German minister apologizes for comments on African men

Germany's Development Minister Gerd Müller apologized on Tuesday for making offensive comments about African men. Speaking from a UN climate change conference in Morocco, Müller said "I'm sorry, my statement was not very nuanced."

In a speech to conservative politicians, which was picked up by Germany's satirical news program the "Heute Show," the minister accused African men of being lazy drug addicts.

"When an African woman earns 100 dollars…she brings 90 dollars home. When an African man earns 100 dollars…what does he bring home? 30 dollars. You can be sure of what he uses the rest for: alcohol, boozing, drugs, women of course," said the member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).

Müller was excoriated on social media, not only for his racist statements, which he claimed were meant to empower women, but for the perceived absurdity of a development minister conflating all African countries with a single unit.

"This is repulsive racism, thinly disguised as pseudoscience. Such comments are not worthy of a cabinet minister," said Social Democrat (SPD) lawmaker Katarina Barley.

This is the second such faux-pas made by conservative German lawmakers in recent weeks, with EU finance minister-designate Günter Oettinger slammed for calling a delegation of Chinese diplomats "slant eyes" and implying that political correctness run amok would lead to "compulsory gay marriage."

es/se (AFP, dpa, KNA)