Not Everyone in Europe Happy America Has Black President

Though Europeans generally rejoiced in Barack Obama's election as 44th President of the United States, a number of leading European lawmakers and journalists have made "foot-in-mouth comments" regarding America's black President-elect, reports the Washington Post.

These include a leading Austrian television journalist, Klaus Emmerich, who a day after the election, said on camera that he "wouldn't want the Western world to be directed by a black man." Emmerich, who works for the country's leading public television station, had previously work in Washington DC as a foreign correspondent. Emmerich told viewers:

"I think the Americans are still racists and they must be very badly off to so spectacularly -- and that has to be said, no doubt -- send a black man with a black, very good-looking and clever woman to the White House."

When he was later asked to apologize, Emmerich told an Austrian newspaper that "blacks are not as politically civilized."

Separately a right-wing member of Poland's Parliament called the election result "the end of the white man's civilization." He added: "America will soon pay a high price for this quirk of democracy."

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who governs with the help of a coalition that includes admirers of Benito Mussolini, last Thursday -- during a visit to Moscow -- praised Obama for being "young, handsome and even suntanned." He later accused his detractors of failing to take a joke.

The Post quotes Yonis Ayeh, a board member with the Initiative of Black People in Germany, saying that:

racial prejudices are common, if not always blatantly expressed. "Sometimes you have people or groups who say, 'We are the left wing, we are the good ones, we are not racist,' " he said. "But it doesn't matter if you are right wing or left wing. It's not just the neo-Nazis and the skinheads."

UPDATE: New York Times Paris correspondent Steven Erlanger filed a front page story for today's edition interviewing immigrants and minorities in France, Italy and Germany about the Obama Effect:

In the general European euphoria over the election of Barack Obama, there is the beginning of self-reflection about Europe's own troubles with racial integration. Many are asking if there could be a French, British, German or Italian Obama, and everyone knows the answer is no, not anytime soon.

Comments

[chronic]

Euros need to fix thier society and leave ours to Americans.

[ObjectiveRealist]

It seems like they think of the United States as a European colony or something. Anyway, they were apparently not prepared to start saying "President Obama" when they meet with US diplomats. I'm in favor of giving them eight years to practice it.

[canucklivinginUSA]

Europeans are hypocrites. They claim to be more advanced than Americans, but they are far from it. However, France has done some baby step into correcting this by having a foreign minister who is both black and a woman. So things are changing. On the other hand, blacks(I am one) also need to change their attitude and push through the stereotypes that plagues us. We need to set some goals that are far superior than having a record deal or playing in the NBA

[StanDaMan]

What a useless commentary! Did you really expect, Mr. Jacobs, that every single European would admire and praise Mr. Obama? Now, if you wrote about some nation that was going to take, or abstain from taking, some action based on Mr. Obama's race, religion, etc., or about a leader of some nation who made truly racist remarks towards Mr. Obama, that might have been newsworthy. Mr. Berlusconi's remark about Mr. Obama being "even suntanned" was a joke made in bad taste, and nothing more.

[amistad]

I disagree.
The world has problems with people of color, and the US has made a big statement with regards to race that will force other countries to deal with their own bigg0ted beliefs.
"Even suntanned" is a big issue; what in that man's mind made him make such a "joke?" Bigg0try.
Not a big deal? I think it is. Using r@cist beliefs as fodder for jokes such as these should be called out and called to the mat for just what it is: bigg0ted beliefs.

[amistad]

I disagree.
The world has problems with people of color, and the US has made a big statement with regards to r@ce that will f0rce other countries to deal with their own bigg0ted beliefs.
"Even suntanned" is a big issue; what in that man's mind made him make such a "joke?" Bigg0try.
Not a big deal? I think it is. Using r@cist beliefs as f0dder for jokes such as these should be called out and called to the mat for just what it is: bigg0ted beliefs.

[rudiy]

Those who think these people represent only a few Europeans are kidding themselves. Although there are a lot of open minded people in Europe, prejudice is a way of life. People may not say it in print or in polls but when I am in Europe, I hear more unappologetic hateful and prejudicial statements about blacks and other minorites, nationalities other than their own, anti Semitic comments, etc., than I have ever heard in the US.

[Chick deney]

I'm not sure what you've heard the frogs and krauts uttering, but you'd never hear any ethnic slurs from us brits!

[rudiy]

You are right . Athough I have been to the UK many times, I forget Brits are actually Europeans.

