Only done by young gay boys in the 1970s.
(Seriously, I cosplayed as Laverne from Laverne and Shirley when I was a kid in the 70s)
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Dammit, Deadpool is appropriating furry culture!
Meow.
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This is true, but most examples you see are in America.
And more to the point of the thread:
I can agree that not every use of black face is used to demean or ridicule - but a lot of modern costumes today are meant to at the least poke fun - and the history of black face is absolutely to demean and ridicule.
I am a bit embarrassed to say this, but I didn’t realize that black face was NOT just done by white actors. They did the black face make up on black performers as well.
So, yeah. Like I have said in the past, I can point out a few specific examples of blackface in media that either served to make a point, or could possibly be chalked up to inappropriate, but not mean spirited (this includes a lot of things I have seen out of the UK, to make @FFabian 's point.) But the majority of examples don’t follow under the category. And just because one doesn’t mean to offend doesn’t mean it isn’t offense.
I mean, really, it is similar to the N-word. Clearly people can at times use this word not as a racial slur. But the vast history of its use and it’s continued use today is as a slur. So, uh, a if you aren’t black you really shouldn’t use it. You really have no business using it, even among people who know you, because of this complicated history of the word.
Why play with that sort of fire? To be edgy? More likely you just don’t think.
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A RESOLUTION
Welcoming Gritty, the new mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers, and honoring the spirit and passion that Gritty has brought to the City of Philadelphia and to the entire country, both on and off the ice.WHEREAS,
Gritty was introduced to an unprepared world as the Philadelphia Flyers’ new mascot on September 24, 2018, but his true age and origins remain cloaked in obscurity. His official bio merely notes that it was recent construction at the arena that disturbed his secret hideout and forced him to show his face publicly for the first time; andWHEREAS,
Gritty has been described as a 7-foot tall orange hellion, a fuzzy eldritch horror, a ghastly empty-eyed Muppet with a Delco beard, a cross of Snuffleupagus and Oscar the Grouch, a deranged orange lunatic, an acid trip of a mascot, a shaggy orange Wookiee-esque grotesquerie, a non-binary leftist icon, an orange menace, a raging id, and an antihero. He has been characterized as huggable but also potentially insurrectionary, ridiculous, horrifying, unsettling, and absurd; andWHEREAS,
The television host John Oliver opened one of his eponymous HBO shows by stating he would have preferred to spend the entire show on Gritty and now uses him as a symbol of something “hostile, consistently unsettling, temperamentally unpleasant and that screams who the […] allowed this to happen”; andWHEREAS,
When Gritty floated from the rafters of the Wells Fargo Center to the tune of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” on October 9, 2018, he also floated into our hearts and minds, weaving his googly-eyed stare, maniacal smile, and passion for hockey and hot dogs into our deep subconscious; andWHEREAS,
Gritty’s storied arrival into Philadelphia was met with all the expected magnanimity of a city with a reputation for colorful and ardent fans and a creative, if skeptical, media, but as soon as Philadelphians realized non-Philadelphians were also mocking Gritty, we rose immediately to his defense and irrevocably claimed him as our own; andWHEREAS,
Philadelphians have already demonstrated their creative, if occasionally jarring, love for Gritty by putting his inimitable face on protest signs, tip jars, wedding cakes, and tattoos; andWHEREAS,
At the same time that Gritty brings people together, the divisions in our current political and cultural life have rendered Gritty contested territory. Gritty has been widely declared antifa, and was subject to attempted reclamation in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. It has been argued that he “conveys the absurdity and struggle of modern life under capitalism” and that he represents a source of joyful comic respite in a time of societal upheaval; andWHEREAS,
A man who inked Gritty’s face onto his leg captured the feelings of countless Philadelphians: “At first, I was disgusted. I was like, what the hell is this? Why did you do this? Why is this a thing? It was like an hour after that I fell in love with him”; andWHEREAS,
Gritty’s National Hockey League debut, featuring a bottoms-up fall onto the ice, is a metaphor for the vulnerability that each of us face as we, too, skate onto the slippery ice that is life; andWHEREAS,
When the Pittsburgh Penguin took to social media and mocked Gritty for his appearance, Gritty responded, “Sleep with one eye open tonight, bird.” Gritty, like our steadfast commitment to justice in the face of adversity, will not be mocked or stopped; andWHEREAS,
As there is a small part of every Philadelphian embedded in the soul of Gritty, he is never alone. Gritty joins a renowned cadre of Philadelphia sports mascot colleagues that will teach him how to keep the spirits of Philadelphia sports fans high despite our inevitable misery. Together, the Phanatic, Franklin the Dog, Swoop, and now Gritty will remind us that even in the face of defeat, Philadelphia is Philadelphia because of the brotherly love, sisterly affection, and monsterly spirit that binds us together in confronting anyone who dares to speak critically of our beloved city; andWHEREAS,
While the initial reaction to Gritty’s entry into the public eye was negative, he has persevered and become an icon of hope and resistance. As Flyers COO Shawn Tilger explained after Gritty’s unveiling, “Seeing the strong positive reaction of 600 excited young students…we know we did the right thing”; andWHEREAS,
Gritty may be a hideous monster, but he is our hideous monster; now, therefore, be itRESOLVED,
That the Council of the City of Philadelphia welcomes Gritty, the new mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers, and honors the spirit and passion that Gritty has brought to the City of Philadelphia and to the entire country, both on and off the ice.Helen Gym
Councilmember At LargeOctober 25, 2018
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Nobody cares. If your employer has a social media policy that dictates code of conduct, it absolutely is a reason to fire someone. Whether or not it’s a good one is not relevant; it’s in your contract. After you’ve been fired, you can pay a lawyer all you want for wrongful termination based on your ex-employer’s code of conduct and the interpretation thereof; but the horse is pretty well out of the barn at that point.
