I hadn’t taken a Metronom train in ages. Ever since all the construction and whatever regional, Deutsche Bahn merge I haven’t been going north. I needed to take this ugly blue train but this time it would be operated by DB. However, it was still the ugly blue train but my first time heading more east central to Göttigen. Leaving the house for any train or bus in this country, in Summer, I anticipate being hot and feeling overextended. What I didn't plan for was being constantly annoyed. I was schleping a shitton of stuff all the way to Kassel. Once this train arrived I realized the Göttigen train is an entirely different build than the Hamburg and Bremen ones. I couldn't maneuver my sport wagon (or what I’ll refer to is “my cart”) onto the train like I was used to. There were also no seats in both handicap/stroller cars and what seemed like a million eyes staring at me from seats I used to get kicked out of for doing what they were doing.
They, ze Germans, all sat there with cold expressions, unused tables in front of them, idle space for a wheelchair or my cart now filled by their ugly suitcases. Not a single one of them with a child, eating a meal, using a laptop or reading a book. All of them just sitting there with their hands folded, half of them CDU voters so they didn’t even have a phone to look at. Had it been the other way around, I would have been accused of being ableist and forced to go to a different car. This day was no different. There were multiple attempts to coherse me. I had to explain in both Deutsch, ASL and English that my cart was not a bike and even if I could get back to that designated car for bikes I had already passed it and saw it was already full. Thankfully, the train was already behind schedule and they couldn’t force me to do anything after the cart was shoved into the opposite side nearest to the space where it could have gone had there not been a random partition. Once the train was moving, I was able to sit on the floor and guard my belongings without incident. I then remembered in my cart I had carried a folding chair. I carefully sat it nearest to the partition and then plugged my phone in at the nearest outlet. Physics kept me from tipping the entire journey and as the train filled I felt vindicated for bringing my own personal sitzplatz.
The second train was far easier to access but then I had to share space with a ton of bicycles and people who didn’t seem to want to sit. There was a random security guard on this train and it appeared as if he was unhappy where I had originally placed my cart. The one wall of folding seats was occupied by two massive offroading style e-bikes complete with matching body bags. The opposite side with lean only posts was filled with seated hipsters who had basically moved into the area with their all their belongings and snacks spread onto the floor. So I placed the cart the same way I did in the earlier train but this was one of those regional stop every 7.3 minute trains. My cart is essentially an anhänger for a bike but it's a double sport wagon type that can fit two small children, a dog and a Berlin dachwohnung inside of it. It is very long and I bought it second hand as is with no brakes. I cannot just park that thing on a moving train. It requires a lock so that it doesn’t roll right out of the fucking door.
To be safe, every few stops I would return to my cart to check that it wasn’t rolling or shifting. The security guard stood right by it. Eventually he gestured for me to come over and asked that I change its position entirely as the conductor had announced it was blocking the door. That never happened but I did as told. To abide, I unlocked it and moved it directly against the bikes and locked it again. This is what he wanted and if I had a choice I would have just exited and waited for the next train ohne mall cop. It was also way too hot outside to risk getting off and perhaps missing another connection. Ironically, when I returned to my seat, the train jolted to a stop and an announcement was made that we would be paused for some time. Around ten minutes later, the power in said train stopped and so did what little air conditioning we had. Out of nowhere both of the bike owners marched over to my cart to get their bikes out and leave the train. Instead of asking whose cart it was they began to shove and jeer my cart out of the way to unpin their bikes. When I saw the commotion, I asked them to wait and came quickly to unlock it so it could be moved properly. They refused to wait, they actually continued shoving the cart out of the way and pushing by me one by one with their bikes. The security guard didn’t intervene, he stood in the doorway and watched as they shoved by me as I shouted at them.
As I struggled to shift the cart back in place, a new announcement came over the loud speaker. This one said those wishing to exit to either continue their journey alternatively or to smoke a cigarette could feel free as we were now having technical difficulties that required repair. Simultaneously, all the doors opened and the security guard exited right behind those bikers, with a cigarette in hand as I scrambled to shift my cart into the void where the bikes once were. I was finally able to put it flush against the walled seats in the bike car, lock it and brace it from rolling back by placing my backpack in the one seat that remained. Once I locked everything back up and grabbed what I needed to return to my seat, an older German man stepped in front of me and said I couldn’t put my backpack in that seat. When I asked why which I shouldn’t have acknowledged him at all, that prune eating boomer said because he himself wished to sit there.
Now that same man had been standing for over an hour when he had plenty of options and choice to whatever seat he wanted. He hadn’t approached anyone else for a seat and he said nothing to the owners of all the bikes that had just exited the train. I stated exactly that and said I wasn’t moving my bag or my cart. I walked off in disbelief, telling my mother how Germany stays with tHat shit. Once seated, I offered to give him a proper seat, both him and his wife who was sitting separately. They both peered into the seats and he gestured to his wife a “Shhh, don’t worry about it” signal. She then rose from her seat and exchanged spots with him to stare directly at me. He now sat in her seat to my right and she stood straddling their suitcases nearest to my cart on the left. For the remainder of this hour long pause they both took turns staring at me and making remarks about how loud and “foreign” I was to other passengers. Yeah, I was on the phone. I was mid-phone call with my mother as the bike guys started into me so I remained on the phone during this altercation as well. Mind you, the entire time there were two empty seats where I was and two empty seats directly across the aisle. All of said seats were offered to that elderly couple by me. All of us seated there offered our seats to not only them but other passengers. All of these offers were to white Germans, and each and everyone declined to sit alongside us. There were two Middle Eastern men and two women in Hijab and me. Eventually the younger man to my left realized what was happening. He had been kind enough to gesture to a few people to sit and they would approach, look at the woman in hijab across from him, then to me and the other woman in hijab and keep walking deeper into the train car.
