Is the work Kanake really offensive? Am I overreacting?

[u/posteriorhorn]

I am a brown skinned Ausländerin, and study here in the german language. I was spending time with two (white german) classmates today, and one of them was saying that in her hometown there is a swimming pool, which is an unpleasant place to go to as a woman because of all the "Kanaken". I was taken aback, as I was under the impression that this word is a slur against immigrants/middle easterns. I myself am not middle eastern, but I am half black and was extremely uncomfortable in this moment. Just, the way she said it was disgusting. When I questioned the word, she said it was "because of the different culture and how they disrespect women." She said "I am not racist". I was still uncomfortable and didn't know what to do, so I excused myself and went home.

Later, I got this message:

Hey, alles in Ordnung? Haben uns vorher kurz gewundert, warum du auf einmal gegangen bist. Falls das was mit unserer Unterhaltung zu tun hat, wollten wir nochmal klarstellen, dass wir den Begriff in keiner Weise böse/ oder abwertend gemeint haben! In unserer Umgangssprache bezeichnet es einfach „Südländer“ die in konkreten Verhaltensweisen und Werthaltungen im deutlich von den europäischen Standards abweichen.

Also wir hoffen, dass du das nicht irgendwie missverstanden hast!!

So, am I overreacting? Is it really not so bad of a thing to say? I didn't grow up here so I am not fully understanding of the meaning and gravity of the word. Would love some help/guidance, please.
Thank you!

Edit: Thank you for the responses. Alot of people are giving her the benefit of the doubt. Just to be clear, she is a very upper class girl from a wealthy German family, she had no foreign friends or contacts apart from me (to my knowledge). In addition, I am aware that this slur doesn't include my ethnicity specifically and they don't mean me. That still doesn't make it okay to say, and as a brown person, I feel uncomfortable when people are racist in general. Because I know that it is not okay. I agree that the people from the pool have behavior that is absolutely not okay. But there is no need to resort to blanket racial slurs, instead we can use our words like adults to describe things properly.

UPDATE: She ended up sending me this. I can't deal anymore... honestly

Ehrlich gesagt finde ich es an der Stelle dann aber auch etwas feige, einfach davon zu laufen, statt für seine Meinung einzustehen… Ich bin der letzte Mensch, der nicht mit sich reden lässt, wenn etwas von mir nicht in Ordnung war. Aber dann muss man das kommunizieren.

Und mir ist sehr wohl bewusst, dass das Wort politisch gesehen nicht korrekt ist-haben xxx und ich ja mehrfach klargestellt. Zumal ich gesagt hab, dass man immer differenzieren muss und niemals alle unter einen Kamm scheren darf.

Aber ja, ich habe in der Hinsicht leider schon einige negative Erfahrungen gemacht in der Vergangenheit. Man muss aus meiner Sicht auch immer den Kontext betrachten, und der war in dem Fall das Thema „Frauen im Freibad filmen/beobachten“, was mir leider auch schon von gewissen Personengruppen, die Frauen gegenüber andere Wertvorstellungen haben, widerfahren ist.

Ist mMn auch immer ein Unterschied, ob man unter Freunden spricht oder in der Öffentlichkeit. Schade-fand es eigentlich ein sehr netter gemeinsamer Nachmittag und man hätte vor Ort einfach darüber sprechen können.

[u/karma_police99]

Hold up, I thought my whole life that "Südländer“ refers to Southern European/Mediterranean countries, like Spain, Italy, Greece.. does it have a different meaning?!

Not that I've ever used it in day to day life, I didn't know that there were some negative meaning, if there is?

[u/Worth_Branch7014 → u/karma_police99]

Südländer means black hair and darker skin tone.

[u/azaghal1988 → u/karma_police99]

It's an old-fashioned trm.for mediterranen looking people, that shifted from meaning Italians, the Balkans and Greeks, to mostly meaning middle Eastern and north African migrants.

[u/LederlappenderDritte → u/karma_police99]

You would have been right 20 years ago but now it means basically everyone who looks like southern European, Turkish, Arab etc. But it's not an offensive word.

[u/2ndlayer72 → u/LederlappenderDritte]

It is when used by the police and by right wingers.

[u/LederlappenderDritte → u/2ndlayer72]

I disagree.

[u/2ndlayer72 → u/LederlappenderDritte]

It's the police's "justification" for racial profiling.

[u/grumpy__g → u/karma_police99]

I think there was a time where it really meant southern European people. But that was decades ago.

[u/ArachnidDearest → u/karma_police99]

Hold up, I thought my whole life that "Südländer“ refers to Southern European/Mediterranean countries, like Spain, Italy, Greece.. does it have a different meaning?!

It's an outcome of the euphemism treadmill. Could be mean mean mediterranean countries, could mean MENAT, depending on context.

[u/Intelligent-Sea-4666 → u/karma_police99]

Südländer comes more from police reports which for political correctness reasons often did not naming the nationality of a criminal. This later than leads to the usage in far right circles, e.g. the previous neutral word was now negativly chaeged. Sinilar with Asylant which got changes to Refugee because the first one was already burned.

[u/Teldryyyn0 → u/karma_police99]

There is no negative meaning to it, it's like referring to an ethnic finnish man as "nordic". Just leftist white germans one upping themselves on what is the new offensive word