What a comedian in blackface says about German media, prevailing racism & ignoring colonial histories
It all started with a Tweet... German public broadcaster from Bavaria aired a comedian who impersonated an African dictator (including blackface/white gloves) to “satirically” address recent cases of corruption within Christian Democratic Party CDU...it’s painfully offensive & financed through TV license fee https://t.co/Bd5Klf9rpr — Tobias Denskus (@aidnography) April 2, 2021 On the surface this is just another incident of “satire” gone wrong: Helmut Schleich, a German comedian with a monthly show on Bavarian public broadcaster BR (part of the ARD network of publicly funded broadcaster in Germany) recently showed up in blackface. As his alter ego Maxwell Strauss he portrayed the illegitimate son of Franz Josef Strauss who had turned into an African dictator of the fictitious “People's Republic of Mbongalo ” . So far, so Chinese state television bad. Playing with a lot of stereotypes associated with “Africa”, including corruption and strange diseases, the punchline centers ...