Despite the long gone fight against racism around the world, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are at the center of another recent racist attack. A Belgian newspaper De Morgen, which marked Obama's recent visit to the Netherlands to commemorate their 100th anniversary of the start of World War I; with a picture of the first couple with ape mouths.
The Obamas Called Monkeys By A Belgian Newspaper!
This is 2014, why is racism still an issue?
The publication even went further by posting another photo of the US President with the following caption: "First black president of the USA starts selling weed.” Check This!
Reports say De Morgen Newspaper ran the photos alongside a story that was supposed to be a "satirical" take on Obama's strained relationship with Russia's president Vladimir Putin.
But it looks like it was the Russian Leader himself who allegedly forwarded the photos to the Belgian media house, "Vladimir Putin is the president of Russia. He sent us this attachment at our request, and chose to send pictures instead of text 'because he doesn't have a lot of time'," the article reportedly stated.
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However, Nigeria writer Chika Unigwe has shared his thoughts on the article on Twitter with this post:
@chikaunigwe – so photo of the Obama's as chimps in De Morgen of today is the paper's attempt at satire. I forgot to laugh #racist
The negative feedbacks from people across the globe including that of Chika apparently caused the paper to apologize for the offensive image of the First Couple and admits they showed "bad taste" by publishing it. The paper wrote:
"When you consider the fragment apart from its context, which is a properly worked out satirical section, then you don’t see the joke but just a picture evoking sheer racism …We wrongly assumed that racism is no longer accepted, and that in this way it could be the subject of a joke.”
SMH! Do you think this was a joke to be published at all or it was a deliberate act to ridicule the US First Couple? Send us your thoughts.
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