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Racist book ruffles feathers in the UK

15:49 H | Topics: Books - Controversia - Race - World

Since we've covered Americans calling Brazil the Congo this week and racist books in the past, it's only relevant to call attention to a book that's raising controversy in the U.K. Some of you might be familiar with Tintin, a series of children's books that have been around for over half a century now. They tend to chronicle the adventures of the main character in various parts of the world, with good, clean fun. But it seems Tintin's latest adventure took a racist turn for the worst:

Borders is removing "Tintin in the Congo" from the children's section of its British stores, after a customer complained the comic work was racist, the company said Thursday.

David Enright, a London-based human-rights lawyer, was shopping at Borders with his family when he came upon the book, first published in 1931, and opened it to find what he characterized as racist abuse.

"The material suggests to (children) that Africans are subhuman, that they are imbeciles, that they're half savage," Enright said in a telephone interview.

"My black wife, who actually comes from Africa originally, is sitting there with my boys and I'm about to hand this book to them.... What message am I sending to them? That my wife is a monkey, that they are monkeys?"

How the book even made it to shelves in the first place would be a common question, but I'm assuming that with the series' illustrious trajectory, that wasn't a problem, especially since it's been around since the early 1930s. AP reports that the author himself was embarrassed by the content, and the text was watered down for release, then covered with a paper warning saying the book contained "colonial content".

You'll note that in the first paragraph of this post, AP says that Border is "moving" the book away from the Children's section. That doesn't mean they are going to stop selling it. In fact, they'll just be moving it to the "Adult Graphic" section of stores.

Just what's in the book? According to AP, Tintin in the Congo "depicts the white hero's adventures in the Congo against the backdrop of an idiotic, chimpanzee-like native population that eventually comes to worship Tintin — and his dog — as gods.

Via / Yahoo! Entertainment

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