Murzynek Bambo

[1] Tuwim's poem, which was said to have been written to promote tolerance toward other ethnicities during interwar Poland, is seen by many as highly controversial with critics accusing the author of perpetuating harmful racial stereotypes.

[2] Historians note that Tuwim, who faced strong anti-Semitic sentiments during the interwar period, opposed Polish nationalist politics and its discrimination against ethnic minorities.

Writer Patrycja Pirog notes that the poem is a "story of an enlightened Europe trying to civilize a savage" which, despite its seemingly innocuous nature, perpetuates harmful primitivist stereotypes of European colonialism and contributes to promoting racist attitudes toward Black people in contemporary Poland.

[4] In the opinion of Margaret Ohia,[5] who researched racism in the Polish language at the University of California, the protagonist of the poem is presented as inferior to the presumably white reader.

[7] Referencing Alan Gribben's controversial attempt to expurgate Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, conservative journalist Adam Kowalczyk dismisses the notion that Murzynek Bambo promotes racism in Poland.