@GoshHashana well for a start if you look back to my original post I actually said some black women object. I did not say all; quote got trimmed it seems. But anyway.
I raised this as I thought it would be useful to have a discussion about whether the comparison (or rather: assertion of equivalence) was useful and valid, or if there might be alternative comparisons and/or equivalences which might be equally valid but potentially more powerful if they avoid alienating some black women and potentially others too. (For eg @fuckinghellapeacock made the alternative comparison with the Little Britain mocking Of transvestites. Personally I feel that is limited as it misses the systemic and historical nature of women’s oppression and the use and development of gender roles and stereotypes to do that - ie, I don’t really see transvestites as a oppressed and exploited class in the same way that women and black people obviously are).
One of the things I’m particularly conscious of here is how the TRAs have exploitatively hooked themselves onto the coat tails of the BLM movement. I don’t want feminism to fall into the same or similar trap. Idk if calling drag the same as blackface does that; I want to think about it and learn.
So first off I want to know more about the history of black face. Went here: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/blackface-history-racism-origins.
Unfortunately it doesnt let me cut and paste chunks of text, but certainly elements of black face in the US are strikingly similar to drag - The exaggerated features and dance moves, the “buffoonish” behaviour, the use of it to underline the performer’s superiority and otherness to the dehumanised people it is portraying (Very interesting to think that’s essentially what drag performers are doing there). So far, so similar to drag.
But there is an additional extreme violence associated with drag which I don’t think always carries over to an equivalence for the women’s movement (or at least doesn’t if we want the equivalence to be readily understood without the somewhat distracting need to preface it with an explanation of how patriarchy = systemic violence against women. Personally I can go there, but I think it would leave a lot of people behind - patriarchy has had centuries to normalise violence against women. Slavery and modern racism much less so).
According to the article black face gained a resurgence and peaked in popularity in the US in response to the demands from recently emancipated slaves for civil rights. It served to demonise black people as evil and deviant and so justify state violence against them. The most famous black face character Jim Crow even lent his name to the “Jim Crow” segregation laws which were only ended in the mid 60s and were used to control and suppress the supposedly dangerous and inferior blacks portrayed through blackface - which is where the KKK got in on the act too.
As I said, personally I can see the argument for equivalence - but it requires some work and steps. And I can also see why many people wouldn’t see an immediately parallel to lynchings in the American south and the treatment of women in western patriarchy in particular. Sure that might be because there’s a good few centuries have past since witches were burnt in Europe, and because people don’t immediately see the continuity between witch burning and, say, “honour” killings which are still a daily reality in the world (and because rape is viewed by many as violence against an individual, rather than something which is systemic to patriarchy). But that’s the point: if we’re looking for something to resonate quickly and win people over to our view, is the blackface comparison the best?
I can see why @Fffffsand @GoshHashana you see it as maybe a bit wet and self policing/censoring, but I guess it’s partly about tactics and pragmatism. I’m genuinely torn and interested in others’ views here.