Skewered: Of Negroes and Lemon Heads

Why was it so nice to be a child? Summers were endless, because clocks and agendas didn't matter. It didn't matter if the boots were full of water or the gloves were soaked and stuck to the hands. Soaking wet feet. Frozen fingers. Red nose. And cheeks glowing with eagerness. Just being a kid.

But that was not all that was good. The glory of my childhood also included ten little negroes, a negro king, lemon heads, upper and lower bonzes, Punch and Judy, a coal-black Moor and the fidgety Philip - all of whom I loved dearly. Today, these dear people should no longer exist: Because you don't say Neger, that's racist, Zitronenköpfe even more racist, Ober- und Unterbonzen these same gentlemen no longer want to be called (especially not Unter-), whoever is a Kasperl is a Seppel, i.e. a moron, and you don't say that either, Mohr - oh, no comment, and Zappel-Philipps have degenerated into patients with an ADHD diagnosis in the 21st century. Unfortunately, people don't lick moor heads anymore, but chocolate kisses - which you can already hear their stickiness. Inedible.

Spontaneous speech nausea

Now the Stuttgart-based Thienemann Verlag is also making language lovers lose their appetite. The publisher holds the rights to Otfried Preussler's classic children's book "The Little Witch" and gets cold feet because of Negroes in the snow. The sentence "How did the two little negroes end up on the snowy village street?" is in Preussler's work. Yikes! 56 years ago, Preussler had children dress up as Negroes, as well as Turks and Chinese. Fifty-six years is enough, says Klaus Willberg of Thienemann Verlag. Because you don't say Negro, Turk and Chinese woman. Other characters are to play on Preussler's village street. For example, Indians, Gypsies or Eskimos? Wait, of course American Natives, Travellers and Inuit. Sounds stupid? Wouldn't it be better to have Africans or blacks standing in the snow? Sounds stupid, too. And is no less black and white. Negroes are not so bad after all.

Calamity seldom comes alone

Michael Ende's "Jim Knopf" is also published by Thienemann. So it's only a matter of time before Ende's heirs have to rack their brains over what they might be called in the future, my beloved upper and lower bonzes, the Negro boy Jim Knopf and the "gäggeligelen Zitronechöpf," as it's delightfully called in the dialect version from 1970. But can you imagine the story from Lummerland full of CEO and CFO, full of Asians with yellowish skin and a protagonist of African descent? Oh boy! Even Heinrich Hoffmann, daddy of Struwwelpeter, can be blissfully unaware of this language theater. "Es ging spazieren vor dem Tor/ein kohlpechrabenschwarzer Mohr." Now rhyme that with "black man." Do you notice anything?

The big misunderstanding

But the sword of the guardians of the holy anti-racism grail does not only strike the elderly. Even Axel Hacke, who published "Der weisse Neger Wumbaba" in 2004, is denounced as a racist. Especially by people who have not read his book. Because there it is not about an African who would be insulted as a Negro, but about misunderstood song lyrics. The title alludes to Claudius' evening song "Der Mond ist aufgegangen" ("The moon has risen"). The last line of the first stanza "the white mist wonderful" was just misunderstood as "the white negro Wumbaba". Which is actually pretty funny. But what I don't know makes me black. And angry. Seen through the eyes of a marketer, the Negro dispute also has one good thing: "As long as I say Negro, the camera stays with me," Ueli Maurer put it in a nutshell in the Weltwoche. But seriously, words cannot be banned simply because they could be misused. If that were the case, kitchen knives would no longer be allowed to be sold. Or screwdrivers. Whether the use of certain words is in bad taste or racist depends on the context. Thinking readers and publishers can be expected to consider this context. Or to read a little more like a child. Otherwise I see only one thing for the German language: black.