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Controversy: Obama in Blackface? Mr. Sonneborn, Tear Down This Billboard

Ahead of state elections in Berlin this weekend, one political party has gone to such extremes in its own self-promotion that it’s posted two questionable billboards. One is titled “MILFS Against Merkel,” and the other shows party leader, Martin Sonneborn, dressed in shiny blackface with the JFK-esque slogan “Ick bin ein Obama (I am an Obama)” emblazoned across the top.

Take a look at the billboard, which The Local claims is “sparking outrage.”

For Americans, it pretty much goes without saying that the billboard is offensive. Blackface consisted of white performers painting themselves black for degrading minstrel shows and was highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Even Ted Danson learned that you don’t go blackface in contemporary society. You just don’t — despite what Australians want to believe (for some reason, they still love it).

Sonneborn claims he was merely trying to “mock” the hype surrounding Obama. Sonneborn is regarded as something of a comedian in Germany. He founded a satirical magazine, has written for Spiegel since 2006 and recently founded the satirical political party Die PARTEI, one of whose aims is to rebuild the Berlin Wall. He became a household name in the country a decade ago by attempting to bribe FIFA officials to award Germany the World Cup; he later wrote a book about the experience.

But back to the billboard. Sonneborn says he didn’t know about the American association with blackface, which is almost hard to believe. “No, I didn’t know that,” he told The Local. “If Americans associate it with that, then I’m sorry, but I’m not going to take it down.”

The billboard follows some other questionably racist endeavors in Germany, which on some level could be chalked up to the vast cultural divide. In 2009, a frozen food company released Obama chicken fingers but admitted it wasn’t aware some might see the racist overtones of stereotyping blacks with a fried chicken product. That same year, Dresden’s Zoo renamed a mandrill, yup, a monkey-like primate, “Obama” in an unfortunate effort to honor the U.S. president. German daily die Tageszeitung honored then-candidate Obama during the 2008 election by referring to the White House “Uncle Barack’s Cabin.”

Clearly, Germans don’t quite get America’s cultural and historical racism.

Tahir Della a spokesman for the Initiative for Black Germans (ISD), which tries to represent the interests of the black community in Germany, called the billboard “unbelievably hurtful.”

“This is 2011 and not 1950,” he said. “I find it racist through and through.”

Quaide Williams, the vice chair of the German chapter of Democrats Abroad, also said the poster was insensitive, although he emphasized that he was speaking for himself and not the organization.

“Do I think that racism is a problem in Germany? Yes I do. I think this shows how insensitive people are to this topic,” Williams told The Local. “It’s kind of interesting to look at how little they recognize racism in their own politics.”

Yeah, there’s no question the billboard is racist. On top of that it’s not really funny or enlightening. Though we profess to know little about German politics, we do wonder how a billboard of a white dude in blackface with the slogan “I am an Obama” satirizes anything.

But in the great tradition of Jerry Seinfeld claiming Tim Whatley’s conversion to Judaism offends him not as a Jew but as a comedian, we must point out the obvious: the blackface job is awful. Sonneborn looks like a shiny wax figure. The complexion and skin tone is off by a wide-mile. That‘s offensive!

HVculture

HVCulture is our bin for all things Culture.

Comments (55) Write a comment

  1. Offensive to wannabe comedians like myself.

    And, come on, how could you not realize that blackface has offensive historical connotations in America. Wasn’t it invented by Americans, specifically for that purpose?

  2. From the perspective of a German:

    I find this very funny, and I did not know about blackface either.

  3. Typically american! The tow faces of humour. Not a problem with the muhammed caricatures but with a clearly ironical picture of their leader.shame on you!

  4. “Yeah, there’s no question the billboard is racist. On top of that it’s not really funny or enlightening.”

    The billboard itself isn’t racist, in fact it parodies racist stereotypes. And it parodies the ridiculous mania about Obama only because of his skin color in Germany. Of course I can only speak for myself but personally I do not rate jokes primarily because of their political correctness and I consider this billboard as most funny. So stop blubbering and deal with real problems.

    The PARTEI is the only electable party anyway – Today Germany, tomorrow the world! :D

  5. i love the americans for being so easily offended on the one hand and being the currently most racist country in the world on the other^^. bunch of hypocryts.

