You know how people talk about how kids aren’t born racist, they learn to be racist from the adults around them? If you’ve ever wondered what sort of adults are actually teaching kids to be racist, I’ve found the answer for you. A far-right German party has apologised for handing out racist colouring books that should never have made it past the nearest bin.
The AfD (Alternative for Germany) Party have said that they made “an organisational mistake” by handing out the book, although for a while there they were trying to defend their book. Specifically, their defence was that calling the colouring book racist was “attack on the freedom of art and satire” because their book was an “art book with satirical sketches on the situation in the country”. Charming.
Considering the book depicted things like men with guns (who were obviously meant to be terrorists) waving around Turkish flags, and a pool filled with women in full-body veils being harassed by black people with bones in their hair, the satire argument is pretty unconvincing.
Social media first picked up on the book after it was handed out at an event in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Pages were posted and quickly called out for being disgusting. Police were contacted and told that the group was inciting violence, and the German parliament is looking into the matter.
The AfD is notoriously anti-immigration and anti-Islam, but they’re also the largest opposition party in Germany at the moment, holding 89 of 709 lower house seats. Their co-chairman has spoken about fighting an “invasion of foreigners,” and Nigel Farage was involved in their 2017 election campaign.
They’re also apparently not above giving colouring books that depicts these beliefs to kids, which might be one of the scariest thoughts of all.
If you want much better news about the world, how about the GOAT Team chatting to Neil DeGrasse Tyson about the cosmos?
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