I think the unspoken assumption was that Black people only exist in the US or Africa, partially because many people would have likely seen or interacted with so

I think the unspoken assumption was that Black people only exist in the US or Africa, partially because many people would have likely seen or interacted with so few Black people in real life that their main reference frame are Hollywood movies and North American television shows. I don't think I heard the phrase "Afrodeutsch" (Afro-German) until well into the 2000s and one of the kids in my class in the 1990s was Black. I even remember thinking he must be American because of that. I think there was a period of general confusion in the 1980s and 1990s around what language to use as the German words "Mohr" (originally from "Mauretania") and the German equivalent of the n-word became socially unacceptable and there was a widely held belief that referencing skin color directly was also unacceptable because of a lack of understanding about the actual underlying reasons for this language change (i.e. bigotry and power structures). There's a general sense of detachment I think because this discussion is usually framed in terms of language use rather than actual oppression because Black people are rarely even acknowledged to exist.