Is it acceptable to black up your child for a fancy dress parade as Tiger Woods?

[nevergoogle]

Town parade today. One group of children (about 6-8 years old) called the tigers, all dressed as little furry tigers and one dressed as a blacked up golfer. Actual black face paint not brown.

Discuss...

(also, do i need to move?)

Most children wouldn't think of blacking or whiting up. They'd think of the accessories, the walk, the voice as being integral to being the character. The hair if it was distinctive.
No, I'd not facepaint a child to try and portray another race. In the same way as I stop them pulling their eyes about to be chinese or japanese.

Yes, most people would have got the gag.
But why is the facepaint wrong? (let's assume an appropriate colour of facepaint - brown skin tone, not black though). Why does it turn it from sweet and humorous into aargh?

Golf clubs...check
dodgy golfer pants...check
glove on only one hand...check
facepaint.....aaaargh nooooooo!

"You can copy his clothes, try your best to look like him, carry his golf clubs and act like him, but you must not copy his skin colour because...er..."

I'm expecting to be told I shouldn't have to ask the question. And hoping I won't get accused of being ignorant for asking for the rationale. Threads like this can suddenly get very heated and usually I don't engage for fear of a roasting for asking an unacceptable queston!

I'm going to put the question to DH in a minute to see what he thinks.

It's a bit like dressing as a pirate and hiding your hand up your sleeve and popping a hook on instead isn't it? Quite funny unless you have Cerrie from cbeebies in attendance in which case it is less so?

But it's funny because I have had a (black) parent tell me 'I can't be racist, I'm black' after spending twenty minutes slagging of Polish people If a black parent (with a white partner) paints his kid's face black because the kid isn't to do a Tiger Woods, is that less wrong?

I feel quite uncomfortable with it period because it's just such an odd thing to do. I'd be equally unhappy if they painted their kid yellow and sellotaped the side of his eyes to make them slanty looking .

When I was wee (Scotland circa 1985), my Mum blacked my little brother and me up, dressed us as 'slaves' and chained our ankles together for the village gala dreesing up competition. My bro had to enter the girls' comp as he was chained to me!

Do share the name of your town, NeverGoogle.

Have a feeling the Daily Mail might want to set up offices there.

i see your point but I think it's because the racism of the "minstrels" is too potent and still too recent to be forgotten so easily.

It was still on TV until the 1970s.

It's offensive for similar reasons to Prince Harry dressing up as a nazi. And you could say that was longer ago so why should we care.

Well the only thing I know about Tiger Woods other than he is a golfer is that he was unfaithful - perhaps the kid could have goosed the brownies instead?

interesting wiki piece here for those wanting to read around the subject.

God I love minstrels

The ones in a 30g bag obviously.

i guess they could have made it even more interesting by him having a black girl with white face paint and blonde wig on his arm. (if it was a social commentary on the acceptableness of blacking/whiting up of course).

Good link, Never. Shame the organisers of the parade hadn't read it...

at whomoved too.

DD (7) suggested blacking up for some fancy dress once - can't remember what - possibly Martha from Dr Who.

We took a deep breath and gave a loose history of the Black & White Minstrels, and explained that that was why it was still a bad idea to do that nowadays, because of the association with bad mean people - she seemed to understand.

From wiki also...
"This makes Woods himself half Asian (one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Thai), one-quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch.[12] He refers to his ethnic make-up as ?Cablinasian? (a syllabic abbreviation he coined from Caucasian, Black, (American) Indian, and Asian)".

interesting.

sounds like a good enough explanation dilys.

Interesting wiki link. I agree that the minstrels association may still be too recent. But I also hope that in time, this sort of thing will no longer be taboo. Because the current status quo isn't ideal either, as it dictates "one must only copy physically those people of your own race, even in tribute." And I'm really uncomfortable with that message too.

but it is not blacking up as such, it is dressing up as tiger woods, who is black

i know someone who did the same to be bob marley, but to them, it also felt wrong.
hmm

No I think you can do a huge amount in dressing up terms.

It's just the blacking up issue. I can't think of another which causes such controversy.

dressing up as Tiger Woods = fine
Blacking up = not fine. IMO and all that.

And, as people have pointed out, the guy is mixed race anyway. You'd have to have a proper make up artist to get a skin tone anything like his, not a box of bog standard face paints. He's only described as "Black" because culturally the US has a particular take on racial identity, given the long fight for civil rights and all that.

what about www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/video/images/black.jp g&imgrefurl=www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/video/belthane.htm&usg=__CLOhzq2jhB5Dfhh yfaWj2uY32Rs=&h=200&w=209&sz=58&hl=en&start=0&tbnid=Nt4XgzGEu9yqBM:&tbnh=136&tbnw=154&prev=/images%3 Fq%3Dblack%2Bmorris%2Bdancers%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1024% 26bih%3D577%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=938&ei=aaVUTJemGNKS4Aa3suinBQ&page=1&ndsp=13&ved= 1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=86&ty=62these
we have these, is there a problem with this>?