[canucklivinginUSA]

what about pakis? Come on now, you are guys aren't better

[strawberryjulius]

Sure, the brits are so progressive, that's why you have ethnic ghettos.

[Tayo]

You're absolutely right. In spite of everything America is still way ahead of Europe in race-relations.

[DoctorDan]

Fortunately the Obamas have a temperment to let these goofball comments slide - letting the attention all fall on the speakers themselves. It's been their thick political skin that's helped them survive the last 22 months. There will always be an element of the world that's racist. Ironically, Obama is perhaps the most "politically civilised" person this nation has ever seen to ascend to such a level (on a par with Lincoln and Jefferson).

[sempronia]

When I was doing a summer abroad in Italy five years ago, I remember telling my host family at the dinner table that my dad was from Birmingham, AL. My host-mom said, "Oh, isn't that where are the racists are?" She was very concerned that I didn't understand racism and hadn't properly addressed it.

What I did learn later, though, when I actually moved to Italy, was that Italians talk a lot about getting rid of "razzismo", but when you get under the surface, you find a lot of very open prejudices against blacks, gypsies, and, in some cases, people who just don't speak Italian as a first language. Sometimes I think that they see America as a land of racist issues because we've had a long, heated, and very open discussion of racism over here, whereas over they the struggle is just beginning. We just look worse because we've had a longer time to bring the wounds to the surface in order to start healing them.

[OG]

This type of indo european attitude is why for centuries the european continent has been victimized by wars of ethicnic and cultural genocide.

[AContrario]

With regards to race, America has reached and past a social and political milestone that will take years to be fully understood and appreciated, there is still a psychological milestone to be reached and past as well but it will take time because it is an individual process.

For years Europe has been quietly feeding its own breed of racism, because of a dry intellectualism and a rich(I would say cumbersome) cultural legacy, racism is more sophisticated and vicious than in
the US.

Before this election, europeans have been fooling themselves and everyone that they were more civilized or smarter than Americans but this election has reminded to everybody what really matters
in this world and what America is about: Actions speak louder than words.

Now Europe has its nose rubbed down in its own racial contradictions and the real question is they gonna do about it?

[hortonhearsawho]

Travel the deep south....compare vicious then.

[Sean Jacobs - Huffpost Blogger]

The New York Times has a front page story today from its Paris correspondent interviewing people in Europe, mainly African immigrants and black Italians and French, about the Obama Effect on European politics.

You can read it here.

[mamak]

well there are always gonna be people who are racists all over the world and they don't have to be exclusively Whites.......but to single out and generalize Europe makes very little sense....wouldn't you say?

[Rhonnybay]

(shrug)

[mbh78213]

A few obnoxious people do not represent Europe.

[Chick deney]

I had the chance to speak with members of my wife's family here in Sweden over the weekend. Her father and uncle, 81 and 75 respectively, and her two brothers a tech company CEO and a PhD in pharmaceuticals. Every one of them was excited and enthusiastic about Obama's victory - the CEO said that he had been moved "almost to tears" by the President Elect's eloquent speech.

I was most surprised by the responses of the two elder gentlemen, since political new beginnings are hardly something new and are often met with cynisism by those who have been around to see it promised over and over again. Not so in this case. They all believed that Obama's victory and his promise of change really does mean something different this time.

Oh and as for skin colour, I can't even recall if it was mentioned by a single one of those I spoke to.

[StillIRise]

It's a little ironic that some of the posters are criticizing Europe now because a few stupid Europeans said a few stupid things, but we were praising them just a few months ago when they embraced President-Elect Obama when he was touring there. These comments do not reflect all of Europe any more than the stupid comments made by stupid people here reflects all of America. Racism and stupidity are global defects, but they do not detract from the good will of the majority of the people in either Europe or America. We all saw the pictures of how Europeans and others were celebrating Obama's victory, all over the world, and that's enough to convince me that the world welcomes and embraces him, and we are part of that world!

Stupid people will likely always be stupid, no matter what part of the world they live in. But they can't take away my joy about this election, and I know I share this joy with many of my European counterparts ... even though I'm black and stupid people would probably say the same thing about me that they said about President-Elect Obama. But it doesn't matter! He won!

[eden4barack08]

So, out of an entire continent only two idiots, the Austrian and the Pollack, are officially "unhappy" about our black President, and they merited a title that "Not Everyone is Happy in Europe"? Seriously? Compare that to our thousands of GOPers right here please, and I'm talking about elected officials, not just citizen folks!