  7. i know some black germans, who loves this kind of jokes. but i think Satire is hard to underastand for many people, because it is a real strange kind of humor. Die PARTEI also advertised with two muslims in frankfurt, with the slogan “less skyline” but they also joked about nazis. The main rule for Die PARTEI is to be as populistic as possible.
    You just have to understand, that this party has only been creaded to criticize poulism. This Party is no real Party, it is only Satire.

  8. It’s funny and not racist! DIE PARTEI shows what is going wrong in politics these days.
    You should better get rid of the stupid tea party…

  9. your argument completely misses the point and its simply stupid to put this close to racism. you`re showng ignorance the article through if you dont care or know anything about germany why dont you just shut up. arrogant bull like that will leave you soon alone in the whole wide world; yes indeed, not one songle dick in germany knows ANYTHING about Blackface..so what? what? This is not America, and we had enough false Messiah`, as Obama poses, as Kennedy was-not to mention the King of Rockn Roll- Adolf Hitler.
    Why should we get your cultural sensitivities? We have others, This is stupid. I have black friends and we all laugh because we are sovereign and educated.

  10. calm down guys, it is only a misunderstanding becaus the auther thought this party was a real party.

  11. Martin Sonneborn should get the Nobel price for Satire, befor he gets elected! The way Americans are always in public so PC is scary, in a country that has such an underlying racism. In America you cant pull a joke about their racist historie, in Germany we are not allowed to tell a yewish joke. So why does everyone just chill a bit !

  12. Indeed, I really like this billboard and the election campaign from “Die Partei”, from a satirical view. In my opinion there is nothing racist in it; it should only mock on the hype on Obama when we has in Berlin (that is where the pose came from) und an the Kennedy “Ick bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner).
    The main point of Sonneborn and his “Die Partei” is to show how todays politician are: Without much political impact, just a show to get elected. Never answer to the question, just do popular phrases without taking over a clear position.
    It’s definitely not meant racist.

    Please excuse my bad english…

  13. you know that it is not about obamas skin colour but rather about his election campain? the party “die partei” (=the party) is all about satire and consists primarily of resigned leftists, communists and other people, who would never be racist, antisemitic or something similar. and – yes – wtf come on, i wouldn’t even call this “positive racism”…

  14. i’m from berlin, following “die partei” and politics in general, i think to fully understand that poster would take a lot of explaining. but before that: the blackface is not funny, and i don’t believe that he did not know about the implications.

    to simplify a bit: martin sonneborns party is a kind of active satire (sometimes not a very good one). he tries to outline to hollowness of politicals slogans, campaigns and statement, by exagerating as far and sometimes as crude as possible. currently he is suggesting to stuff the mayor of berlin (like it’s sometimes done with dead animals to conserve them), to get the opposing candidate a new haircut (she’s short haired) and to revive the famous icebear knut who passed away a while ago.

    the idea behind that particular poster was the myth atributed to, and the hype surrounding obama and other idolised politicians by saying, anyone can be like that. and it would have been not a bad idea without the blackface, just posing and re-using that famous JFK-phrase “ich bin ein berliner”.

    the basic concept of his campaign is “inhalte überwinden” which translates to something like “to get past contents/issues”. meaning, instead of claiming to stand for something, they cultivate the nonsense and being meaningless. so far, i haven’t heard any realistic or serious political statement from them.

    finally, to the issue of racism: yes there is a lot of racism in germany, as in most other countries in europe, all over the world, and in the states as well. the crude open racism of neo-nazis, antisemites or islamphobics is a big problem, but to me the real problem is the hidden racism, which lies deep beneath the surface of many people (myself not excluded). it shows itself in the face of assumptions, stereotypes, leading to being prejudgemental. and that is something we have to be careful about everyday, each and everyone of us.

  15. i guess you don´t really get german satire. i know its very deep/dark but if you get it its the best way of comedy ever. if you just know this you would know that martin sonneborn is really the best comedian on earth. he´s just playing it totally perfect and there´s no way to offend it

  16. The party Die Partei is the only not-fun-party in Germany. I think Die Partei is absolutly credible and serious! @Stefan

  18. American Hystery. If Mr Williams wonders, why noone sees the Racism in this Action except for him: Obviously, there is none!

