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?)

I think the reason it is so objectionable is two fold. Firstly, due to the connection with the black and white minstrels, and secondly, as someone said by way of analogy 'would it be ok for a black kid to put on white facepaint to look more like David Beckham': well actually it would look pretty silly and would not make the child look any more like him. From a black person's perpective blacking up to look like Tiger Woods would look pretty silly too and would make the child into a crude caricature of a black person, rather than actually making them look black.

Slarty, morris dancing is never ok. Blardy weirdos with their bells and hankies and sticks.

aww
i like morris dancers

From what I understand though, a very different tradition (and not one which is laughing or scathing). I kinda feel differently about it. Don't know whether that's right or wrong though.

Good gracious. Unbelievable. The ignorance of some people is quite astounding.

nevergoogle, I assume this means you're still a bit iffy about the house move?

Interestingly, last year I went to a play at the National Theatre with an all-black cast, set in Nigeria during colonial times. At one point two members of the cast did white up, portraying white English characters. The play was directed by a white director, and IIRC the point of whiting up was to turn the whole concept of blacking up on its head and show how utterly ridiculous it is. My response was that it was an interesting experiment to have black characters whiting up, but that it shouldn't be done again.

Blacking up is sort of comparable to a straight person doing an extreme caricature of a gay person. It doesn't work in both directions, because blacks and gays have historically been abused in a way that whites and straight folks haven't.

Much as I'm happy to answer the 'but why?' questions on this thread, I am absolutely astonished that those questions even have to be asked. There are some things in life that people should just know.

(nevergoogle - sleep stuff is loads better now, btw, hence why I'm still up at 0.45am, ahem!)

It wouldn't have occurred to me that it was wrong to do that, I'd have seem it as dressing up.
Where I live it would be seen as dressing up.

I guess that's what happens when you live in a non-multi-cultural area.

can't keep my eyes open any longer. night.

I really don't like the comment that one "should just know". As the posters asking the questions said, they do instinctively feel it is a bad thing, but are trying to understand why exactly, for which they should be admired.

Not to mention the idea that we should automatically think the same way without ever daring to discuss it, it smacks of a didactic orthodoxy that is a little unnerving.

bonnie - I said very clearly that I was happy to answer the question, however I stand by my statement that one should know these things, in the same way that one should know about the Holocaust. I'm sorry that you find that unnerving, but I am truly shocked that people don't know this stuff and I think it's perfectly acceptable for me to say so.

Hi, nevergoogle! Bye, nevergoogle!

It was me that said, how would everyone feel about an ethnic minority kid wearing white face paint. And I think that's probably the answer as to whether it's OK or not.
BTW, the Morris tradition of black face paint is not the same as the American one; the UK tradition was about blackening your face as a disguise (you didn't want the aristocracy to be able to identify you, it was nothing to do with parodying ethnic origin) nothing to do with ethnicity. These days a lot of border morris teams paint their faces blue or red or green or purple so as not to upset anyone anyway.

There is no escaping history this is just messed up and frankly weird.

I've found this hilarious in a 'really can't believe anyone could imagine this is a good idea' sort of way, but also utterly awful and crass to me - I live in big multicultural city and can't imagine anyone doing this without causing terrible offence; i agree that the dreadful association of blacking up being linked with black and white minstrels show which was terribly disrespectful to anyone not pink skinned.

OMG, so funny though!! What were the parents' thinking??

You've obviously never lived in a really white town.
I know better, honestly I do, I've travelled and I'm not dumb, but in a really white town it wouldn't be offensive, honestly it wouldn't, or at least it wouldn't be done in a way that was meant to cause offense.

The UK is such a small place, but sometimes huge.

The middle of London, a suburb of Birmingham, Leicester, Plockton in the Highlands, York, just down the Clyde in Helensburgh, Brighton, Scarborough, North Norfolk, and so it goes on.

Such different places, and what goes in one, doesn't in another.

