Mayor Boris Palmer of Tubingen, Germany, faces expulsion from the Green Party after spelling out the N-word in what he says was an “ironic” Facebook comment about former football player Dennis Aogo, after decrying cancel culture.
Palmer had initially made a post criticizing “cancel culture” after both Aogo and former Arsenal Football Club goalkeeper Jens Lehmann were sanctioned this past week for comments they had made.
Lehmann was fired from his position at Hertha Berlin for calling Aogo a “token black guy” in a private message which was accidentally sent to Aogo himself, while Aogo also soon resigned from his own position at Sky Sport for making remarks about training “to the point of gassing.” Both men have apologized for their comments.
After both Aogo and Lehmann left their positions, Palmer denounced “cancel culture” on Facebook, writing, “Lehmann gone. Aogo gone. Is the world better now?… The furor with which storms on the web can destroy existence is getting worse.”
It was during a discussion in the comments section that Palmer then made his controversial remark, writing: “Aogo is a bad racist. Has offered women his n****r d**k.”
Palmer was reportedly quoting another user who had used the N-word in a comment about Aogo, and the mayor has argued he was using the quote for ironic purposes.
On Saturday, the Greens’ co-leader Annalena Baerbock condemned Palmer’s post, calling it “racist and repulsive.”
“Appealing to irony afterwards does not undo it. The whole thing is part of ever new provocations that exclude and hurt people,” she declared, adding that Palmer “has therefore lost our political support.”
Baerbock concluded by announcing that the party’s state and federal committees were currently discussing “consequences, including the exclusion process” for Palmer.
In his own statement on Saturday, Palmer called accusations of racism against him “absurd,” and noted he was not the original author of the comment that included the slur.
“To give the toxic impression that I am the author of the sentence with the N word and therefore a racist” is an outrage, he said, branding the controversy “a classic s**tstorm.”
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