  19. so long you can laugh about something, you know it’s not meant seriously

  20. I guess you may take some information about DIE PARTEI. If you get them you will see that the whole organisation based on ironic. DIE Partei was founded by Martin Sonneborn, who is was the publisher of a very satire magazine: TITANIC. This is a high accapted magazine, which is serious but also very critical and shows that in caricatures for example.
    So Sonneborn found this party to take over the power in Germany and rebuild the wall or build an final disposal site for nuclear trash in a district of Berlin. He do that because he wants to get the votes of the other ditsricts, because there wont be a final depot. DIE PARTEI is his view of the politics today in Germany. He dont mean that they are racist or something like that, just that they should break trough their contens, because the real politic in Germany just hold their flags in the direction the wind is blowing, if you understand. :P
    Germany havent got more racists than other countries even the USA too. There are really more racist in the countries arround us, like Austria, France or the Netherlands and in many of this countries they got a high position in the cabinets or parliaments. In Germany they arent allowed to the federal election and at the federal state elections they got just in some cases votes, so that they havent any parliamentary seats.
    I guess I will vote for DIE PARTEI at the next elections, because i want that the politics in Germany get a new face and I think this is just possible, if the bigger parties lost their votes to a satire party, which tries to wwake up the German brains. (Some German politics are Brain-AFK).
    Otherwise they are just funny and do funny actions, like paste over bills of the NPD and drew new bills for them. ;)
    The pictures of Sonneborn as an Obama. First time I saw it i cant stop laughing, cause its so funny that he shits with the German politics. :D
    Relax about it and see it as a joke, that it is.

  21. I am fully aware that America was created by George W. Washington at the dawn of time. This is the main reason why everyone on this earth – even those unfortunate enough to live abroad – knows the American history by heart (i.e. all 200 something years of it)!
    Along with this essential knowledge comes the necessity to match this on everything we do and say – the more so since the lord himself returned to earth with afro-american skin (or am I allowed to write black in that context?) to win all noble prices as reward for the things to come (such as more troops).
    On behalf of all German MILFs, Germans in general and the FIFA World Cup 2006 I apologize to all afro-american POTUSes, decendents of people killed by the Titanic sinking and soccer players for such behaviour.

  22. From another German:
    I did not know about blackface, but actually with the knowledge its even funnier. The billboard makes fun of the blackface and not about black people. This ist satire and satire is allowed to do anything.

  23. When a black man is going to be president of the United States everybody’s like “Oh my god, now everything’s going to be better. And I think THIS is quite unfair.
    But then a German tries to make a joke about that stupid hype everybody calls him a racist. That’s so silly.

  24. Another thing:
    I think everything one sayes depends on what kind of person he/she is. So if a leftist newspaper writes about “Uncle Barack’s Cabin” its not the same as when a rightwing papers writes this. The rightwing paper would make fun of black people, but the leftwing paper has the controversy in mind and actually accredits the history of afro americans and their achievements.

  25. Appreciate all the comments from the German viewers of this piece. Cultural divides are always very interesting, and the argument that mocking Muhammad vs mocking black people is well-taken. The point of this piece isn’t simply to call out racism, but it was merely to point out how many Americans would find it racist. There’s a subtle difference there. Also, from our American perspective, we’re not exactly sure what the joke is, if this is indeed parody. Maybe our definition of satire and parody differs greatly. Again, cultural divide! Thanks for reading.

  26. alright momidi, but i think it’s kinda racist to call mr sonneborn a comedian. that would put him on a level with mario barth and bülent ceylan, or, in a u.s. american context most probably with, lets say sarah palin and arnold schwarzenegger. i suggest a more politically correct version of most serious satirist. thank you.

  27. There’s nothing satirical about the poster itself. It’s designed to cause just this kind of offense. The satirical part are Sonneborn’s comments about it to the media. Of course he knows about it, there was a larger scandal not long ago when (white) undercover journalist Günther Wallraf did research in (black) disguise about racial prejudice, instead of just asking those experiencing it first-hand and for real. (Wallraf was probably not aware of the offense he caused though, since it wasn’t for entertainment, and he always uses disguises, like a glue-on mustache to appear Turkish)

  28. now, that it created such a controversy, Die PARTEI has reached its goal!
    they simply showed the world that people are dumb enough to believe that a “politician” would really paint himself black to win an election…
    here in germany, a lot of people actually got this satire right… in amiland people just started bleeding out their asses

  29. About ten years ago an italien soccer team from Treviso painted their faces with black shoe polish to show solidarity with a Nigerian teammate who was racially abused by the own fans. Pretty racist move from the author’s perspective…
    And get your facts straight. When you expect from Sonneborn to know everything about American history, then you should at least do propper research about him. About the bribing attempt for example: he offered them cuckoo clocks…speaks for itself i guess.

