Urban Up Close: Who are these Africans trying to sell me drugs on the U6!
District 16 in Vienna has some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city and is home to many of Vienna’s ethnic communities. District 16 begins where Vienna’s former city walls were (the Gurtel), which was/is the edge or end of the city in many ways. As such housing was and is cheaper because it was outside of the Ringstrasse or city (centre). There is more affordable housing in this area, which is why the working class, poor, and immigrant populations are concentrated in this district. The housing in this area is low-quality and much of it is over 100 years old.
The immigrant populations in neighborhoods in District 16 include those from former Yugoslavian countries (the Balkans) as well as Czechs, Slovaks, Turkish people and Africans who come from many different regions of the continent. (There are other unmentioned ethnic/national groups living there as well). There are large Turkish and Yugoslav populations in Vienna because the Austrian government made deals with the Turkish government and Yugoslavian government (not yet separated at the time) beginning in the 1960’s, up until the ‘80’s, for low-skilled workers to come to Vienna. The idea was that the “guest workers’ would come to work and if there was no more work they would go back to their country of origin, but as is expected — they stayed and had families, built a life, etc.
It is very difficult to move your life to another country where you are given an opportunity and then move back to your origin country once the host country doesn’t want you anymore. There is a quote, attributed to Swiss writer Max Frisch (but I can’t find any valid source) that says: “We wanted workers; We got people.” Workers are people. It seems that Austria, like many flourishing Western and Northern European countries during this time, wanted workers void of characteristics of people who make homes and don’t want to be thrown back and forth between nations, cities, economies, etc. As such this legacy and reality of guest workers from Turkey, former Yugoslavia (especially Bosnia), as well as Morocco still affects the urban make up of Vienna… especially visible in its 16th District.
Neighborhoods in the 16th District (and the 10th) in Vienna have the highest-share of non-Austrians and the history, economy, and politics of the city has contributed in constructing this spatial reality of segregation (and enclave). There are other minority groups living in the 16th District, however it is unclear how many. There are a few ethnic groups and nationalities that are categorized as “others” in Vienna’s Open Government Data statistics, meaning we don’t know how many there are even though they are visibly different from other groups. These groups include: Africans, South Americans (there is community of Brazilians), and Asians. It seems that these groups are statistically insignificant to count to the Vienna government; so although their visible difference makes their experience different — we cannot use data to further understand their reality. Luckily data doesn’t tell the whole story and in some cases isn’t helpful at all.
The U6 metro line is a metro line that has stops in District 16, and the other end of the U6 line has stops in District 21 — another district with many migrants and cheap housing. So in a way, this metro runs from one ethnic area to the other, and you can see the demographics on the train shift and change as you arrive at certain stops. At several of the stops on the U6 you will see 4–7 young African men standing on the platform, or in the station, not getting onto trains. They seem to be Sub-Saharan African though I can’t identify a specific country. If you walk past them they may say something to you under their breath that has to do with buying drugs.
My first experience in District 16 was getting off at the U6 Thaliastrasse metro stop for a class. As soon as I got off I noticed these African young men, because you usually do not see that many Black people (especially men) standing together in public space — visibly — in Vienna. One of them asked me if I’d like some ganja, after referring to me as “Rasta girl,” making the connection of my dreads to Rastafarianism to weed. Even though I clearly am not a Rasta. I didn’t respond I just looked at him in his face squinting my eyes trying to grab his life story from his head. I did not have time to talk to him because I was late, but all I kept thinking was: why are these young African men trying to sell me drugs on the U6?
I had been told that people sell drugs on the U6 and also possibly on the U4 metro lines. But I didn’t realize that these drug dealers were visibly and, seemingly, exclusively young African men. Of course, I do not expect for a non-assuming white European to mention to me that the people he or she is buying drugs from on the U6 are all African, but damn! So many thoughts cloud my mind: They are so visible, they are selling drugs and there is many of them trying to sell people drugs. This is already a country in which racism is common! All of these thoughts: which countries are they from? How did they get to Vienna? Are they legal? Probably not.
I spoke with a couple of people of color living in Vienna about this phenomenon. They told me many of these young men, who couldn’t be older than 25, are undocumented immigrants, thus don’t have many other options and cannot access a variety of services since they came to Vienna (or stayed in Vienna) illegally. Additionally, it is clear that this entrepreneurial activity of distributing illegal substances has a market in Vienna and one that is consistent. These young men can stand on the metro platform in broad daylight for hours (they were there when I returned after class) selling drugs to people going about their daily life.
I heard the FPO, a right-wing group gaining popularity in Vienna (having won almost half of the votes in the election on May 2016), wants to crack down on these U6 deviant drug dealers. Obviously selling drugs is illegal, but I can’t help but think this “crackdown” is not just on the illegal distribution of drugs. The FPO also seems to be anti-immigrants and anti-ethnic communities in general, so one can assume the specific mention of the U6 drug dealers has to do with their identities not only as drug dealers but also as illegal immigrants from unknown African countries.
Parts of District 16 are possibly being gentrified. There are new buildings being built with higher rents. These new buildings are being built with a sort of Public Private Partnership between the City of Vienna and private developers. The city government is also reducing low-quality housing without offering many alternatives for residents. A rather soft urban renewal is happening in this area and I don’t know enough to confirm that it is gentrification. However, it is not unlikely that some of these processes can lead to gentrification. It is quite common that this urban revitalization, soft or otherwise, will eventually aim to get rid of those who make the area less desirable; namely the African drug dealers at the metro stops. Residents in this district need better quality housing and better quality neighborhoods, but if they cannot afford the better quality — then where can/do they go? They are already at the edge, outside of the Gurtel.
The young African men we see on the U6 line, many of whom sell drugs to young Austrians and college students, are an example of the impact visible minorities have on cities. Minorities with non-white skin color, phenotypical differences, who wear the hijab or other physical manifestations of culture are both more visible and invisible. They are more visible in the sense that people can physically tell they are different, which can lead to misjudgments about their presence. For example The Economist did a piece on Islam in Europe. In some European countries the general public was asked what percentage of the population they think is Muslim. For all countries, the percentage the general public thought was much higher than the actual percentage. As shown below in the screenshot from the findings in the article. Lesson: Visible difference makes a big difference when it comes to prejudice.
Whether or not we know where the African men come from, their stories, or why they are selling drugs — we first and foremost see them as Africans and secondly as some sort of deviants involved in illegal behavior. Although this is only one aspect of the story it allows people to make assumptions about other Africans and other people who look like these men. This is dangerous because it breeds prejudice, hatred, and more justifications to exclude these people from the city — further isolating them and producing deviant behavior. It also distorts the view of Africans in Vienna in general, many of whom are in Vienna to work at international organizations, attend one of the universities, or who work at the universities. In this sense, I believe it would be beneficial for the Vienna Government data folks to try to count “the (visible) others” so there is someway to better understand their reality and the affects their visible difference has on the urban landscape: socially, politically, and economically.
*Note: I purposely did not include photos of these young African men or the people living in District 16. I think photographing others in certain circumstances without their permission disallows agency. I also don’t want to incriminate any African entrepreneurs who are doing what they think they must.
