A Tasteless Display

As I wandered into Nürnberg’s Franken Center shopping center during my lunch break today, I saw something which really got me thinking. Now I am not one who by any stretch of the imagination could be called “politically correct”, but what I saw there I found to be somewhat repulsive. In the middle of the mall--yes, Virginia, we unfortunately have them here, too!-- there were 3 shoddy, thrown-together tipis, surrounded by a bamboo fence. A gate to the installation had a title, “Indianer Reservat”, or “Indian Reservation”. Inside, a group of adults were face-painting children and giving them headbands with colored feathers to wear.

I don’t even get worked up over the Atlanta Braves or the Washington Redskins, but I found this display to be especially tasteless. For one, this was not history, just an excuse to paint up kid’s faces and give them a cheap, feathered headband. And if these Germans had any real idea what misery, poverty and frustration comprise a real, honest-to-God reservation, I don’t think they would have decided to mock one. Just imagine if a bunch of Americans set up a mock concentration camp in the middle of the mall and started handing out the children yellow, six-pointed stars. Both systems were utilized to exclude and eliminate an unwanted minority population.

The kid with the stripes on his face and a feather in his hair doesn’t look so cute anymore, does he?