Theres also a saying " Mohrenwäsche ". It means to try to wash an anyhow guilty person clean. So here is the association of Mohr with guilt. So Mohrenkopf is anyhow denigrating

You might want to check up on the etymology of that word before you use it.

Just sayin'.

seems ok to me

An honest question for you:

If you can accept that there are people that feel demeaned/denigrated/offended by the name Mohrenkopf, why is it so important for you to keep this name? Apologies if I misunderstood this, it just comes across this way.

I didn't grow up with the name Mohrenkopf, so I personally feel no attachment to it. I did however grow up with the Golliwog in the UK and when it was phased out I felt nothing. It was just a name connected to a brand or marmalade, and now it's gone I don't miss it (even if I liked it as a child, not knowing what it represented).

Nigris = ancient river from mythology that sympolically represented the border between Mepopotamia and Egypt.

Nigrate = the act of crossing said river, moving to Egypt and hence becoming African. Ptolemy and Pythagoroas were famous nigrates.

Denigrate = to do the reverse and leave Egypt. This was considered an unworthy and scanadlous thing to do, Egypt having much more ptrustic hillogliphs than Metopopamia. Hence the negative connotation of the word.

My great grand father was the slave of a man called Dan.

Therefore your user name demeans me.

Will you change it?

If not, why not?

I'm honestly interested.

In Germany they still call it Negerküss!!

Love the bit describing the stories about the elephant.

Can you imagine that today..?

I didn't even know that word, I bet OP doesn't either. Plus, just because one obscure double-noun has a negative meaning doesn't mean its components do as well. Nah, I don't accept that.

If Mohrenkopf is offensive, what about people called Mohr, anglicized into Moore? Michael Moore is a guy who harps on quite a lot about people being suppressed and so on. But why doesn't he change his offensive name?

What about the German proverb based on Friedrich Schiller's famous words?

Der Mohr hat seine Schuldigkeit getan, der Mohr kann gehen

Firstly, to make a good analogy you'd have to get the basic components right. The slavers were the Brits, Germans, Dutch and Swiss (would you believe it? ) amongst others (Europeans mostly).

The Moors (not Moores by the way, to answer your other post) were the enslaved in this case (when the Mohrenkopf was created).

Look... lets just get to the point. You'd need to eat your own head, before I would change any names

OK, so you are basically saying there are differnt levels of taking offense, and some of these are valid and others are not? And one's right to take offense is based on things that happened before any of us were born?

have I got this right?

It's trivial: OP wants others, strangers most of all, to do something for him. Clearly that deserves more than just "It's racist and that's how it is" even more so when it comes from a non-native German speaker.

No, I'm saying your analogy doesn't make any sense. The Mohrenkopf wasn't taken from the name of the slavers, it was taken from the name of the slaves. Therefore being offended by the word Dan is like being offended by the word Switzerland in your anaolgy.

No one is asking for the word Switzerland to be changed, even if there is a history of slave owning.

edit: Tom, what are you groaning about this time? Seems the lady doth protest too much

No, they weren't.

Please show me an instance of any enslaved Moor, except perhaps by Arabs.

Certainly there were no Moor slaves in Switzerland, unless brought here on vacation.

Tom

Exactly. They were soldiers. They were an army. They spread fear and terror but were ultimately defeated and finally mocked.

They didn't pick cotton or make jazz. You've got your continents mixed up.

the only thing we know is that it was first used in Leipzig in 1892. we don't know why the baker used the name but probably because he had the impression it was a commercially interesting name in 1892 and needs to be seen in the context of history. it was a commercial product. commercial products' main intention is to sell. not to insult.

quite the opposite actually: http://www.historynet.com/how-long-d...ite-slaves.htm

Yes true, you got me there, the English and German words do not have the same meaning. So Mohrenkopf means "dark skinned head" essentially.

Switzerland was in the slave trade involving people of dark skin, or in German "Mohren".

I didn't read about any "Mohren" slaves in Switzerland, however some Swiss families did own plantations with slaves. I think Switzerland's main involvement was financially through it's banks, rather than ownership.

Any chance you could not groan at me again? I'm just answering your question.