The black German protagonist, Leroy, of Armin Völckers 2007 film Leroy greets his white girlfriends mother for the first time with the obligatory, Guten Tag, Frau Braune. Impressed by his impeccable manners she replies (my translation), Well hello, or what is it that you say in America? Leroy, who has never lived outside Germany, diffuses the awkward tension created by the mothers misguided comment with the witty retort that in his homeland of down the street they like to say, Hey. This very brief exchange exposes the (at least from an American perspective) rather perplexing perception of blackness by Germans: namely, that anyone who is black, fully acculturated to German society and speaks German natively must be American. Despite the obvious significance of the US for German notions of blackness, this intriguing correlation between Germanness, Americanness and blackness remains almost completely unexplored. Until now any works that have studied the exchange of ideas between African American and German culture in the 20th century have focused almost entirely on the importance of Jazz and Hip-Hop as a means of protest. Therefore, my research represents a scholarly contribution to German Studies, as well as African American Studies and Diaspora scholarship. In my research, I utilize the theories and methodologies of Cultural Studies in order to interrogate the notion of blackness as a cultural product, maintaining that race is not a priori concept but rather a fabricated category of humankind created through the interaction of discourses. Furthermore, I draw on the contributions of Diaspora scholarship which entreats one to study race as a transnational cultural product constructed across international discourses. Drawing on a wide variety of texts, such as fictional works and activist literature, I examine the ways in which white and Afro-Germans invoke, utilize or reject aspects of African America culture in order to define blackness.