  30. About ten years ago an italien soccer team from Treviso painted their faces with black shoe polish to show solidarity with a Nigerian teammate who was racially abused by the own fans. Pretty racist move from the author’s perspective…
    And get your facts straight. When you expect from Sonneborn to know everything about American history, then you should at least do propper research about him. About the bribing attempt for example: he offered them cuckoo clocks…speaks for itself i guess.

  31. Do you know, that thousands of people in Germany dress up every year as native Americans, Afro-Americans, Asian-Americans. They even paint there faces and hands in the corresponding colors. It is called Karneval/Fastnacht/Fasching.

  32. That article is so extremely racist… the billboard almost can’t stand up to it…

    dear americans,
    sentences beginnig with the name of a country and ending up in a assumption or conclusion about the whole society are racist as hell…
    (see how that introduction offended everyone of you?)

    and of course we (germans) know that “blackface” (horrible noun btw…) is offensive… thats the deal… “Die Partei” is meant to be more racist than the others, more family friendly then the others, more liberal than the others and so on… it’s supposed to be a mirror for modern politics in general.

    quoting a satirical person and assuming that he meant it just the way he said it is so dumb, I won’t even comment on that…

    The badly written article above is just another example for the mindwashing function of the (american) press.
    (by the way, the TITANIC magazine, to which this artikle is refering, tries to point out how media manipulates societys by overdoing what the regular press does, see the connection?)

  33. The party Die PARTEI is always right, even when she is wrong. This is something all americans from Fireland up to Alaska should learn.

  34. Pingback: German Comedian / Party Leader Creates Billboard Of Himself Dressed As Obama… In Blackface

  35. Pingback: This x That - The Daily What

  36. Just because we’re Americans doesn’t mean the ENTIRE world revolves around us and our culture. There are other cultures out there who are oblivious to what we (as a whole) believe to be funny or not. I’m sure there are some Nazi jokes out there that some Germans would find offensive, but Americans think are funny.

    It’s another country, another culture. Deal with it.

  39. Hallo ihr prüden Amis, aufwachen! Das ist Satire. Kein Rassismus. Rassismus ist das, was ihr in den letzten 200 Jahren mit Schwarzafrikanern, Asiaten etc. und deren Nachkommen veranstaltet. Euer Hosein Barak Obama ist doch nur das Aushängeschild: “Was sind wir bloß so liberal, wir haben sogar einen Schwarzen zum Präsidenten gemacht. “. Macht die Augen nicht vor dem Rassismus im eigenen Land zu.

  40. Omfg. You Americans are so weird… How can you Not Get that? I did Not Know of blackface either. Nobody does… How can you Even think we Know stuf like this when half of your citizens are too stupid to Know anything about europe?? Hahaha it proves again that you are just living ob another Planet… The Planet of the US… where everything Works your Way and just your Way… So embarrassing :D but Funny!

  42. blackface, scarface, leatherface, who cares! Vote Die PARTEI on next sunday, list 13! The first country Sonneborn will visit are the US to present his Marshall plan for america.

  43. As a black german i am very sensitive for racist tendencies. And i know, germany still has problems with racism. But the billboard is funny. Sonneburg isn’t a comedian, he is germany’s smartest satirist.

  44. I love your assertion that all Australians “love” blackface, great example of tolerance and racial acceptance there, doi.

  45. They do “blackface” a lot here in Italy. And honestly, it’s not a big deal. Get over it people!

  46. This is embarrassing! On behalf of all Americans everywhere I formally apologize for the way my fellow countrymen have portrayed themselves with this posting and I would like to add not ALL Americans are ignorant, self-absorbed assholes that jump on the racism wagon every chance they get. Quite a few of us, I hope the majority, are past this and find humor in things like this.

  47. From a german view that billboard is satiric … as american people don’t understand this, german people don’t understand every american humour … so what?

  51. Yeah, thank you hypervocal for erasing my comment (which had 7 likes the last time I checked) because I filled in the gaps left by your badly researched article. You oligophrenic amateurs.

  52. Pingback: German Leader’s Obama Blackface Billboard

  53. Pingback: German Leader’s Obama Blackface Billboard |

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