The cabaret artist Monika Gruber has rejected accusations of racism in connection with her new book and justified the controversial passage as satire in a newspaper interview. “I think I was still relatively harmless given the fact that this lady would like to push everyone who calls knitting her hobby into the right corner, so I have no sense of injustice in this case,” said Gruber to the Augsburger Allgemeine “. “Or as Bruno Jonas would say: Yes, where are you?”
In her book “Welcome to the Wrong Film,” Gruber complains about a real-named user of the platform Actively deal with who offers what and who offers offers.” That’s nonsense and the blogger Roma Maria M. is a guardian of virtue, it says in the book. What a woman of this name does in the textile hobby scene is a mystery; Gruber “placed her more in tantric Shakren gymnastics or a vegan primal scream seminar.”
M. then made it public that she found the passage offensive, racist and defamatory – and received a lot of support. M. also criticized the use of her full name, which was completely surprising for her. After studying educational sciences, she works as a practice manager in the healthcare system with a focus on right-wing extremism – and was confronted with hate messages in the course of the debate.
The publishing house Piper-Verlag, which, like Gruber, has since been criticized, said on Wednesday when asked that it had “sincerely apologized” to M. in a personal message. “We will thoroughly review the events internally,” announced a spokeswoman. Neither the publisher nor the authors had the intention to hurt anyone personally.
The controversial passage should therefore be adjusted. In addition, the names of those affected will not be mentioned in future editions. The printed book is currently no longer available, but “we are working on the adapted reprint,” said the spokeswoman. The passage change is expected to take effect in all forms of publication in mid-January, including audio and e-books.
It was not initially possible to find out whether Gruber and co-author Andreas Hock agreed with this approach. The 52-year-old emphasized in the “Augsburger Allgemeine” that the allegations had “no basis whatsoever.” She looks forward to a legal dispute calmly. “Anyone who speaks publicly about social issues must also accept that these statements will then be treated satirically.” The publisher did not want to comment on the recent statements of “the Gruberin”, as the Upper Bavarian likes to call herself.