TL;DR: yes your employer will absolutely throw you under the bus for PR reasons, and that social media policy you signed will allow them to do it.
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I’m also troubled by the idea that that is supposed to be Beyonce. Nothing about that looks like Beyonce. Racist and lazy.
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There’s not a T’Challa costume available this year, there’s a Black Panther costume.
@beschizza: Rob, somehow this 'shoop renders Gritty less creepy. Weird.
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But the term ‘blackface’ is widening quite a bit at the moment. It used to signify a specific style of (very offensive) makeup. The style of the blackface ‘minstrels’.
If someone dresses up as Michael Jordan , including darkening to match the skin tone, for a sports themed party, that’s not ‘Blackface’. At least not until recently.
So I can understand people dressing up quite innocently and inadvertedly offending a lot of people.
By the way, this doesn’t really make it ok IMO. Even if the blackface association is new, the association is still there and you have to take it into account when dressing up. Yesterday’s funny costume is tomorrow’s awful mistake (and vice versa).
To dress up as a dark person for halloween is a bit racist in itself though, regardless of the makeup style. It implies dark people are scary because of halloween. Though I admit I’ve seen lots of people who just wore random costumes at halloween parties last saturday.
Meowy Christmas!
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You are comparing different types of fruit. the symbol the Nazis usurped is =far older than that socio-political movement and had zero to do with race or racism. Nazism on the other hand does. And a child wouldn’t know that …again INHERENTLY…without being taught the historical context around it.
The point here and staying on topic is about someone deciding they must change their skin color to emulate a person in the terms of a costume. We discussed this ad nauseam in the Megyn Kelly thread. Dressing up in the clothing or style of someone is perfectly acceptable. If I were to dress as Diana Ross for Halloween, I would need to wear a wig to emulate her hair. This would be part f her style and would help instantly identify my “costume” as “70’s disco singer” and if the rest of the ensemble were right…people would say “Awesome Diana Ross costume”
I do not need to change my skin tone for this. Changing my skin color adds her blackness as another element to the costume. THIS IS NOT OK.
Children…by nature without any influence by a fuckwad adult DO NOT ASK FOR THIS. Now is it possible there was one child somewhere in human history that did…sure. But by and large the over whelming majority of children when asking to don a costume are never going to as to change their skin tone. They do not see the color of someone’s skin as a part of the costume.
The only exception to this would be if the costume was of a fictional character where in the skin color is part of the identity of the character. Example: A Smurf, Na’Vi, the Hulk, Thanos, Gamora, Nebula, etc. These are not representative of a race, they are fictional characters, aliens, creatures and therefore it is not the same.
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Brazil: “Hold my beer”
Nevermind the article in Portuguese, enjoy the pictures.
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Kids can totally just not know that blackface is bad, but that’s different from adults doing blackface.
(Remember this kid? I’m sure his intent was not to mock anyone, but still.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfwpcfI-Cx0)
The “Who, Me?” defense of blackface (I’m just emulating the appearance of a celebrity or whatever) is so silly. You don’t see the need to mimic someone’s height or eye color. You don’t make yourself appear left-handed because the real person is left-handed. You darken your skin because you believe the shade of someone’s skin somehow defines them. It is so significant—where something like eye color is not—because you have bought into the idea that (culturally constructed) race is the most important thing to know about someone.
If you’re white, and you dress up as some famous white person, do you feel the need to put makeup all over your face to match the person’s complexion?
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the Afro hairstyle is quite specifically and explicitly an expression of blackness. It is held as less offensive than blackface for reasons of history and culture, not because of any kind of immutable law.
ETA: but I would still be pretty cautious about stumbling into the whole “culture as costume” problem
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You know, when we make it so people aren’t fired (or not hired) simply for being LGBTQ+, for being mentally or physically ill and needing minor accomodation, for daring to get pregnant or wearing a hairstyle that is suited to their hair’s natural texture, then maybe, just maybe I will have time to wring my hands over the prospect of someone fired for choosing to showcase their racism. Because there is no way you can’t know that this is unacceptable, even if you don’t like that fact.
But since people can still be fired for all those other things… Nah. Not gonna cry here.
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Uh…
That’s not for you to determine.
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Replacing mouths with eyes and eyes with mouths is a very bot thing to do. I am not convinced you pass the turing test, beschizza.
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Hey…I’ve seen this movie!!!
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