 In the late 20th and early 21st centuries , several campaigners and writers characterised Tintin in the Congo as racist due to its portrayal of the Congolese as <unk> and stupid . According to Tom McCarthy , Hergé depicted the Congolese as " good at heart but backwards and lazy , in need of European mastery . " There had been no such controversy when originally published , because it was only following the Wind of Change and decolonisation , which occurred during the 1950s and 1960s , that Western attitudes towards indigenous Africans shifted . Harry Thompson argued that one must view Tintin in the Congo in the context of European society in the 1930s and 1940s , and that Hergé had not written the book to be " deliberately racist " . He argued that it reflected the average Belgian view of Congolese people at the time , one that was more " <unk> " than <unk> . Jean @-@ Marie Apostolidès supported this idea , as did biographer Benoît Peeters , who asserted , " Hergé was no more racist than the next man . " After meeting Hergé in the 1980s , Farr commented , " You couldn 't have met someone who was more open and less racist . " 
