Posted on 09/15/2011 7:29:26 PM PDT by Olog-hai
German comedian Martin Sonneborn is well-known for jokes bordering on the tasteless. But a satirical political billboard of him posing in blackface makeup as US President Barack Obama is sparking outrage.
“Ick bin ein Obama (I am an Obama),” reads the poster at Berlin’s central Ernst Reuter Platz square, in an apparent play on John F. Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. On the poster, a “black” Sonneborn smiles as he raises his arm in the air.
The billboard is the latest in Sonneborn’s campaign for his satirical political party Die Partei ahead of state elections in Berlin this Sunday. It’s meant to make fun of the entire German political establishment and go up to the edge of propriety — another poster is entitled “MILFS against Merkel” and the campaign has also mocked the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party.
But the latest one is upsetting to some because of the racial connotations of blackface theatre in America in the 19th and early 20th centuries based on ugly stereotypes. Blackface consisted of white performers painting themselves black for degrading minstrel shows. It quickly died out in the United States after the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. …
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.de ...
I understand. When I see anything related to blackface today, it is almost always being done as satire, as with the Zulus. I think the last straight up minstrel performances I recall were coming out of the UK in the 70s and 80s. They died out very quickly in the US in the late 1960s, although they were still around in the early 1960s. I think the Mummers quit parading in blackface in the mid-1960s.
Again, I don’t remember any straight-up minstrel shows performed for the general public in the 1960s, and I was all over the South in that period, but I’ll just have to take your word for it.
Romney auch nicht gut. Aus Mitt Romney!!!!!
“ugly stereotypes”?
who you callin’ ugly Willis?
Yeah I wanna see the “MILF’s against Merkel” poster.
Is that like German Desperate Housewives?
What about “American MILFs vs. German MILFs”, and the winner gets to be “Master MILF du Monde”?
And don’t forget the sequel:
“MILF’s in Blackface: Offensiveness for Everyone”
There is a documentation of their taking place, if you don’t want to take my word for it. Do a google search of blackface or minstrel shows. These reports match my recollections very well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface
I never said they were in the South. I remember them up north from the theater circuit and on broadcast TV shows.
General public performances in the US trailed off at the end of the 1960s, but certainly private shows went on for another decade. The All in the Family program in the 70s was making a social comment on the fact that these minstrel shows still existed.
Here’s what I can tell you. In those days I lived in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana.
I did not lead a sheltered life, far from it. I attended all manner of shows, circuses, sporting events and other performances.
NEVER ONCE did I see or hear of an honest-to-god blackface minstrel show performed for the general public. I’m not talking about what some jerkface fratboys were doing, or some skit on a tv show, or what some liberal d-bag writers had Archie Bunker doing.
Now if you are telling me that white folks up north performed straight-up blackface minstrel shows for the public, then I’ll just take your word for that.
I don’t remember the black church burnings in Arkansas either, but Bill Clinton did tell me about them.
Dead on the money. Obama plays the race card, so why can’t everyone else?
” I think the last straight up minstrel performances I recall were coming out of the UK in the 70s and 80s. They died out very quickly in the US in the late 1960s, although they were still around in the early 1960s. I think the Mummers quit parading in blackface in the mid-1960s.
“
I call bullsh*t! I was in the UK myself and never once, not a single time, did I see anything whatsoever of a blackface performance or any ridicule of blacks in any way.
Dittos to your #28!
No where in the South were there blackface performances in the 1960’s. The only time I can recall anyone telling such BS stories is a liberal looking for votes.
Actually, 0bama is a “red” (Marxist) in blueface (Democrat).
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