Politically-incorrect Obama Chicken Fingers
Pulled by German Producer After Test Run

After a finger-pointing furor during test marketing, a German firm has decided not to roll out its Obama-Fingers to the general market.

News magazine Der Spiegel reported on its website that Sprehe Feinkost of Lorup had given the name of America’s President to its new “tender, juicy” frozen breaded southern fried chicken fingers with curry dip. The news sparked outrage among political segments of the US African-American community.

“It’s racist and inappropriate,” said New York City Councilman Charles Barron, who called for a boycott of the company’s products. “We should do all that we can,” he added, “to see to it that no [company] disrespects the first black President.”

Judith Witting, a sales manager for Sprehe, said that she didn’t know of the stereotype associating fried chicken with African Americans. This is probably true. The Jim Crow-era racist cliché of blacks as chicken stealing, watermelon eating dice throwers doesn’t appear known to many Germans.

Nevertheless, Sprehe Marketing Director Siegfried Kaiser said the Obama Fingers would not be sold outside of the two discount chains where it was test marketed.

Witting told Der Spiegel Online that “it was supposed to be a homage to the American lifestyle and the new US President.” She added: “We noticed that American products and the American way of eating are trendy at the moment. Americans are more relaxed. Not like us stiff Germans.”

The Sprehe Feinkost Group (www.sprehe.com) markets fresh and frozen chicken and turkey products. It processes 50 million chickens and 4.5 million turkeys a year, and also slaughters 400,000 pigs in its own slaughterhouse.

From Russia, With Gauche

Meanwhile, the most politically-incorrect Russian ice cream award goes to Andrey Gubaydullin and Vlad Derevyannykh for creating the Duet Ice Cream ad depicting a cartoon President Obama in front of the Capitol building. The ice cream is white in the inside and chocolate on the outside.

Ad copy has been translated by sources as saying, “The Flavor of the Week! Black in White! Chocolate in Vanilla,” or “Everyone’s talking about it: dark inside white!” In ad-speak, the white in this case is referring to the White House. Either way, could such a product escape lawsuits and picketing in the United States?