The best Mooney is a Full Harvest Mooney
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Then we are back to my original point: the meaning of words changes. What was a perfectly acceptable word, better than the alternatives, is now something you are not supposed to use except possible as a quote from historical times.
You really can’t get over trying to change the meaning of what you quote. When I talk about dressing up as a black person in cosplay, you change it into dressing up to stereotype black people, when I point out that this wasn’t the context you now turn it into blackface rather than clothes.
You might also consider if you think a genuine white racist would like his kids to have black idols and dress up like them, or would he be just as offended as you are?
I’ve already brought up several of the issues you mention to Kuna as real problems that need to be solved, but I still have problem comparing someone finding many year old photos of a politician with being poisoned by lead because no one cared about the water supply. Now, if Trudeau had been responsible for Flint and those photos turned up you might have worried about a connection.
Now you’re getting into the realm of cultural/racial appropriation, if you’re looking foe suggested reading.
Racism isn’t as much about personal attacks on color (bigotry), as it is for maintaining control, in the case of blackface (making it about something white people feel entitled to do to make the rules about how they interact or engage with POC).
edited for grammar
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Reminds me more of this video:
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Let’s break this down nice and simple:
White person + dark skin tone makeup = blackface
Not blue, not green, not grey, not purple. Not Klingon.
It’s not cosplay. Cosplay is dressing up as a particular character. You don’t need the makeup for that, as has been pointed out upthread a hundred times.
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Dressed up for charity event = racist x white male.
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Try readingt the wikipedia page if you think it is simple:
No, Trudeau was not responsible for Flint. What he is responsible for is a multi-racial electorate, many of whom need to wonder how good he’s going to be at protecting them from some of their increasingly toxic countrypersons.
On a less metaphorical note is the fact that Flint was caused by – and continues to happen due to – deep structural racism, much like tainted water (and other literally existential) crises that continue to happen in this country to Indigenous people.
As these things have been explained exhaustively by multiple people in this thread and many others, the only conclusion I can draw here is that anyone who refuses to understand the issues is simply unwilling to act in good faith or to listen.
Again, all I can offer is the excellent advice of Alexandra Erin:
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I can see the humor in this one, but it also burns me up, because there is someone in this family who’s getting this kid started early on misogyny, and that it’s perfectly acceptable to dismiss a woman’s concerns over his own.
I think there’s an adult that needs a few pop-pows on their butt. /s
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Who is releasing these images and videos? Who stands to gain?
They are being released by journalistic outlets, such as Time magazine and Global News. Though, technically, the “Arabian Nights” photo was originally released in 2001 by the yearbook committee of West Point Grey Academy in Vancouver.
If you are suggesting some political group or groups dug up these photos and videos and sent them to the news media in an effort to hurt Trudeau: well, that’s possible, but that doesn’t change the fact that he did what he did, and that the public should know about it.
However, it should be noted that it’s also likely that a former student without political motivations was looking at their old West Point Grey Academy yearbook and realized that Trudeau fucked up. It’s also possible that journalists researching Trudeau’s life were looking at the yearbook and discovered the picture. Once the “Arabian Nights” pic came out, though, it then became a race for anyone interested to find the other material.
The media outlets aren’t revealing the exact details how they became aware of each blackface item, afaik, so go ahead and speculate about a conspiracy: the existence of one wouldn’t change anything about the situation. Oppo research is pretty standard anyway.
But yes, it’s true, this hurts Trudeau politically, and thus his political rivals benefit. But it’s also in the interest of the public to know about.
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There is no reason to use blackface to be a particular FICTIONAL character. None. Ever.
It still is the context, because we don’t exist outside of history.
Now you’re saying I’m the real racist? Give me a break. What Trudeau did WAS racist, EVEN SAYS THAT. It’s YOU claiming that it’s not. Just you. The problem isn’t just the KKK or obviously racist policies, it’s a whole host of social issues, including white people not understanding the daily lives of their fellow citizens of color and feeling the need to insert their views on their lives into the equation.
And I’m going to guess that he imitated Harry Bellafonte because he admired him. Didn’t make it any less racist… maybe just sing one of his songs instead of dressing up in blackface?
It’s a continuum of not caring about black lives. And Flint is not the only water supply issue (and it’s an issue in majority white working class rural communities as well, so it’s not just racism, but classism).
Right? This isn’t hard.
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This times infinity. @Bernel, people can do racist things without explicitly subscribing to an agenda of hatred. So a white child dressing up as a black celebrity or character by wearing makeup to darken their skin can be a racist act, even if the child and their parent profess love for all people, because wearing the darkening makeup is an act that ignores the feelings of black people and the history of their oppression, thus helping to perpetuate that oppression. Even if the costume magically doesn’t even come close to a racial caricature, it’s still not necessary to take on racial characteristics in order to pay homage to a black person or character via costume. So just don’t do it, because it hurts people!
(Edited to clarified that I was calling the behavior of the hypothetical child racist, not the child, which I think is an important distinction.)
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Oh, FFS! That’s the History of minstrel blackface! You’ve asked questions, you’ve been given answers, and all you do is whinge about the answers.
At this point, are you defending Trudeau for what he already said himself was a bad mistake, or are you trying to justify your own past actions/future plans? Because you’ve gone WAY past defending Trudeau.
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The whole notion that the only real racism is just hatred against African Americans (or people of color in general) just lets all of us “off the hook” if we’re not active members of the KKK or Neo-nazis… That’s not how racism has worked ever. It’s about dividing people into easily identifiable categories (or that’s the assumption, it’s not really easily identifiable categories in practice) and setting up hierarchies based on those, historical backed by the monopoly on violence the state has, but now by appeals to culture, and assumptions based on pseudoscience (eugenics). While people of color official have equal rights in our country and other western democratic countries, the reality/practice of daily life still tends to favor people considered “white.” Only white people giving up that whiteness is going to fix that. That includes the voices of people of color being marginalized, even in cases where they have some sort of stake. How much harder is this election for people of color now in Canada? Vote for the out and out racist, or the more subtle ones who seem to have little respect for them? The question then becomes, will the less racist one be willing to throw those communities under the bus when push come to shove?
Nicely put!
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The example you used was that you didn’t see white kids lightening their skin to be elves, which are also not real people. I definitely haven’t suggested it’s good to try to look like a generic person of a different skin tone, but sometimes, when you are dressing up as someone else, their skin tone is part of what people see as authenticity, just like their hair, or eyes:
Sometimes, skin color is just part of our appearance, and I think we should look to move forward, that don’t involve forcing our kids to see our skin color as our team.
