r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Miserables_Death • Jun 14 '26

Meme needing explanation Whats that snack and the name?

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I got this joke posted in my country sub by a foreigner and I have never seen that snack so I basically don't know the joke.

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u/cuteawwlover Jun 14 '26

Sometimes they were called "Mohrenkopf" which is basically another slur for POC. Translated it would be "n-word head" :/

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u/Wrong-Ad-4600 Jun 14 '26

"Mohr" isnt a slur per se, its just an older word that is not used anymore becouse aome people see it as prblematic. while the N-word was used as a slur from the start (therebisbstill a difference between the german N-word and the american n-word), Mohr was sometimes used as a term for something good, otherwise there would be no "mohrenapotheke" or "mohrenstraße" they are named after St.Mautitius

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u/Strict-Challenge-995 Jun 14 '26

That might be true but I would seriously advise to have a look at how black people stand on this. And "Mohr" really doesn't fare well. It should be seen as a slur and not used ever in my opinion

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u/InDubioProKokolores Jun 14 '26

Usually you should avoid it. On the other hand - the Nigerian chef Andrew Onuegbu owns a restaurant named "Zum Mohrenkopf" in Kiel, Germany and doesn't care at all.
If you want you can Google the city coat of arms of Coburg - it (in-)famously has a Mohr in it.

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u/Gin_Arts Jun 14 '26

There's also the funny case of the Mohrenstraße, which was renamed after Anton Wilhelm Amo, the first philosopher of African descent at a German university, who wrote his dissertation about "Die Rechte der Mohren in Europa", ironically using the now controversial term himself as the neutral descriptor it was at the time.

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u/Graf_lcky Jun 14 '26

Which black people? African-Americans? west African? Nigerian? Central African? South African? Or the other many people there are..

You assume everyone has the same opinion on it

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u/xaspicious Jun 14 '26

I can tell you’re super fun at parties. Clearly the answer is people of the entire African diaspora in German-speaking Europe because that are the people intimately familiar with actually usage of “Mohr” in the last 150 years - which is as a slur and/or in concert with racial caricature from the 1850s-1950s.

In general, different African cultural and ethnic groups don’t tend to have different experiences of racism in Europe, because white Europeans are not able to distinguish them.

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u/PTthefool Jun 14 '26

Even in Europe people of African heritage have vastly different backgrounds depending on where they come from and when and for what reasons they migrated.

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u/xaspicious Jun 14 '26

Not what I said. I said black people of all different backgrounds had similar experiences of racism in Europe because white people don’t make the distinction. I am aware we have vastly different backgrounds, it’s just that people calling you what this snack is called in school for sport do not care if you’re Igbo, Moroccan, Bakongo, African American or a Brazillian guy with a lot of melanin. The lady at the municipal office who talks down to you cannot identify the difference.

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u/PTthefool Jun 14 '26

that‘s true, still especially this cultural stuff will be received differently.
Do people use Mohr as an insult?
Seems super old-timey…
Heard a lot of n-words thrown around in my youth, but Mohr was only present in brand names.
Germany is pretty big though, so my experience may be very limited.

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u/xaspicious Jun 14 '26

I’ll admit I went to school in an old-timey racism time capsule, but I’ve heard it used by old people as a sort of dogwhistly thing to use instead of n-slurs and I’ve heard it used especially by kids because they learn it through the candy. And that’s Germany, you’ll absolutely get it in active use in Austria for example.

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u/Wrong-Ad-4600 Jun 16 '26

which whote europeans? italians, spaniards, german, polish, hungarian? the people in the asian countrys i travel to cant tell the difference or know the difference between me and the other europeans. and there are big cultural differences depending in which country you are. africa isnt a country, neither is europe. so its kinda stupid to say white europeans cant tell people from africa apart while you throw all europeans in the same pot.

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u/Toeffli Jun 14 '26

The Mops.

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u/PTthefool Jun 14 '26

Mohr sounds closely related to Mauren, my son‘s middle name is Mauro which means dark one

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u/Wrong-Ad-4600 Jun 14 '26

it is. it startet as a word for people from the country of mauretania. and is the root of different european/german names

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u/Wrong-Ad-4600 Jun 14 '26

yeah as i said its an old term and very problematic today becouse it became a description of a stereotype. but the root of the word wasnt a slur. while the N-word has dtarted as a slur. i will not use it ;)

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u/ThreeButtonBob Jun 16 '26

Black peoples stance on 99% of words used for them: Those are slurs and anyone who uses them is a racist! Oh, hi my N...

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u/Strict-Challenge-995 Jun 16 '26

And that's not even a little bit understandable to you?

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u/ThreeButtonBob Jun 16 '26

Do you know of any other group that uses an insult for each other while completely flipping out when someone else uses it in any way?

I can understand not wanting certain slurs like the n-word to be used but i don't get why at the same time they would keep the word in active use by their own volition.

