Schlim, Oberst Imus!
By Mitch Berg
Note to the German Army; you’ve really screwed the pooch this time.
Germany – a nation that learned “racism is bad” at the point of American bayonets sixty-odd years ago – is dealing with a series of scandals in the Heer, the German Army:
A German army instructor ordered a soldier to envision himself in New York City facing hostile blacks while firing his machine gun, a video that aired Saturday on national television showed.
The president of the Bronx, the New York City borough that the army instructor referred to in his directions to the soldier, demanded an apology from the German military and said the clip “indicates that bias and assumptions and racism is alive and well around the world.”…The clip shows an instructor and a soldier in camouflage uniforms in a forest. The instructor tells the soldier, “You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways. … Act.”The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then tells the soldier to curse even louder.
On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see that the Germans, after a decade and a half of post-war decline, are teaching their Army to be something other than a peace corps with guns.
On the other – well, that is just plain wrong. And dumb.
And you’re treading on you know who’s turf…:
The Rev. Al Sharpton said he was outraged that Germans were “depicting blacks as target practice.”
“I think this is an incredibly racist kind of insult to African-Americans and it speaks to the kind of institutional racism that people think we are hallucinating about,” he said.
The bad news: we might have to deal with a week of hand-wringing from the media about the culture of oppression to Afro-Americans by the German Army.
The good news: If Al Sharpton is picketing over in Germany, he won’t be here.
April 16th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Close one, Mitch, but you’ve gotten me off my anti-Sharpton kick. I’ll take Al over a neo-racist German army, thanks. Sharpton at least has a sense of humor and a connection to the late Godfather of Soul, James Brown. Neither of which applies to the army that invaded Poland and France.
Other matches in which I’ll take the home team, obnoxious though they may be:
Donald Trump vs. Hirohito
Yoko Ono vs. the Confederate States of America
Sean Penn vs. Kaiser Wilhelm
April 16th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Actually, in re Sharpton v. Bundesheer, I really don’t have a dog in the fight. Just pointing out Sharpton’s odd priorities.
And while you’re right about Trump, and the whole “slavery” thing tips things in Ono’s favor, you’re wrong about Penn. WWI and all, Wilhelm was still better.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Kaiser Wilhelm didn’t star in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Though I admired von Hindenburg’s uncredited cameo as “Mall Security Officer #2.”
April 16th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Kaiser Wilhelm didn’t star in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Phoebe Cates is the only one that earns credit for that movie, though.
April 16th, 2007 at 9:43 am
“Kaiser Wilhelm didn’t star in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. ”
Give me a cool buzz and some tasty waves and I could invade France all day long.