is a positive article but my point is unless the article is about race, race is not discussed as an issue from my observation (not native German).
Lina Haider? Is her Mom from Afghanistan or is she adopted? I can’t find anything about her parents.
The nationality or origin of a person is rarely mentioned in the media… well, at least not in reputable media. The German Press Code is clear on this point:
>Basic principles of guideline 12.1
>- No blanket references: Membership of ethnic, religious, or other minorities should not generally be mentioned.
>- Exception in the public interest: Mention is permissible if there is a justified public interest.
>- Avoidance of discriminatory generalisation: Reporting must not lead to the misconduct of individuals being attributed to an entire group.
In this case, however, it is in the public interest because she is not only an outstanding student who has set a record, but also has a migrant background and can thus a) serve as a role model for other migrants (you can achieve anything if you want to) and b) for doubters/critics of migration policy, who almost always assume that only uneducated slackers want to come to the country.
So let me get this straight… if the media mentions the „racial background“, it’s racist. If not… it’s racist?
As far as I can tell, there is not a single reliable source that claims she is from Afghanistan. She grew up in the Siebengebirge close to Bonn, has a very German name, and went to a catholic girls’ school. While I’m not saying that this rules out Afghan roots entirely, it at least seems unlikely, and a bit shady that only some unknown social media channels claim this.
Look, there is this 11 year old girl called Linda heider. She is the youngest person to ever get her abitur. And she did this, even though she has Afghan roots. Sounds pretty racist, doesn’t it?
I checked the German media now – there’s not a single word anywhere about a non-German background.
Das ist zwar jetzt total off-topic, aber was ist überhaupt der Sinn daran, so jung Abitur zu machen? Mag sein, dass der Unterricht sie total unterfordert hat, aber wenn sie so viele Klassen überspringt, hat sie ja einfach viel weniger gelernt. Also sie ist zwar ihren Altersgenossen weit voraus, aber müsste doch trotzdem was das Wissen betrifft weit hinter einem 18-jährigen Abiturienten sein.
Please provide s source.
I don’t understand anymore what people really want ? To treat everyone equally or ? I feel like people here started to treat based on where they come from just like America
If one of their parents is afghan and one is German, which I suspect looking at her family name, and I suspect she was born in Germany based on her given first name, I don’t see the necessity of talking about her „race“. Born in Germany to one immigrant parent fits a lot of people. If she was fleeing her home country because of war and managed to finish a foreign school diploma in record time, then it might’ve been justified to talk about her roots.
Go back to America please
After looking around I’m assuming this is based off a press release that was picked up by DPA and then just re-written everywhere. That press release likely contained no indication of her background and so rightly each news article focused only on her achievements.
This meme describes her as Afghani but all the news articles give the impression she’s been in Germany since very young, maybe even born here and in all likelihood is a German national so wouldn’t even be accurate. While being of Afghani parents would add notable challenges, and immigrant successes should receive much more column inches compared to the few times something really bad happens, I feel this meme is trying to push its point too far, and it’s not her responsibility to take up that role.
nice try
German citizen. No need to mention any roots. She’s german.
As races do not exist, it isn’t mentioned in media.
The US “race” categories are in itself racist.
If you Google her Name. Lowkey any bigger german Media house published that News.
No one talks about „race“ and „nationality“ is pretty much only mentioned if relevant. Here it’s not.
This text to this picture is racist horseshit. It’s a german girl. Where does this „afghan“ and „community“ bullshit come from unless you‘re dead set on the idea that a „Lina Heider“ can‘t be german because she‘s not „blonde with blue eyes“. Get the hell outta here
I googled a bit, and there is nothing that indicates her being afghan. Do you have a source for her having an afghan background?
here btw the article about her making the abitur from the owner of the school she did go to. even they didnt say anything of that sort: [https://www.erzbistum-koeln.de/news/11-Jaehrige-absolviert-Abitur-an-Erzbischoeflicher-Schule/](https://www.erzbistum-koeln.de/news/11-Jaehrige-absolviert-Abitur-an-Erzbischoeflicher-Schule/)
I am pretty sure, if she would actually have a afghan background, there would already be articles discussing if she is an example of our systems for foreigners and migration working or if she is an outlier, but as I said, I cant find ANYTHING mentioning her having an afghan background.
Really seems like frabricated outrage. As others have pointed out, there isn’t any Afghan heritage mentioned anywhere.
She’s born and raised in Germany and carries a German name. Even if she has Afghan heritage in some way, it is in no way relevant to her success as a student.
On the contrary: insisting that her supposed heritage has anything to with it in one way or another, that’s exactly what someone obsessed with race would do. We call these people racists.
What does “Afghan roots” actually mean in practice? And why is it the important thing here? Is there something in “Afghan DNA” that makes her achievement more remarkable than it would otherwise have been? Are people with “Afghan roots” normally too dumb for school?
She has a German name, so either only one of her parents is from Afghanistan, or she was adopted. As far as I can make out, the thing that’s got people talking more is that in interviews she has talked about how the German school system is really bad at supporting highly intelligent students, and that at her first school she was held back and became so bored she started skipping classes. She was just lucky to transfer to a school where the teachers knew what they were doing.
So really, the relevant discussion here is not about where her ancestors came from: it’s whether we might have other Lina Heiders out there who have been let down by Germany’s too rigid and formalised education system. Which I think is a way more important thing to be discussing.
