“Of Course We Don’t Mean You.”
“Of course we don’t mean you. You’re different.”
I have heard that from German colleagues after they have spoken dismissively about people with immigrant backgrounds. Apparently, I am supposed to be pleased. They have a problem with an entire group, but I have passed the inspection.
How generous.
I work in media. Yet my skills have not stopped colleagues from reducing me to my background or serving up a crude stereotype as if they were telling me something interesting about myself. Then comes the reassurance: you are fine. It is the others.
That insults my intelligence and my integrity. I am being invited to accept their prejudice in exchange for being spared it. Whatever they intend, the pressure is clear: laugh along, keep things pleasant, remain the acceptable one.
I am tired of that bargain.
I have heard this before
The AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt does not surprise me. My own frequent visits to Saxony, a different federal state, included experiences of discrimination. I cannot speak for everyone there. I can say that the hostility did not suddenly arrive with an election result.
I have spoken to Turks, Kurds and Yazidis, and recently to an Italian, who told me they vote for the AfD. Usually, their explanation began with money: everything costs more, wages do not keep up, politicians do not listen. Then came immigration and safety.
I understand wanting your work to buy you a decent life. What I question is how the blame lands so conveniently on whoever arrived after you.
In some conversations, the argument comes down to this: I struggled. I learned German. I worked. Why should they have it easier?
The refugee boy of the 1990s is now a father. He pays bills and worries about his children. He has built something here. Looking at new arrivals, he may see competition rather than recognise his own beginning.
But getting assistance is not the same as getting an easy life. And if support has improved, good. We do not need to preserve every humiliation as a charming German tradition.
Nor is every AfD vote merely frustration. Some people agree with the party’s values and its hostility. Having experienced prejudice does not make anyone incapable of it.
There is also a familiar promise in distancing yourself from the newcomers: I have adapted. I belong. They cannot mean me.
I have heard that one at work.
Who gets to be the exception?
I want violence prosecuted and people protected from Islamist intimidation. As a Yazidi, I have no patience for pretending religious hostility does not exist. But “migrant” is not another word for an Afghan or Syrian offender. A crime belongs to the person who committed it.
And the claim that Syrians should simply have stayed in neighbouring countries leaves out the millions who did. Sharing a religion does not guarantee safety or a future. Wanting to earn a living does not prove that the danger someone fled was imaginary.
The fantasy of “Habibi, come to Germany” deserves criticism too. As if a new life comes furnished, paid for and without language problems. Those of us who know how difficult starting over can be should recognise a fantasy when we hear one.
Then there is the talk about the Stadtbild, the appearance of our streets. If the problem is harassment or violence, name it. A face that looks foreign is not an offence. I would rather not have my place here depend on whether a stranger finds me visually reassuring.
My concern about the AfD has grounds beyond offensive remarks. Its Saxony-Anhalt branch has been classified as confirmed right-wing extremist since 2023. The federal party’s classification is a separate legal matter: Cologne’s Administrative Court provisionally blocked its higher classification in February 2026.
Political power would give the party influence over institutions that are supposed to protect people like me. I worry about who sets their priorities. And I worry about what happens outside those institutions, when people take an election victory as permission to say what they previously kept to themselves.
What I am afraid of
I have repeatedly experienced discrimination at work, including workplaces where one group dominated and I remained the outsider. In my field, the colleagues reducing me to my origin have usually been German.
I fear more of that. Being judged before my work is considered. Having to choose between challenging an insult and protecting a working relationship. Watching people stay quiet because defending me would make things awkward.
I fear that the colleague saying “we don’t mean you” will eventually stop bothering with the reassurance.
As a Yazidi, I have also experienced prejudice from Muslims. I will not excuse it. But someone disliking Muslims does not automatically make them interested in my freedom. I want to be safe, not useful for somebody else’s argument.
Will a person looking for a foreign face know that I am Yazidi? Will they care? Am I supposed to carry an explanation around and hope they let me finish?
This is why I see a danger in migrants, including Yazidis, supporting exclusion while assuming they will be exempt. They can end up sawing off the branch they are sitting on, convinced that only the people farther along will fall.
Integration is not insurance against racism. Neither is a good job. The right to equal treatment matters precisely when someone does not like you.
My life is not a guest appearance
I would rather live in my homeland than here. After a whole life in Germany, I am tired of still having to explain myself.
But what awaits me there? Can I live safely and equally as a Yazidi? Can I build a future? Or would I exchange one set of prejudices for another?
Missing my homeland does not mean I have agreed to leave whenever someone finds me inconvenient. My whole life here is not a guest appearance.
I want to work without being reduced to my background. I want to object to an insult without risking my place in the room. And I want politicians to explain how they will make life affordable, rather than whom I should blame for the price of it.
“Of course we don’t mean you.”
I heard you. Why do you think I should be grateful?
