Those sources are fething hilarious.

Orlanth, yes the people of the past had different social norms and ideas, but we can still judge them, because they had something we had too: empathy.

In the past, people had empathy. They knew to care for each other. They knew that hurting others was wrong. Its not like human nature was fundamentally different in the 1920's. Hell, it wasn't even fundamentally different back 2000 years ago in Ancient Rome.

We can judge them for racist performances like blackface because they had empathy, which means they should've known better. It isn't revisionism to say that, given the prejudiced and hurtful nature of the performances, that they were racist.

I get the feeling some of you all would like yo wipe out portion of US history that people do not like to agree with or that it happen by today standards

 d-usa wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Did they, citation please..

I don't make it a habit to provide citations to people who just spout "revisionist history, here is what really happened" without providing any citations themselves.

1. The students didn't consider the video racist.
2. The paresnt didn't consider the vvideo racist.
3. Al Jolson was not racist, or at least there is no evidence of it, and he performed blackface. So at least some blackface performers were not racist, therefore it was NOT intrinsically racist.
That will be enough for now, your turn.

You see when I write off your comments as revisionist, I do so from a basis of taking a solid look at the evidence I can find, all you have posted its an unbacked assertion that 'x was racist because I say so'.

No need to get all heated up at each other over this.

Check out Eddie Murphey in one of his more famous SNL skits

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vGm5U11JTr8

Plus he did Whiteface in "Coming to America"

For a really great reversal of Blackface, I suggest the Godfrey Cambridge movie "Watermelon man", a film about a predjudice white man who one day wakes up to find he has turned black.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_Man_(film)

Stupid Wiki link won't put the word "film" in full brackets.

Why I mention earlier of
"White Chicks"
and
"Soul Man"

 Jihadin wrote:
Why I mention earlier of
"White Chicks"
and
"Soul Man"

Good examples, also.

 LoneLictor wrote:
Orlanth, yes the people of the past had different social norms and ideas, but we can still judge them, because they had something we had too: empathy.

In the past, people had empathy. They knew to care for each other. They knew that hurting others was wrong. Its not like human nature was fundamentally different in the 1920's. Hell, it wasn't even fundamentally different back 2000 years ago in Ancient Rome.

We can judge them for racist performances like blackface because they had empathy, which means they should've known better. It isn't revisionism to say that, given the prejudiced and hurtful nature of the performances, that they were racist.

I can understand where you are coming from, but note that empathy can also change. There is a lot of empowerment in todays society there was not before, this is a good thing, but there is also a sense of entitlement culture.
Racism is a good example of this, In many countries racial hatred is often weighted differently by society depending on the ethnicity of the accuser and the accused. Surely 'empathy' would remain a constant however society will weight culpability in an uneven manner. This is very visible in the UK, I dont know about the US, but as we are talking about human nature then essentially an example somewhere is a potential example anywhere.

So as empathy is not a constant there is room to suggest that people did not see anything wrong with blackface, or other things now considered offensive. This makes sense as there are clear examples of non-racist blackface, but even that likely would be consider offensive in todays society because human empathy has shifted over the years.



A Golliwog

A good example neatly ignored, because its a good example are golliwogs. Children up until the mid 20th century had golliwogs as dolls, they were very popular, amongst English girls in particular, my mother had one in the 40's. Golliwogs had a specific dress and appearance, most golliwogs were essentially standardised, no matter which company made the golliwog.
Now golliwogs are pretty much extinct, and in some instances banned, the confectionary maker Robertsons had an image of a golliwog as its trademark until they dropped that in IIRC the 80's.
Golliwogs are a caricature, this is true, but caricatures exist of pretty much anything. A good example being John Bull as a caricature of the English, it stems from Victorian England (which was I admit pretty damn racist) but the culture of caricature symbolic characters for each ethnicity covered pretty much everyone and so there was no singling out. Consequently there wasn't a hate agenda involved, many if not most girls who played with a golliwog were middle class and sheltered and had never seen an actual black man, and thus it is reasonable to doubt that racism was part of the ethos behind it.
One of the reasons golliwogs remained as a trademark and in public sight as long as they did was because of a lot of support from people who know the toy and knew that it did not stand for anything racist.

It is understandable how it can cause offense now; the last three letters of the name are offensive in current English vocabulary for a start. Even so the golliwog should not be seen as a racist symbol from the context of its time and how it was used.

http://antigolliwog.com/what-is-anti-golliwog/
These guys hate golliwogs, cant se the issue, its been a very long time since most people have seen one. They are still collectable though even now.