Eventually, the train made all its late stops and was boarded by what felt like double the amount of normal passengers. That is what happens when a regional train is stopped for over an hour on a fucking Saturday. Eventually people were standing because they had to but even when they saw our empty neighboring seats they still chose to straddle the aisle. Eventually a young German woman greeted the younger man to my left and sat next to him. She then appeared to frown at the neighboring women that had refused the two seats nearest to this man. Those women acted as if they were surfing for the entire journey. They teetered, tottered, yelped and sighed when they had been repeatedly offered seats. Meanwhile the married elders who were completely infuriated by my lack of obedience were now flanked by crotches and armpits of all ethnicities while I was seated with leg room and cordial seat mates. After sometime I couldn’t even see them but I did watch as many people pushed and shoved to exit during remaining stops. Magically my cart remained unscathed and my backpack was safe on the anchored seat. I figured if either the cart or backpack grew arms and legs, someone needed them way more than I did.
It really isn’t in my nature to leave the comfort of my flat to argue with white folk but this is becoming a daily thing. I moved to Germany in 2017 and it was excessive then and the reasoning was Mutti and all her undocumented children. Well now it has been nine years, it is 2026, and each day my interactions with ze Germans especially on trains and buses are getting more and more Trump-y. Listen, my cart was full of things like fruit and cleaning supplies to go help a friend. I have realized as I get older, fatter that respectability politics are more about you than me. I really do not go out of my way to present a more palatable persona to strangers. I am also not walking around in pajamas or a hair bonnet. The majority of time as I am being treated as though I just leapt off of a boat into my paid for seat or that I am homeless seeking shelter in a hot ass train - I am wearing designer goods or rocking a pair of 400€ headphones. I really do not appreciate people being so annoyed by my mere presence that they can't even take in visual cues that I clearly am not unhoused or seeking refuge in public transportation. However, even if I was - what gives you the right to touch me, my things or demand that I give you a seat that you aren’t entitled to?
Also being a Black woman in this country is its own humiliation ritual. Doctors talk to me as though I have birthed a tribe or I need counseling on diets. I have a pharmacist who continually tells me that my prescriptions aren’t free when I clearly have public health insurance. I am told what I like to cook or what my hobbies are based on my assumed positioning in the Diaspora. No, Heidi, I do not personally enjoy braiding hair, cooking Jollof rice or traveling “back home”? Then I have to try to get out without someone racing me for a seat, ignoring me in a queue, having people audibly sigh or act as if I stink when I know I just put on Issey Miyake and deodorant - the cancer-causing kind. Having men stare at me as I struggle to get on or off a bus or train with any receptacle be it a sport wagon or my personal einskaufwagon. Recently, I had a man who actually giggled when I asked why he didn’t hold the door open for me. After I realized it was the same man who owns a very popular jewelry shop. He actually did the opposite in his business. When I walked into his store he promptly turned me around and literally pushed the door into my back. I didn’t even get inside of the shop but I wrote a review about how obtuse and rude he was. He then challenged that review and a year later he is walking out of a popular medical building and exhibits the exact same anti-woman, anti-Black behavior but this time exits this building and pulls the door taut as to say “you cannot possibly belong here”. He is clearly an Arabic man, but his actions are more like a fucking alien who has zero interaction with humans. Honestly, he is really the definition of why women prefer celibacy and he sells couples wedding rings. I digress.
Whatever this is that Germany is on right now, I do not like it. Is it enough for me to move elsewhere or “go back to where I came from”? No, not really. Language and a cultural integration has made me more willing to ask questions before I react to obvious bullshit and bias. However, my tolerance grows less and less as I can clearly see the disconnect in how I am treated in comparison to others. Unfortunately, Deutsch is a very unassuming and cold language which doesn’t carry all the nuance and entendre as a romantic language. I cannot be coy or playful about my reactions to this mistreatment. All I can do is be combative and loud which is met with the same level of dissonance as doing nothing at all. I am merely responding so I personally can sleep well at night. What I do to keep my cortisol levels in tact is attempt to reason until I can't bear the interaction any longer. Yes, I am no longer speaking your dry ass language nor am I hearing you out if the altercation endures more than a few minutes. If you have watched me move a cart several times and then decide to step in with unmitigated gaul, I am going to cuss you the fuck out in my primitive, uncouth, American English. I do not care how old you are. I don’t not care what is between your unwashed legs. I do not care about your children, your dog, your shitty jewelry shop or your Oma.
What I would suggest to all is to treat others how you would wish to be treated and please just sit the fuck down. I can get another cart but can you get another hip? Yes, I am being facetious but I am fucking mentally exhausted by these gymnastics. I just wanna go to Tedi and get back home. I do not need all this extra shit in-between. I am trying so hard to integrate and be polite, objective, unheard etc. but you fucking idiots are trying Black and brown people just for the fuck of it. Perhaps you’re seeing it on social media or in pop culture and you’re trying to get a rise out of us. Please understand, that the majority of us are here for whatever calculated, legal reason and we also know this isn’t a third world country or Amerikkka. We know there will be absolutely no consequence to us getting into your ass especially in a public space. We prefer it, so other offenders can be corrected and or thrwarted. I wish there was some oversight or instant comeuppance for you oppressors but unfortunately Germany after everything that has happened here still isn’t progressive enough to curb their own. Only you can prevent forest fires okay? Stop playing “schwarzermann” with your children. Stop pretending we are stealing when it's basically pensioners and opioid heads putting things in their pants. Why is this country demanding we speak German when everyone is talking about us in German to our fucking faces like we aren’t forced to learn the language? I have been called the Z word twice this year. Please just do better and if you see me schlepping, move or die trying.
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