German Headline: "Uncle Barack's Cabin"

06-06-2008

The translation of the German newspaper headline is "Uncle Barack's Cabin," a reference to the anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

The intention, I presume--as one who has covered German attitudes about the U.S.--is to say that that a President Obama would lead a racist nation.

It's a ham-handed attempt to slam America rather than Obama, although some insist that the German left would hate America under a President Obama as they have hated America under George W. Bush, because they hate what America stands for. But the Euro Left is clearly rooting for Obama, hoping that he'll turn the U.S. into something more like Europe.

The Euro Left, many in the Euro media and on the European street still believe America is more racist than Europe. But ask a Turk in Berlin or a North African in Paris about racism, and you'll get a different story.

The head of Germany's small black community, commenting about this headline, told the German Magazine Der Spiegel "There is…acute racism within the left-wing scene in Germany."

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