Boy

“Longing for tomorrow” also means a longing for new ideas. We asked important voices of the present to reflect on parts of our festival programme. Author, journalist and cultural critic Alice Hasters kicks things off with an essay on race and masculinity. While Tyshawn Sorey explores the American perspective in his works Save the Boys and Cycles of My Being, Alice Hasters builds a bridge to Germany.

There is food in the kitchen. The television is on, but no one is really watching. Bodies are relaxing into their surroundings, letting the room hold them. They are sinking deeper into the sofas, resting their heads against the wall, steadying themselves with both hands on someone else's shoulders as they are breaking out into laughter. Their laughter––loud and liberating––rises like a cry, then fades into a soft decrescendo, barely audible beneath bobbing torsos. Tears may wash away the last traces of sadness from their eyes. Eventually, everything settles into a sigh, and you feel as if your soul has just been on a merry-go-round. These are the moments––in Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, in Oakland––with my family. Far too rare for me, because I'm only there every few years, but all the more precious for that. In these moments, my Blackness is simply part of the fabric. No longer provocative, spectacular or deviant. 

On days like these, there always comes a moment when stories are being told: Stories about old memories, the latest gossip. And at some point, someone will say: Girl. As in: Giiiiirl!! Gurl! Girl. 

Hearing it feels like someone’s is pulling you towards them. It’s an expression of intimacy and trust, one that straightens my spine and lifts up my chin. It's an invitation, a door leading to something you don't know yet. Something you won't believe. “Girl! Let me tell you” “Girl! You won't believe it.” “Girl! Really?!” There lies love in “girl.” Trust. So much so that “girl” becomes genderless. Anyone can be a “girl.” 

Like so many things that Black people have imbued with meaning, “girl” is now everywhere. In Germany, too, young people call each other ‘girl’ with the same cadence, the same rhythm of connection. One could now talk about the annoyance of cultural appropriation, but that's not what I'm getting at. “Girl” is a word that has made it to the other side. From humiliation to empowerment.

Especially in the American South, the term “girl” was once used to exert power over Black women. White people would employ it whenever they gave orders or issued reprimands. This use of “girl” was sharp with contempt, dripping with danger. A threat not worth resisting because more violence was always awaiting. Words carry the weight of their histories. To imbue the term „girl“ with new meaning and emotion, to flip it, reverse it—that is a true act of resistance. What a triumph.

But while the word ‘girl’ has emancipated itself from its racist connotation, the same cannot be said for “boy.” “Boy” still summens the past. It still has the power to humiliate. It still carries connotations of contempt. „Boy“ echoes with the voices of plantation owners and police officers—still carrying the snap of whips, the noose, the pistol, the knee on a neck. A blood-red thread.

“Boy” denies Black men the ability to grow up. It strips away independence, intelligence, authority, respect. This erasure, this refusal to recognize Black men in their abilities, their potential, their equality, takes the form of mere harassment. All too often it escalates, resulting in being followed by store detectives, having to show your ID on the street, being ordered to pull over by flashing sirens. Too often, this refusal of recognition end up being fatal.

For several years now, videos showing African Americans being murdered have circled the globe via the internet and smartphones. Those videos are proof that what is so often dismissed as a thing of the past is still happening in the US. I think of Philando Castille, who, in 2016, is sitting in his car with his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds and their daughter. When the police stops them, Reynolds senses the danger they are in, takes out her smartphone, and begins live-streaming––calling witnesses to their phone screens. When the police officer approaches the driver's window and asks for a driver's license and vehicle registration, Philando Castille informs him that there is a gun in the car. The police officer starts to panic and tells Castille not to reach for it. Castille and Reynolds assure the police officer that they have no intention of doing so. But the police officer cannot hear him, not through his fear and his projections. He does not believe him, does not believe that he has a reasonable, responsible man in front of him. He shoots. Seven times. Castille dies. 

Because even though “boy” denies Black men respect, that doesn't mean they're really perceived as children. Just as we deny Black men adulthood, we deny Black boys childhood. Because ultimately, racism’s true violence lies in that: the prevention of being. The stripping away of possibility. It is the antithesis of humanity.

Studies show that Black children are often perceived as older than their white peers–and that perception costs them. While Black girls are all too often being sexualized, Black boys find it difficult to shake off the sense of threat that is projected onto them. Especially when their bodies are considered too big, too heavy, too muscular. The official term for this phenomenon is adultification. And it, too, can be fatal.

On a November day in 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio, twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was playing with an air gun. Someone called the police. Seconds after arriving, the officer stepped out of the car and shot Tamir, who died shortly afterwards. Later, they would say he was mistaken for an adult man. Tamir was 5'7" tall and weighed 200 pounds. But they didn't think he was a man. They thought he was a monster. A beast that had to be shot down. Not for a second did anyone think that Tamir was a human being with dignity. Certainly not a child. 

In Germany, we like to look at the US, at all those videos, and shake our heads in disbelief. We act as if there is nothing we can do from this side of the Atlantic. In doing so, we tend to forget that the narratives about Black boys and Black men also echo here. And here, too, they can be fatal. We forget the multi-million dollar campaign against Black men in the 1920s – “Die Schwarze Schmach” (The Black Shame) – the images, stories, and films that Germany produced to stir up fear. We forget that some of those who joined the Nazi party were radicalized by this campaign. We forget that in the 1950s, we placed Black children in youth homes and put them up for adoption because it seemed unimaginable to make them part of our society. We forget the 1990s, the so called "Baseballschlägerjahre", when dozens were beaten to death. And when in 2015 the newspapers were filled with pictures of young black men in boats and trains, the same panic, the same hatred that had been smouldering in this country for decades resurfaced and, here in Germany, can be just as much a death sentence.

I think of Nelson. A 15-year-old boy who died on August 1, 2025, in the Ottweiler correctional facility. One might well ask why Nelson was in an adult prison at all? He was, after all, a teenager. Nelson was hungry. He had no money. So he stole some cash from other inmates' cells, along with some candy. A guard beat him up, as some eyewitnesses remember. Nelson died soon after. The official cause of death: suicide. Just like Oury Jalloh. Jalloh burned to death in a police cell in Dessau in 2005 while shackled at his hands and feet. We likely would never have heard Nelson’s name—if not for 17 prisoners who protested and refused to return to their cells.

I think of Mouhamed Dramé. He was 16 years old when he was shot dead by police in Dortmund in 2022 with a machine gun. Dramé had a knife in his hand, was suicidal, and was several meters away from the police officers, who were standing behind a construction fence for protection. Nevertheless, they shot him. 

I think of Lorenz. He was 21 years old and frustrated that he had been denied entry to a club in Oldenburg. He got into an argument with the bouncers and then fled. They called the police. Lorenz was shot four times, from the side and from behind.

What would have happened if all these boys had been met with compassion instead of violence? If they had been seen not as dangerous, but recognized in their despair? If they had been allowed to make mistakes? If someone had shown them gentleness? If they’d been seen as worthy of saving?

“Save the boys,” Frances Harper wrote nearly 140 years ago. A plea that still echoes in the present. Some are trying. I see calls for protests, for donations. Calls for justice for Nelson, for Lorenz, for Mouhamed across social media. And then, as I scroll, a video pops up on my timeline. Two Black boys in an American neighborhood. It must be warm outside, they are shirtless, a few tattoos on their upper bodies. They are riding a tandem bike, singing Natasha Bennigfield's Unwritten. “Drench yourself in words unspoken. Live your life with arms wide open. Today is where your book begins,” they sing. And ride into the sunset. Carefree. Despite everything. A triumph.