Could of, you're so right. We went on hols to weste coast north Wales castle towm last year, and found picanninny ashtrays on sale in local market - black west indian men smoking reefers immortalized in pottery. Unbelievable to me. Thought I could not be easily surprised, but this place was so far back in the dark ages, and yet only 3 hours drive from my front door.

These out of the ark attitudes might be around in the UK, but they still shock me.

But is it less offensive given it's a kid doing it than an adult. I mean obviously the parents have helped so I would be cross with them not him IYSWIM

Oh yeah, wouldn't blame the kid at all. It's the parents who are ignorant.

Oh God, that is bad.

bump

SpeedyGonzalez, you're shocked that people don't know this stuff? Why do you assume that the 'askers' don't know? Of course I'm aware of the negative associations of blacking up due to the B&W minstrels. What I was challenging was whether people were able to accept that a child using facepaint in an attempt to imitate a sports icon could be seen for what it is - a positive (albeit clumsy) tribute that crosses a racial divide. An entirely different intent and proposition to the hideous caricature of the minstrels. Or whether the connotations were still so strong that a child's attempts to idolise his hero would still be seen as shocking, however innocent the intention.

I'm not surprised at the answers. I am saddened though. I asked DH his opinion on this and he responded that it wouldn't have bothered him, and he also thought the play on tigers was amusing. He commented that the boy could have maybe used a TW facemask, but failing that, understood why a child would do this instead. So it cannot be deemed to be offensive to all black or mixed race people, I suppose.

carrot, if you are aware of the history of black & white minstrels, then you should understand why blacking up is 'still' considered offensive. It carries with it the weight of centuries of abuse, oppression, degradation and humiliation. Add to this the fact that in some parts of the world black people are still being attacked for no other reason than their skin colour, and that in the UK alone there is a political party founded on the aim of creating a white Britain. Can you honestly not see why an emblem of this aspect of history might be considered offensive? IME most black people rub along quite nicely in the world, until someone, however innocently (on the part of the child in the parade) or idiotically (on the part of his adults) reminds them in some way of the way people used to humiliate and degrade other black people for being black.

Someone earlier mentioned Prince Harry's utterly moronic decision to dress up as a Nazi. Can you understand why that is offensive? It's exactly the same as blacking up.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't disagree more. I think the two are different, extremely so.

Because...?

A B&W Minstrel is a deliberate, offensive, derogatory portrayal of the black race.
To dress up as a minstrel is to impersonate something wholly offensive. The clothes, the facepaint are innocuous in and of themselves, but when used to represent an ugly and odious caricature, the meaning is plain.

Nazism is wholly repulsive to all people with any moral barometer. To dress up as a Nazi is to represent something repugnant and offensive.

Tiger Woods is a sportsperson of huge achievent. To dress up / make oneself up in positive tribute to him is not an offensive act.

What it is, as you point out, is a potent reminder to many people of a way in which something innocuous (facepaint in this instance) has been used to cause great offence, and do great harm. And the association for some people is strong enough to render any other meaning redundant. And this is reason enough to avoid imitation, however innocent.

However, there are many examples in the world of where something innocuous has yielded something both positive and negative. I remember the shock of seeing a Hindu swastika for the first time in India, and learning about its roots and how it became appropriated by the Nazis. My visceral reaction still overwhelms my logical thought when I see the image though, and I find it difficult to see it as anything other than negative. I accept that this is irrational, however. (as in, not a product of dispassionate reasoning, rather an example where my associations are so strong that I emotionally cannot override them.) However my logic compels me to accept the image is in fact, NOT offensive when used in its original form.

I think this is what I'm trying to say about the facepaint issue.

How many people on this thread are black or mixed race then?

because I get the distinct impression that this is one of those things that white middle class England shits their pants about and, because they are a nation of chatterers, decided that because it makes them feel bad we must all feel bad so only bad people would do it.... whereas in fact, nobody, and I mean nobody else cares.