Golliwogs are a good example of a changing 'empathy' over time.
Thanks for your input though, and I can see the logic in what you are saying, and it can hold true, but not necessarily so.

My wife watches "who do you think you are?" (US edition).

I'm constantly surprised at how LITTLE many of these "celebrities" know about world history - let alone their OWN history - so not knowing about their own country's history, even up to 50 years ago, is astounding.

Then again, I'm often surprised at how little the current generation knows about past world events - given they have access to so much more of it at their fingertips via their phones.
How is it possible to have access to so much information and yet somehow Kim Kardashian's ass is ranked a higher importance?

Remember the little lawn statues of servants holding up glass lamps? Dressed like a butler? Some people paint them as black servants and/or white. Rolled into whoever the Caucasian that own them was considered racist

 Orlanth wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Did they, citation please..

I don't make it a habit to provide citations to people who just spout "revisionist history, here is what really happened" without providing any citations themselves.

1. The students didn't consider the video racist.
2. The paresnt didn't consider the vvideo racist.
3. Al Jolson was not racist, or at least there is no evidence of it, and he performed blackface. So at least some blackface performers were not racist, therefore it was NOT intrinsically racist.
That will be enough for now, your turn.

You see when I write off your comments as revisionist, I do so from a basis of taking a solid look at the evidence I can find, all you have posted its an unbacked assertion that 'x was racist because I say so'.

What evidence? The only evidence you have is that you typed "he wasn't racist".

The evidence of "he painted every racial stereotype that exists about black people on his face" disagrees with your statement.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
And once again:

A jazz player in blackface in 1930 also has nothing to do and is zero defense if blackface in the 1800s and minstrel shows. Which was the topic of the video.

It's like me arguing that you don't know anything about being British because Africans are poor.

 d-usa wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Did they, citation please..

I don't make it a habit to provide citations to people who just spout "revisionist history, here is what really happened" without providing any citations themselves.

1. The students didn't consider the video racist.
2. The paresnt didn't consider the vvideo racist.
3. Al Jolson was not racist, or at least there is no evidence of it, and he performed blackface. So at least some blackface performers were not racist, therefore it was NOT intrinsically racist.
That will be enough for now, your turn.

You see when I write off your comments as revisionist, I do so from a basis of taking a solid look at the evidence I can find, all you have posted its an unbacked assertion that 'x was racist because I say so'.

What evidence? The only evidence you have is that you typed "he wasn't racist".

The evidence of "he painted every racial stereotype that exists about black people on his face" disagrees with your statement.

I even pointed to the character and gave examples of non racist blackface performers.
I also noted how black and white performers would perform together which had a point of unity notably absent in the time.
I just now noted how chidlren were given black dolls which little girls would love like they love other dolls. Parents would buy these dolls even though they were black, the imagery for the golliwog was identicle to the blackface meme. This proves that Blackface characters were or at least could be a point of affection rather than ridicule amongst the young.
And more....

Nevertheless I give up on responding to you, you haven't answered a single one of my points with anything other than a flat denial with no evidence of any kind to back it up. Please read LoneLictors posts and learn from them, he disagrees with me also but at least has thought through an opposed opinion.

 Jihadin wrote:
Why I mention earlier of
"White Chicks"
and
"Soul Man"

geese Jihadin, did you miss the memo? Its only racist if white people do it, not if its done to white people.

 chromedog wrote:
My wife watches "who do you think you are?" (US edition).

I'm constantly surprised at how LITTLE many of these "celebrities" know about world history - let alone their OWN history - so not knowing about their own country's history, even up to 50 years ago, is astounding.

Then again, I'm often surprised at how little the current generation knows about past world events - given they have access to so much more of it at their fingertips via their phones.
How is it possible to have access to so much information and yet somehow Kim Kardashian's ass is ranked a higher importance?

I was once looking for a poster of Stonehenge at a shop and the girl at the counter I asked about it looked at me in a confused fashion like I was speaking in some foreign language. She gave me an odd stare for about 4 seconds and asked, "What is that?"
I just looked at her and said not to worry about it, it was a place on the Moon.
There was another person where I work that looked like the pictures of Henry the 8th. A couple of my friends there and myself would joke about it, and then we started having people ask us who Henry the 8th was.

