I’ve asked you before not to address me at all, on any subject; please abide.
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My wife is from Nigeria.
By all means…go ahead and walk through downtown Lagos in blackface. Let me know how that turns out for you.
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Let’s say a white guy is going to dress up as his favorite football player, Larry Csonka. It will never occur to him to wonder whether his complexion matches Larry Csonka’s. He’s white, Larry Csonka’s white. They “match.” If you ask the guy whether his skin tone matches Larry Csonka’s, he’ll probably say, “Huh? Who cares?” He’s not going to research this, going through his Larry Csonka photo albums so he can find just the right shade and paint his skin, so he can complete the look.
But when it comes to blackface, “somehow” this is totally different. Now skin color is a defining feature. Now your costume isn’t complete if you don’t approximate the person’s complexion. Now it matters. It’s “suddenly” not trivial. You can be Mercury Morris without those orange wristbands pushed up high, but without browner skin? Impossible. Does. Not. Compute.
If you think your costume isn’t complete without mimicking, copying, or approximating someone’s skin color, I think you should ask yourself why you think this.
[Edited my last paragraph because I used a wrong word, and it made it nonsensical.]
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Instead of getting hung up on the word racist (which has colloquial and more academic meanings, a fact that some people insist on ignoring), think of it this way:
It’s not always the same.
If a white person mocks black people, it’s just not the same as a black person mocking white people. Are they both unkind? Yes. Are they both disrespectful? Yes. Are they the same? No.
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Thank you; you just illustrated the difference between punching up and punching down.
If poor people talk shit about rich people they are punching up, because rich people have all the power and advantages, already.
If rich people talk trash about poor people, then they are punching down at a group that inherently has less power, resources and privilege.
That applies to any power dynamic.
That’s exactly why it’s important to watch it; it should make you uncomfortable and reevaluate the way you think and the way everyone around you thinks.
Nothing will change for the better unless we are brutally honest with ourselves (even when it hurts), and until we are wiling to do the hard work required.
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As an adult, aware of all the sensibilities around skin color, I agree.
Children just want to look ‘the same’. I think you’d agree a 5 year old Michael Jordan fan is not mocking or hating when he wants to be browner than his own winter-time-redhead color.
And about the kid doing the MLK speech. I get why he added the paint. He probably first tried just the mustache and then he looked like a very different character. 
Or, an actual example: I live in a neighborhood that is mostly black. I see non-white kids wearing masks like this every halloween:
Of course it’s not racist:
- they’re kids, they don’t have the context of meaning of changing one’s skin color
- (more contentiously, perhaps) they’re black kids putting on white masks, which doesn’t have the bigotry-plus-power relationship by which we define racism, and so again shows that this question is specifically about the history of black face and racism, and not that magically kids know not to notice skin color.
But I’m still annoyed with @anon61833566’s repeated assertion that kids will “naturally” never ask to have another skin color when in costume, because they somehow know that this is taboo (or they “don’t see” skin color), despite repeated examples to the contrary.
I asked my wife, because she is a teacher, if she had any examples of this with her kids, and instead she told me that when she was in elementary school she gave a speech as Harriet Tubman, and had to be told that it would not be ok to darken her skin. Again, no one thought she was racist for thinking it might be ok, they just thought she was a kid who didn’t know better.
It’s ok for kids to notice this and think like this. They get taught the history of racism and symbolism and how this is not ok. They also get taught not to point, burp loudly in public, and all sorts of other important things in our civilization.
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True.
Melz’ point about “punching up vs punching down” is the key.
There’s a big difference between “unkind” or “disrespectful” and “playing into powerful historical and cultural issues”. I think the issue is that people like Ms. Nurse, don’t realize that their privileged position automatically gives them huge “punching” power that they shouldn’t be using.
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A hospital that is any good thinks FIRST about their patients. Put yourself in the slippers and ass-exposing gown of an African-American patient at said hospital and Nurse Megyn came into your room to treat you. You’re alone with her, and you saw her “costume” on FB. Your anxiety level climbs, as you wonder whether she’s actually going to treat you like a person who needs care. Is she going to make a mistake in administering the dose of pharmaceutical that’s going into my IV? Is she going to pay close attention to my vitals, or pay more attention to the white person in the next room?
There is no room for that in medical care. Patients are anxious enough without adding the question of racist caregivers into the mix.
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Don’t feed the bots, you say. Roger that!
Yes, I agree we need to explain why blackface is offensive because I think many people don’t necessarily know why. I am struggling in my classroom lately with young boys, and particularly boys of color using the term “boy” at each other with that southern derogatory intonation that is so problematic. Every time I explain why that isn’t appropriate for school in a calm non-judgmental way because they just genuinely don’t know the history or the context. They are almost always using the term to put each other down, so they understand it more intuitively once I explain the context. I don’t know that that is the case with the woman emulating Beyonce, who may have genuinely thought she was honoring someone. (Though I doubt it.)
Actually “don’t tempt the mods/staff” is what I say, comrade.
She was still a person of privilege in a position of power; she made a stupid choice and now she’s suffering the consequences.
That answer really depends upon each person’s own core values, and if you have to ask… well then, I don’t know what to tell you… other than don’t be surprised if people from different walks of life get highly vexed with your ideas and behavior.
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There are always people who are going to find something to worry about whether rational or not. What about a white patient and a black nurse who has written about ‘black lives matter’ and the patient gets anxious because in his mind this is the same as saying that other lives don’t matter (not true, but lots of people seems to believe it)? How should the hospital react? Firing the black nurse or telling the white patient that his fears are unjustified? What about a muslim nurse being critical about Israel and Jewish patient worrying that she may be an antisemite?
Is there anything more annoying than someone posting a wall of text, then asking not to be replied to?
If you don’t want people to talk to you, maybe you could be the one who doesn’t engage
kids not being inherently racist is not the same as kids never doing anything that might be interpreted as racist, never doing anything that requires a helpful adult to step in and explain history a bit
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A nurse.
If I was black and had to avail myself of medical services, I wouldn’t trust the person providing the service If I knew that they had done themselves up in blackface. And especially if that person was going to jab a needle into my arm.
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“Won’t SOMEBODY think of the willfully ignorant racially insensitive white people??”
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Are you equating I-don’t-give-a fuck-about-black-people-and-what-they-have-been-through-and-continue-to-be-subjected-to-so-I’ll-don-blackface with ‘BLM’-exists-because-unarmed-blacks-continue-to-be-shot-and-cops-more-than-likely-get-away-with-it?
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That’s what it sounded like, when I read it.
And let’s be clear, when people of privilege in America do stuff like this; they are essentially saying:
“Fuck your feelings, fuck negative historical context, and fuck being a decent human being who cares about other people besides myself; I’ll do whatever I want!”
That’s the message being sent.
*Edited for typos
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I think you really should worry, because if it is too easy to fire people for trivial offenses then black people will be targeted as well. Doesn’t matter if you think the reasons are stupid. Who do you really have most to benefit from laws and traditions that make it harder to fire employees?
eh. the law already is what it is. No one is proposing making it easier to fire employees.
While I might favor stronger protections or better unions, this particular decision isn’t exactly breaking any new ground
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