I actually hate it when they blow up stories like that and explicitly go for the Migrant angle because it always lowkey implies that Migrant kids with worse grades are not worth as much, and it very much reflects in the comments, where grown up german people say shit like “she is one of the good ones, she can stay”
If there’s a violent crime that actually makes it in the news, it feels like if the offender is an immigrant it will be mentioned. If they’re a “German” it’s not necessarily mentioned. I have no statistic on this, it’s more a “hunch”.
My suspected reason for this isn’t that the news organizations are racist, but that if they don’t mention the nationality (of immigrants that is), a shit storm from the right will start blaming them to be biased leftists. They can’t do it right basically.
> Afghan (sic!) race
We don’t do race at all. Nationality. Also the text is an outright lie, as every German knows.
> community
No such thing here either. Almost non-translatable due to implications. Germany doesn’t do x-communities. The whole idea doesn’t exist here in the Anglo-American sense of the word. We have Gemeinden and Vereine and more or less formal meeting spots. There isn’t “the Vietnamese community”. Rant because it’s supposed to demonstrate the cluelessness of the author, who is a fraud and a liar.
Is it racist now to mention it or not to mention it, I’m confused.
Shes german though.
Lol, Lina Heider the Afghan girl. She is obviously German by culture and socialization. What has she to do with Afghanistan? Because she looks a bit Afghan? There are sometimes success stories of immigrants in the media. Like a Syrian who opened up a bakery chain. Or even Germans with migration background like the vice president of the Bundestag or the founder of Biontech. But this girl is German.
The US is beyond obsessed with race. Every single word is put on a scale of morality and weighed for whether it could potentially have a racist sub text around 5 corners.
Luckily Europe in large parts doesnt really give a damn.
What has happened in media is, that back in 2015 and especially post the silverster mass sexual assault in germany at the hands of refugees, which was a bit of a european watershed moment regarding refugees, newspapers at least german speaking ones initially moved to leave out any mention of nationalities of suspects in reports. However this cause even more backlash bc a lot of people felt that newspapers were intentionally obfuscating criminal foreigners’ identities.
So for a few yrs new with news reports the practice has been rather standardized, with reports including age and nationality.
Race is almost never mentioned, nationality is, where relevant. My presumption would be that Lina Heider is a German citizen. The name does not sound particularly Afghan to me either (although I would not rule out that it is a unusual transcription of what I would expect to be written “Heydar”).
Okay, I actually tried to find anything about her background to see if you are trolling, but couldn’t. Where do you find that she is actually from Afghanistan? I hope you have some decent and reputable sources otherwise it’s just bait post.
It’s agin the paradox of how to portraying people’s origins.
Some will say, if you don’t mention her origin, it’s something bad to even accusing racism (like in the “article” above).
Some will say, if you mention her origin it could imply she is smart despite her origin or because of.
Some could say mentioning her nationality implies she is not German.
And some will say, mentioning her origin would take the focus away from her Achievements, towards her nationality.
Let’s just say, there is some media and a political party who is very keen on provoking hysteria when it comes to foreigners, especially from the south.
Mention her origin could be political weaponized, that’s one reason some don’t mention the nationality of people anymore.
I know this has nothing to do with the discussion but there’s no way having your Abitur at 11 is good for the young girl right?
Race isn’t really highlighted unless it has some political relevance.
If somebody is the first black mayor of city X for example.
Except one topic, knife attacks and similar. The German media is pretty focused on that one right now. Germany had a few discussions regarding immigration in the past few months, if not years now. Right wing parties tend to point out the high rate of knife attacks if immigrants. Which is why the media is very focused there. As soon as somewhere somebody got stabbed you can read in the title whether it was an immigrant or not. Because the media will tell immediately if it was an immigrant. If it wasn’t then the race simply isn’t mentioned. Just in the mid section or end of the whole article, maybe. Then it was a mentally ill suspect.
I guess this way the article pays most, because more people are eager to find out. And if it was an immigrant then it gets reposted a gazillion times pointing out how terrible all of them are. And that we should deport all those filthy criminals. And I’m certain that those right wing specialists overestimate how many criminals we have in our country, who we can actually deport.
I read an article on that specific topic that regarding to Media articles around 80% of all knife attacks are committed by immigrants. So of all articles reporting on knife attacks around 80% of those reported attacks where committed by an immigrant. Whilst the actual numbers are nearly the other way around. Which makes sense. Most of all people in Germany are Germans which is why Germans commit the most crimes in Germany.
[Here is the article](https://www.volksverpetzer.de/analyse/manipuliert-ueber-messerangriffe/)
Heard once about this and it was boldly mentioned that she’s from Afghanistan.
Also sorry to say it but given some people have mentioned her Christian background, there’s your reason why her being from Afghanistan doesn’t matter here: she’s not Muslim.
Race is difficult in Germany and in my view gets over- AND under-mentioned frequently.
“Political correctness rules” claim to not mention heritage when an atrocity is committed to not add oil to the fire of racism or divide. Many people and news outlets adhere to this, while others don’t hesitate. Even police won’t be consistent in any direction. This sometimes goes too far in the direction of silencing imo. Certain outlets will happily over-mention race for extra controversy though.
You also don’t know whom you will offend by saying “Afghan kid achieved x” without knowing their story – their reaction might be “what the hell dude I’m born in and grew up in Nordfriesland”.
I honestly don’t know if one can say it goes in one or the other direction. Depends on the Bundesland, media outlet and type, current political situation (now people feel more free to mention race when Germany’s lead by a government that’s less leftist than before). Doesn’t mean it’s fair and balanced, it’s just confusing.
I wish we could all speak openly. But I also wish that outlets that prematurely or falsely claiming this get legal pushback.
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