Do you have kids? Do you work with kids? Have you ever seen a 4-10 yr old be actively and openly racist?
1 Like
but that’s not what you said, and it’s not what I said
ETA - and yes, I have seen someone under 10 doing a Nazi salute, because he saw it on TV or something, and had to be told that “no, you don’t do that, not ever”
1 Like
If you had to dress up as 80s actress Meg Foster for Halloween, you would obviously use contact lenses to simulate her hereditary pigmentation, and I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that. (Though actually, it’s plausible that Meg Foster would)
The logic of white people who change their skin tone to dress up as specific black people is obviously along the same lines. But there’s two things about that. First, you’re saying that person’s skin color is a thing that stands out about them, but by definition, that is not true of the great majority of black people, unless you see every instance of brown skin as an un-get-overable stigma. Second, since you obviously know this is a Thing with History behind it, you’re making a conscious choice to bring that up, so you can’t feign surprise when that’s what people want to talk about.
7 Likes
I’m sure there would be campaigns against the hospital if they hadn’t fired her. Americans seem to love symbolic gestures like that, never mind who gets hurt in the process. In a more sensible country people don’t go looking at private Halloween pictures from the staff to decide if a hospital is reliable.
Firing her may work to prevent expressions that are seen as racist, but it will, unfortunately, not stop racism.
1 Like
On the other hand, letting the expression of racism go unmentioned and unpunished creates an environment where people may think that racism is okay
One of the worst developments of the Trump era is the emboldening of racists. I don’t think it’s inappropriate to put a lid on this kind of thing.
14 Likes
I feel like the culture at large needs to do a better job of explaining why blackface costumes are almost always racist, and at the very least problematic… We see these stories pop up where the perpetrators are shamed and fired, but for many observers this seems like deeply unfair treatment, and ultimately breeds resentment about “political correctness.” In other words, calling these people out might cause more hard than good if we’re not explaining why this is wrong every time.
Just a year ago I had a very smart (and ostensibly not racist) family member ask at a family dinner why people should get in trouble for blackface costumes… I was staggered because I just assumed that everyone I know is on board with this. So I kind of rambled on about how it is offensive because it calls back to days when live performance was segregated, when white performers would emulate stereotypical black culture, and how dressing up as a “homie” is pretty much like Bing Crosby doing a “negro spiritual” because it denies entire groups of people their individuality and reinforces negative stereotypes, and yadda yadda… It’s actually a very hard thing to encapsulate into a few sentences. But the whole experience opened my eyes to what other people might be seeing when these stories come up… Not everyone has the same takeaway.
3 Likes
I agree with this and that the costume was wrong and in extremely poor taste. But, to the earlier comment, firing someone for this kind of poor taste seems overly extreme to me. Yes, there should be consequences, but ruining someone’s life over a mostly-harmless bad choice just seems way out of scale – especially when we have upper management/executives who routinely skate on offenses that are WAAAAAY worse than this.
How about we start with some kind of mandatory training on racial sensitivity? Let’s try to do something about the ignorance before ruining a career.
Just my opinion, man.
1 Like
Eh. I honestly don’t have a super strong opinion on this one. Blackface has been radioactive for a long time, and I have no idea if mandatory training is actually going to have much effect.
Personally, I’d be all in favor of never doing Halloween at work. Just ban it like we ban dating
3 Likes
Fired for being black - now you know how that feels. Welcome to the real America.
7 Likes
But in this day, it’s not that they simply didn’t get the news. They have a thought-structure (a meme in the original sense) that filters their perceptions and intercepts value-judgements. (“Is this racist?” “No no, you’re fine!”)
In cult-watcher circles there are no good answers for how to cut through that kind of thing to make them snap, wake or whatever. Non-forcible talk therapy can work, but the lightbulb has to want to change.
5 Likes
The thing is we will never know if there were any intermediate steps leading up to termination of employment. It’s entirely possible that this was the last straw, or that feeling indignant she doubled down.
4 Likes
Where’s that “THIS!” gif when you need it?
Pretending ignorance is not an excuse!
1 Like
Offensive to whom? A child that hasn’t been told that it is wrong could easily use blackface when dressing as Black Panther. Why shouldn’t he? Being black is part of what Black Panther is. It’s “wrong” only given a historical context that a child might be totally unaware of.
Imagine a better world 100 years from now when racism has been eradicated. Do you think people will still cringe at people using makeup to change their skin color?
2 Likes
10 Likes
I think it says something about how she might treat patients (and coworkers) who aren’t white. That might be something to fire her over, considering that her jobs is literally helping to care for her fellow human beings.
15 Likes
That is true, but the post on Boing Boing described the picture by itself as an offense worth being fired for.
it’s a parent’s responsibility to educate their child though. Teach them not to hurt other people, even unintentionally, which includes not running with scissors and not dressing in blackface.
And while I can imagine a future where this ceases to be offensive, it’s more than 100 years away, and there’s no longer anything recognizable as the USA in it
4 Likes
Of course not, but we’re not there yet!
1 Like
Actually the connotation and taboo is largely originating in/from the US. So yes, there are quite a few people not living in the USA who have no idea.
3 Likes
Dressing up as a person or character of another race is great — there’s no reason why a white kid can’t be Black Panther. But not recognizing or caring that blackface contains a huge amount of historical baggage is an issue.
It’s the lack of recognition/caring about the context that’s the problem.
Consider: dressing as a ghost (a dead person) is fine. Dressing as a Jew who had died of malnutrition and abuse in a Nazi death camp? Not ok.
In this case, the willingness to not care about the history of blackface puts it on the racist side.
Of course. But not in blackface. See above.
I’m not sure this is correct (but I could happily be wrong). I’m sure that there are many kids who feel like making their skin color “correct” would be as much a part of the costume as making their hair color “correct.” I don’t think kids “naturally” know that hair color and skin color are expected to be treated differently until they are taught that.
I think the reason we don’t want a kid to wear blackface is because of the historical context of blackface, as well as the general history/culture of stereotyping a person — removing their personhood — based on skin color, in a way that we don’t do for hair color.
Had their been a history of violent racism against people with black hair, we probably wouldn’t want our modern children to be changing their hair color for Halloween either.
I think there are things that are read as racist for historical reasons. I remember as a five-year-old I saw the Nazi flag, thought it looked cool, and drew it at school. My teacher and parents then had a fairly in-depth conversation with me about the history and meaning of the symbol.
6 Likes
