Kanak TV

Kanak TV operates where racist hierarchies are declared the norm. We firmly reject any attempt to stare at migrants, to judge them, or to force them into categories. Instead, we turn our gaze towards those Germans who take it for granted that they can scrutinise others, question them, and belittle them with their gaze.

As a vigilant companion to everyday life, Kanak TV disrupts familiar perspectives and cherished patterns of perception. Kanak TV spreads unease amongst the self-righteous. At Kanak TV, there is neither liberating laughter nor sympathetic solidarity. Despite all this, Kanak TV makes people laugh. And the more German and smug the audience, the deeper the laughter sticks in their throats.

We, the Kanaks, produce the long-overdue counter-images to the eternally unchanging images of migrants. We counter the images of criminal ghetto Kanaks, sweating kebab Kanaks or silent Kanak women in headscarves, who symbolise backwardness and oppression.

Kanak TV is the reversal of the racist gaze. But we do not merely wish to expose the racist gaze and the fixed images in people’s minds. Our focus is also on how images are created, manipulated and utilised. Kanak TV exposes the media gaze as a form of power by making use of this very gaze of power. In this way, the power dynamic is to be questioned, rejected and counteracted.

We highlight and expose racism as a social relationship, as a construct that creates and perpetuates certain social hierarchies, thereby marginalising certain groups of people and keeping them in this position. This is where we intervene. From the masses rendered silent and faceless, capable and active subjects suddenly emerge.

We no longer allow the gaze to be directed at us – we direct the gaze. Kanak TV is migrant self-empowerment.
Kanak Attak Köln