What kind of topic is "directly attacking Europe and the United States" and "anti-discrimination" in Germany?

In the wake of the recent spate of the Russo-Ukrainian war, energy shortages, and high inflation, there has been a brief debate in Germany about "potatoes," except that it is not the price or taste of potatoes, but whether potatoes are an abusive word.

Just a few days ago, the German Bundestag voted to approve the appointment of Ferda Ataman, the federal anti-discrimination commissioner. And before the vote, because of her aggressive personality, some people had doubts about her. In the field of immigration, Ataman has made a lot of noise as a writer and journalist, and she has written a speech to Laschet, a former Minister of Immigration Integration in North Rhine-Westphalia and a former Unionist prime minister candidate in last year's election, in short, a scrappy and controversial pen. In the controversy, she faced a response to at least two specific questions: Why did she delete ten thousand tweets she had posted on Twitter, and what was she hiding? Why call the Germans "potatoes", is she creating social divisions? In Germany, the most acute area of anti-discrimination is anti-racial discrimination. The "potatoes" caught up in this field aroused my curiosity. I flipped through Ataman's op-ed in Der Spiegel two years ago to see how she had "insulted" Germans as columnists into potatoes in a serious media outlet.

She "scolded" really sharply. As a second-generation Turkish immigrant growing up in Germany, she was fed up with being passively divided into the former in the categories of "we" and "you." Since we are called "immigrant citizens", "immigrants", and "Germans with immigrant backgrounds", what do we call Germans without immigrant backgrounds, she said? Since there are "Russian Germans" and "Turkish Germans", should there be "German Germans"? Since the Germanic descendants were so keen to classify "others" by origin, religion, skin color, and hair color, what did they feel humiliated when they were called "white Germans" and "German potatoes"? In addition to potatoes, there are many alternative names: pork liver sausage, organic German, asparagus eater, white bread... If the titles are not satisfactory, they can also be given politically incorrect "Germans with Nazi backgrounds", "German natives", and "single Germans". Ataman noted that police don't label criminals or suspects as "potatoes with a history of criminals," but German police have a special concept of "Nafri" to identify people with criminal records from North Africa. Finally, Ataman concludes that the essence of the problem is power, and white Germans are reluctant to let go of their right to define. In an immigrant society, we can't let a group of people define who should be called, then we simply call each other, until one day, everyone completely abandons the behavior of categorization.

Regardless of whether the potato is insulting or not, first explain why it is a potato. Potatoes stand out from the crowd because there are not many grains and vegetables produced in Germany, potatoes are one of them, and potatoes are really popular in Germany. In the face of new job opportunities, Ataman responded to past articles by saying that she wanted to vividly illustrate what it's like to be classified and labeled by calling Germans "potatoes" and what it's like to be asked "where are you from?" all the time. People with the same immigrant background explained the "potato" label in a media commentary: out of a helpless response to their own unfair encounters, it is just a stem.

Let's talk about pork liver sausage, in order to illustrate the use of this word, let's insert an international news that happened not long ago. Since the Russo-Ukrainian War, Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Melnik, has been very active in criticizing the German government. The Ukrainian side has said that it does not welcome the visit of the German president, and Melnik believes that German Chancellor Schoelz is angry about this incident and refuses to visit Ukraine, and calls Scholz "angry liver and intestines". German liver sausages are usually sausages made of pork and pork liver, and the phrase means that someone is offended or insulted and angry, but there is no valid reason to be angry. Melnick speaks very fluent German, and he clearly has some "swear" quotes, and skillfully uses them in inter-state diplomacy, appearing to be not paying attention to good relations with Germany, a major EUROPEAN power. An entertaining German butcher shop owner sent the ambassador a packet of pork liver sausages, and Melnik responded to the matter on Twitter and, incidentally, satirized German politicians. It seems that not only ordinary people in Germany, but even diplomats are using such language, although such words are not elegant.

As for "organic German", it means purebred Germans who are not mixed with any "impurities". The word originated from a comic strip in the 1990s. A man in the painting says to his neighbor with a mustache and tea in his hand: "The difference between me and you is that you are a fake German, a fake, and I am the real thing, an organic German." Interestingly, the word "forgery" used in the cartoon is the same word as the German word for "Turk", that is, noun verbization, meaning counterfeit, forgery.

I think of a German friend who told me about my encounter in a bar. After a large group of gypsies poured into the bar and left, several Germans in the bar began to talk about foreigners, one of whom said that his ancestors were already German in the 18th century. This friend of mine then told him that before the 18th century, your family may have been Slavs, and you can't deceive people in the back of your head. The man was so angry that he almost moved his hand. As a pure foreigner who does not belong to either the mainstream pureLy German or the ethnic Turks, who are overwhelmingly dominant in minorities, I can hardly imagine that this kind of genealogical ostentation may be similar to that of some people in our country who say, "My ancestors were peasants for eighteen generations.", and the comedic effect sounds the same.

After Ataman's election, "Ataman" became a hot label on Twitter, and the evaluation of her and the opinion of her new official were divided into two factions: one faction applauded, believing that to fight discrimination caused by race, gender, age, and social status, a real warrior was needed, even if she appeared politically incorrect. The other, of course, is singing the praises of the government, arguing that the government has recruited a racist.

About a decade ago, the then family minister said that hatred against Germans should be vigilant. On campuses, on the subway and on trains, German children and teenagers are verbally called "German potatoes" and "German sluts" by people with immigrant backgrounds, which is also a form of racism and xenophobia, not just hatred of foreigners, anti-Semitism and anti-Muslims, she said. Reports from judges and police also indicate that hatred of Germany, particularly among adolescents of Turkish and Arab origin, is on the rise.

Before Ataman's election, many feared that people with such an aggressive personality would only divide society more, not bring about dialogue and reconciliation. I'm also curious to see if she'll be the same as always, tit-for-tat, or where she'll say something, as she said in response to herself deleting previous tweets.