Alice Hasters

Born in 1989 in Cologne, Germany, Hasters is the youngest of three daughters born to her Black American mother and her white German father.[2] Alice Hasters spent most of her childhood and youth in the Nippes district of Cologne. The parents, an artist couple,[3] raised their three children according to the Buddhist faith. In eleventh grade, Alice Hasters did a year abroad at her uncle's in North Philadelphia at Central High School.[4]

After graduating from high school, she first studied at the Cologne Sports University and later at the German School of Journalism in Munich.[5][6]

Referring to herself as a Black person (Schwarze in German), Hasters writes and publishes in particular about Afro-German identity, racism, feminism and intersectionality, including in her 2019 autobiographical debut book What white people don't want to hear about racism, but should know anyway (Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen, aber wissen sollten).[7] In June 2020, the book reached number 3 in the Spiegel's bestseller list for paperback non-fiction books.[8][9][10] The book also reached number 5 in the Spiegel's annual bestseller list of the year's paperback non-fiction books.[11]

After graduating college, Hasters has worked among others for the national TV news service Tagesschau and Germany's national broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb).[12] From January to March 2023 she is a Fellow of the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles, working on a project about dance and racialization that explores "dance as a resistance practice against white supremacist systems".[13]

Hasters has been producing and publishing the Feuer & Brot (Fire & Bread) podcast with her friend and colleague Maximiliane Häcke since 2016.[14] From 2020 to 2022, she has also moderated the podcast Einhundert – Stories with Alice Hasters, broadcast on Deutschlandfunk Nova.[15][16]

Hasters has been vocal about the erasure and tokenization of Black Germans in mainstream German media and culture. In her work, she advocates for greater representation and inclusion of Black voices and perspectives in all areas of society.[17]

Alice Hasters at a book launch at the cultural centre Saalbau Witten in Witten, Germany (2020)

Hasters was named Culture Journalist of the Year 2020 by German journal medium magazin,[18] and in 2023, she was awarded the Bert-Donnepp-Preis,[19] a prestigious German media award dedicated to journalists who "engage critically with the social impact of media".[20]

Books

• 2019: Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen, aber wissen sollten. (What white people don't want to hear about racism, but should know anyway) Carl Hanser Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-446-26425-0.
• 2021: Who’s Black? In: Schwarz wird großgeschrieben. &Töchter, München, ISBN 978-3-948819026.

Audiobooks

• 2020: Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen, aber wissen sollten (What white people don't want to hear about racism, but should know anyway) (audiobook, read by Alice Hasters), tacheles!/ROOF Music, ISBN 978-3864846731
• 2021: Philipp Steffan: Sag was! Radikal höflich gegen Rechtspopulismus argumentieren (Say something! Radical politeness in arguing against right-wing populism) (together with Maximiliane Häcke), Oetinger Audio/Audible, ISBN 978-3-8373-9004-9

• 2023: Bert-Donnepp-Preis[21]
• 2020: Culture Journalist of the Year (medium magazin).[22]