President Obama is currently in the middle of a sweeping European tour, most notably kicking Russia out of the G8. Meanwhile, in case you think that Europe is some sort of bastion of good taste, sophistication, and tolerence (it’s not… they all shamelessly bang hookers over there), allow the Belgian newspaper De Morgen to prove you wrong. Next to an article about Obama’s tour in the Netherlands, they ran this extremely racist image portraying POTUS and the First Lady as monkeys. liberalization of marijuana legislation.
According to the Huffington Post, the article was a satirical piece that also joked about Obama selling marijuana. The newspaper presented the pics as if they had been submitted by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The paper issued an apology:
“When you consider the fragment apart from its context, which is a properly worked out satirical section, then you don’t see the joke but just a picture evoking sheer racism. We wrongly assumed that racism is no longer accepted, and that in this way it could be the subject of a joke.”
Meanwhile, Nigerian-born author Chika Unigwe — who lives in Belgium — is understandably not pleased.
so photo of the Obama's as chimps in De Morgen of today is the paper's attempt at satire. I forgot to laugh #racist pic.twitter.com/jc7cW7cbgD
— chika unigwe (@chikaunigwe) March 22, 2014
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De Morgen isn't racist. What is racist is the society that enables acts of racism to thrive with impunity #Belgium
— chika unigwe (@chikaunigwe) March 24, 2014
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Black people in Belgum have no political voice, no economic voice, so in a way society forgets that we exist #Belgium
— chika unigwe (@chikaunigwe) March 24, 2014