This may seem like a derail but I've often felt that many Green parties, the NZ version among them, seem to take their progressive credentials on things like race, sexuality, poverty etc as iron-clad, and thus don't engage in the level of self-scrutiny that would prevent clangers like this.
It's not racist, quite the opposite. It's saying that black people are sexually attractive.
Black is the colour of the Christian Democrats in Germany. The poster is saying that the only time you should "choose black" is when you want to have sex with a black person.
I wouldn't conflate racism with offensiveness. It is clearly racist (because of the word 'only' - and I'm assuming that's an accurate translation). But whether or not it is offensive is up to that audience to decide (that is, Germans). We have cultural norms in New Zealand where discrimination on race and other things are accepted (choosing a potential mate for example) which could conceivably be found offensive in some hypothetical culture (Vulcans perhaps).
Hugh, the NZ Green party is the only major political party here that has a female co-leader position, and when making the list there are strict rules about representation of Maori and women. I think that that is walking the talk.
That poster is so bad that I have been trying to find out if there is more to it. This comment from Der Spiegel sheds a little light, though the choice to go ahead with the poster in that form remains almost incomprehensible!
"The poster is meant to highlight the Greens' support for same-sex partnerships, said the local head of the Greens, Christian Gaumitz, according to the daily Rheinische Post. "We only put up a small number of these posters. The response has been very big, but the majority of people share our understanding of the subject: that it's provocative, but not tasteless."
8 comments:
Oh dear, dear me.
Holy shit.
This may seem like a derail but I've often felt that many Green parties, the NZ version among them, seem to take their progressive credentials on things like race, sexuality, poverty etc as iron-clad, and thus don't engage in the level of self-scrutiny that would prevent clangers like this.
It's not racist, quite the opposite. It's saying that black people are sexually attractive.
Black is the colour of the Christian Democrats in Germany. The poster is saying that the only time you should "choose black" is when you want to have sex with a black person.
It's all about cultural context, people.
Ever seen The Office, Blair?
I wouldn't conflate racism with offensiveness. It is clearly racist (because of the word 'only' - and I'm assuming that's an accurate translation). But whether or not it is offensive is up to that audience to decide (that is, Germans). We have cultural norms in New Zealand where discrimination on race and other things are accepted (choosing a potential mate for example) which could conceivably be found offensive in some hypothetical culture (Vulcans perhaps).
Hugh, the NZ Green party is the only major political party here that has a female co-leader position, and when making the list there are strict rules about representation of Maori and women. I think that that is walking the talk.
That poster is so bad that I have been trying to find out if there is more to it. This comment from Der Spiegel sheds a little light, though the choice to go ahead with the poster in that form remains almost incomprehensible!
"The poster is meant to highlight the Greens' support for same-sex partnerships, said the local head of the Greens, Christian Gaumitz, according to the daily Rheinische Post. "We only put up a small number of these posters. The response has been very big, but the majority of people share our understanding of the subject: that it's provocative, but not tasteless."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,641577,00.html
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