Tintin racism too adult for tots

Tintin in the Congo, which has often been panned for Herge’s neo-colonialist attitude, has been removed from the children’s section of Borders stores in the UK due to the supposed racist content.

The Commission for Racial Equality said yesterday it was unacceptable for any shop to stock or sell the 1930s cartoon adventure of the Belgian boy journalist because of its crude racial stereotypes.

The book, which includes a scene where Tintin is made chief of an African village because he is a “good white man” and a black woman bowing to Tintin saying: “White man very great … white mister is big juju man!” was highly offensive, a spokeswoman from the commission said.

“This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the ’savage natives’ look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles,” she said.

Despite the complaints that the book should be removed, Borders announced it would move the offending tome to the adult section and let adult readers make up their minds.