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This picture of the Obamas got one Belgian newspaper in a heap of trouble

Christopher Bedford Former Editor in Chief, The Daily Caller News Foundation
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De Morgan, a progressive newspaper in Belgium, is in trouble after it printed a racist, altered picture of President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama in an article making fun of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The picture causing the most offense depicts both of them as monkeys. The other image depicts a smiling Obama with the words, “First black president of the USA starts selling weed.”

Obama is in Europe to commemorate World War I and discuss Putin’s recent invasion of Ukraine with other European Union and NATO leaders.

The daily Flemish paper, which apologized on Monday, printed the picture as a joke under Putin’s byline. The paper was attempting to mock Putin and the two leaders’ public fight.

Here’s a picture, as tweeted by Chika Unigwe:

 

“When you consider the fragment apart from its context, which is a properly worked out satirical section, then you don’t see the joke but just a picture evoking sheer racism,” an article from a journalist at the paper reads. “We wrongly assumed that racism is no longer accepted, and that in this way it could be the subject of a joke.”

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