AIBU to think that "blacking up" is never acceptable?

[CoolRunnings2017]

story here

I appreciate that the people on the float probably didn't mean to offend, but surely common sense would tell you that this wasn't in good taste?

What is offensive is if non-Jews dress up as Jews outside of a movie and wear a yellow star, which is a symbol the nazis forced Jews to wear.

Disagree. I wouldn't find that offensive unless they were wearing it in a way that mocked or insulted Jews. If they were wearing a star as a symbol of support, sympathy and solidarity (which rumour has it the non-Jewish Danish King wore in WW2 to show solidarity with the Jews) then the intent is a benevolent one. Once again, intent is paramount.

Please tell me more about how white people throughout history have been made into caricatures. I'd be glad to hear about it. "Whiteface" is not a thing and not comparable to blackface.

Sorry but "whiteface" is a thing if the point of it is to mock, humiliate or insult white people. White people are not homogenous and most white people today had nothing to do with slavery or apartheid, let alone their ancestors and how would mocking white people make them any better or morally superior than mocking black people would? It shouldn't be ok to do "blackface" or "whiteface" or "Chineseface" or any other "face" if the intent is malicious or in any way negative.

hmm, well intention may be taken into account but that doesn't excuse racism- just because my grandma didn't intend the golliwogs she knitted to be racist, doesn't mean they weren't. It just means she was ignorant, and 40 years ago such ignorance was understandable given she lived in a tiny seaside town in Essex.
But these guys are living in 2017 and presumably went to school and have access to media, the internet etc. I really don't believe as PP have said that it never crossed their minds this was, at the very least in poor taste.

Well, these guys are obviously racist and stupid.

However, you cannot apply that logic to every non-black person who puts on make up. Just think about the play "Othello". He is meant to be black and his ethnicity is very much part of the play. If there were no black actors, a non-black actor would play the part. It would be confusing to the audience and lose the whole impact of the play to not have Othello be obviously black/moorish. No racist intent there, just a story being told.

killjoy Find me an example of a recent staging of Othello that features a blacked up white actor.

www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jun/10/othello-actors-rsc-lucian-msamati-hugh-quarshie

A black actor managed to play Iago without whiting up. He let his acting and the script do the work.

killjoy I've posted before about how black face would not be used for this. if a white actor were playing the part, the context and, you know, actual play, would make it clear he was black. Black face has not been used in theatre for years and years.

I cannot believe there are still people who are ignorant and obtuse enough to not understand what is wrong with blackface.

Thick as a Banbury cheese.

I was in Broadstairs earlier this month. There was a folk festival with a dozen or so performers in Blackface. I am not white and found the whole thing absolutely awful. I was with DP, DC a friend and her husband. Friend's husband argued that the whole thing was a celebration of tradition, not racist and like many on this thread muttered something about political correctness gone mad etc. Turned out he had a couple of friends performing who he planned to invite for lunch with us. Needless to say our day together ended sooner than planned.

I was going to post on here about it but assumed I'd be flamed. Instead jt's heartening to see how many people on MN realise how offensive this is.

To the posters blathering on about actors on stage blacking or whiting up for specific roles - it doesn't happen in mainstream theatre any more. I recently watched a performance of King Lear and one of the Kings daughters was Black. There was no need for her to white up. The audience understood who she was. I know of no example in recent times where a white actor has played a black character in a national theatre. There is such a dearth of opportunities for black actors in general so it's unlikely to happen.

I don't care how many people post on here claiming their Black friends think it's all ok or it's harmless fun. It's not.

How about 'whiting up', woukd that be ok then!

What do you understand to be the problem with blacking up, Aero? If you accept that there is a problem, of course?

Eastie77

I am not trying to tell you that you shouldn't be offended by Morris Dancing blackface, but did you read upthread that the origins of the tradition are nothing to do with representing a black person?

indulgent they are showing admiration to their Morris Dancer ancestors, not someone from a race that their ancestors would have kept as slaves.

That's another theory, yes it's possible if the origins are the Moors.

Interesting article here to do with the Morris dancing.

The origins of the practice in this case are clearly not race-related, and I think it is wrong to ban it.

Eastie - like a pp, not trying to say you shouldn't feel how you feel, but your friend's husband was right in what he said about tradition.

I recently watched a performance of King Lear and one of the Kings daughters was Black. There was no need for her to white up. The audience understood who she was.

I saw Streetcar Named Desire at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. Blanche was white, Stella black. I didn't know the play beforehand so it took a while to realise they were supposed to be sisters. Play was set in the Deep South at a time when race was a big thing. Seemed a strange choice. I watched the film after and wondered if they were trying to suggest that they weren't really sisters after all hence very different personalities. Very interesting.

Had Stella been white or whited up it would have been clearer but maybe not so interesting!

I think the casting in stage productions can be much more creative than the casting in film and TV. Often an unusual choice can add an extra layer to the work, like in your example Rose. There are also very, very few decent black roles in classic plays (for obvious reasons) and even less in Shakespeare and many brilliant black actors, so I can fully understand why they sometimes cast black actors in white roles now. It is not necessary to white up, and it is not necessary for white theatre actors to black up either. The only thing I can think of where that kind of thing was done was the film version of Cloud Atlas, which I think got away with it because the same multiracial actors each played several different roles within the different storylines, and even played characters with very different ages too (eg Tom Hanks playing a young adult).

White - But they can still be sisters even if they have different skin colours, different father / mother / adoption.

Exactly Spartacus. Having different fathers (regardless of skin tone) would be one way to explain their differences. As would different life experiences etc. The play was also taken out of its original era and was more modern which was another slant. In 1950s Deep South it would have been a BIG issue.

Unfortunately not everyone going to the theatre already knows the play they are seeing (Like me who had Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in my head when I went!) so we use visual cues. Quick look a the programme clarified things as did friend but is wasn't obvious straight away.

Must be bloody frustrating to be an excellent actor but have skin tone write off 99% of roles. Unless we have a clear change of mind set. And back to the original point, blacking or whiting up won't help with that.

Blackface is never ok. The oppressor dressing up as the oppressed to give everyone a laugh - why are they all laughing? Because being a person of colour is funny. That's how blacking up works. That's why people laugh.

For those posters who believe that this isn't really racist, that we should be focusing on 'real racism': the unconscious belief that people of colour are fundamentally amusing because they are less than real people i.e. white people, leads directly to the kind of systematic murder of young back men by white police in the states, and leads directly to the fact that having a name perceived as black on an application form will automatically get you rejected for a job, and leads directly to why there were only 15 black male undergraduates accepted in Cambridge in 2015.

All these things are linked; as a pp said unconscious acts of racism lead to conscious acts of racism.

We live in a deeply racist society, i'd really encourage anyone who doesn't see that to read Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race by Renni Eddo-Lodge.

I think it works both ways, if African people are white facing, to mock white people, that is also offensive.

aeroflotgirl Do you have any examples of this, it's not something I've ever come across.

Yes it might happen, group of men out on a stag, lets all go as some drunken White men from England type thing, or

But black men are not from the oppressor class, that's the point.