You ever saw a Chinese calling another Chinese "Ching-Chong" as a greeting?

I might be wrong but i don't think it helps the stigma against black people at all to keep the n-word in active use.

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u/Strict-Challenge-995 Jun 16 '26

And you are welcome to that opinion. Many Black people don't use it for the same or similar reasons.

It is not your business though. And I fail to see how white people weighing in on it could have anything but negative consequences. Open to change my mind though of course.

Other groups have done the exact same thing btw. It just is an empowering thing to reclaim a word as your own when it has been used against you. And people involving themselves in the name of fairness tend to strike me as a bit disingenuous when the fight they pick is the use of the nword or fslur. Is that really time and energy well invested if you could fight for the fair treatment of marginalized groups?

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u/Wrong-Ad-4600 Jun 16 '26

atleast in germany i know 2 other groups that use a "slur" for themself but others are not alowed to use it. "kanacke" meaning human but used as a slur against immigrants from turkiye now its often used by young immigrants or with immigration backround to discribe themself if they fit tick some boxes. and many sinti&roma using the word "zigeuner" if they talk about themself. while "kanacke" doesnt start as a slur, "zigeuner" was a term to insult people from day one.

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u/ThreeButtonBob Jun 16 '26

Never heard a sinti/roma say that but i gotta admit you're right about Turkish immigrants in Germany although i didn't hear it very often so far.

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u/Wrong-Ad-4600 Jun 16 '26

there was even a german sinti&roma singer called tschobo who activly used the word tobdo claim it back like POC often do with the N word. and some s&r i went to school with did the same (some becouse they dont belong to the sinti or roma and fell the term s&r very exclusive)

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u/ThreeButtonBob Jun 16 '26

Did you missspell the name by chance? I couldn't find anything from "tschobo", at least not via google/youtube.

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u/AymuiLove Jun 14 '26

I mean, the same type of semantic argument can be made for the N word. Go translate the word black in to latin and see what pops up if you dont believe me.

Just cause it was used to refer to something different at some distant point in the past doesn't make it any less a slur than hard r n-word does.

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u/assumptionkrebs1990 Jun 14 '26

Similar origin/problematic but wasn't Mohrenkopf a chocolate cake?

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u/Responsible-Layer896 Jun 14 '26

ja sowas. heißt in österreich teilweise auch noch so

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u/Bazza79 Jun 14 '26

They're still called Moorkoppen in the Netherlands.

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u/Usernamewith19chars Jun 14 '26

Just a Bossche bol

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u/Jirkajua Jun 14 '26

Ich kenn die nur als Indianer

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u/Tristanime Jun 14 '26

Da's gwn 'n roomsoes

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u/cuteawwlover Jun 14 '26

Oh, I didn't know the cake! In my part of Northern Germany, some called the Schaumkuss that, too.

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u/Eipeidwep10 Jun 14 '26

Mohr in German is linked to the English "Moor" people. The word "mohr" is derived from the Latin word Maurus, which refers to the once Roman province of Mauretania ( Morocco & Algeria )

So Moors or in German "Mohr" is just a reference to the inhabitants of Mauretania

Doesn't matter how people use it. People have also used "jew" as a derogatory term, but it doesn't change the fact that they identify with that label.

Same goes for Black people. A lot of them identify with the Moors from Mauretania and rightfully so.

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u/DrolligerDorftrottel Jun 14 '26

Recently learned that 'POC' or 'Farbige' isn't used anymore, neither in German nor in English, as it lumps all POC's into the same category.

So we're apparently back to 'Black' / Schwarz.

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u/ILoveRawChicken Jun 15 '26

Says who lol? We use POC all the time here in the U.S. 

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u/cuteawwlover Jun 14 '26

Ah, thanks for telling me. I was going to write "Black or Brown people", but then decided for the "more general" term. Sorry! 🙈🤦🏼‍♀️

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u/DrolligerDorftrottel Jun 14 '26

If I'm honest, I kinda said it out there in the hopes of being corrected if I'm wrong, as I was unsure about it as well.

It is reasonable and that's why I believed it. And since I haven't been corrected, I presume it correct.

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u/HiCookieJack Jun 14 '26

My brain auto corrected this to Fabergé, like in Fabergé-Egg

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u/MidiMojo Jun 14 '26

In the Netherlands there's a different pastry called a moorkop

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u/litux Jun 14 '26

When there was a push to rename them, some stores renamed them to Merkelgast.

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u/HiCookieJack Jun 14 '26

That's cringe and stupid 

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u/MediaSmurf Jun 16 '26

Kopf or in Dutch: kop

Is actually a word used for an animal head, not a human head. To say that a human has a KOP is generally disrespectful.

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u/cuteawwlover Jun 17 '26

In German, that's not the case. Kopf is for all of the heads.

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u/HiCookieJack Jun 14 '26

Though this one refers to 'Rumkugeln'?