I am scared for our future.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:
Remember the little lawn statues of servants holding up glass lamps? Dressed like a butler? Some people paint them as black servants and/or white. Rolled into whoever the Caucasian that own them was considered racist

There was an interesting story ( urban legend) I was told about the origin of those statues. It went that they were made in commemeration of a servant of George Washington who was so brave, he let himself freeze to death while holding a horse that was used for an escape Washington made.


Some of the back and forths in this thread helps me understand how he could have come to be suspended.

Easysauce...have to admit it was funny


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Man_%28film%29

Also have David Chapelle another good one




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lets not forget the Western movies that had Caucasians playing Native Americans to

 d-usa wrote:

And once again:

A jazz player in blackface in 1930 also has nothing to do and is zero defense if blackface in the 1800s and minstrel shows. Which was the topic of the video.

It's like me arguing that you don't know anything about being British because Africans are poor.

And once again your not thinking this through.

Blackface in the 1930's is relevant as it is a direct sucessor, and an intentionally racist image cannot turn into a positive image (unlike the other way around) thus the blackface of itself was not intrinsically racist.
Even in the 1880s blackface performers were black or white and they performed together, so blackface broke through social segregation at a time when little else did..
Golliwogs date from just after this time and acording the the link were also popular in America, adn invented by an American.

Please take a little whole to think about the dynamic between a girl and her doll. Here is a logic chain for you to follow:

- How do girls play with dolls?
- Its not like us with 40K. models.
- As a rule of thumb a dolly is something to love and look after.
- Dolls are often a girls prize possessions.
- Dolls are expensive and are generally purchased buy the parent or guardian of the child.
- Parents understand the dynamic of a girl and her dolls.
- But were not upset even in the 19th century to buy a black doll for a girl to love.
- The golliwog is identical in appearance to the standised costume of the Minstrel Shows.
- A golliwog is black, as per the blackface meme, not an African skin colour, but clearly is representative of a black person.

Therefore: Here is a clear logic chain which shows the golliwog image as a positive image, as a friendly image to a child endorsed by the parent as wholesome.
Therefore: Of itself the blackface image, can be seen by people as a positive image, rather than a negative image. This cultural idiom coincided with the era of the Minstrel Shows, and long succeeded it.
Therefore: It is not of itself an object of intrinsic racism within its time and cultural idiom when the golliwog was used; though racism can be applied through it by an individual, and much later racism was assumed of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golliwogg

I remember those Blaxploitation flicks of the 70's that claimed to show the power and dignity of the Black man, but were in reality just another form of characature:


http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eijnhinuEes

One of the Granddaddies, Superfly:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b3ufFI4-iU4


The Mack was another good un:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ePy_x8RyrGU

By that logic it is impossible to be racist today, unless the person being racist admits that he is racist. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks or what the racist person does, if he doesn't think he is being racist then he isn't,

Do you really think that nobody from 1800 through the civil rights area thought blackface was racist?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Relapse wrote:
I remember those Blaxploitation flicks of the 70's that claimed to show the power and dignity of the Black man, but were in reality just another form of characature:


http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eijnhinuEes

One of the Granddaddies, Superfly:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b3ufFI4-iU4


The Mack was another good un:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ePy_x8RyrGU

Shut your mouth!

@d-usa,

Is it me you're talking to? I'll agree with full heart there were probably more than a few who found Blackface racist.

As for Blaxploitation movies, you should have seen how Ebony magazine crucified that whole genre when it came out back then.

Relapse wrote:
@d-usa,

Is it me you're talking to? I'll agree with full heart there were probably more than a few who found Blackface racist.

The first reference wasn't to you, just the second one.

And I was crossing my fingers because I figured it was an even chance that you got the reference or would consider it a Rule #1 violation../

 d-usa wrote:

Relapse wrote:
@d-usa,

Is it me you're talking to? I'll agree with full heart there were probably more than a few who found Blackface racist.

The first reference wasn't to you, just the second one.

And I was crossing my fingers because I figured it was an even chance that you got the reference or would consider it a Rule #1 violation../

No problem, Shaft. I knew you didn't mean any disrespect!

You broke the magic.

We had the opportunity to go full "Shaft" in this thread...

I could have dug it!

Just to get the magic back:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T1ga1FgU10E

 Orlanth wrote:

So as empathy is not a constant there is room to suggest that people did not see anything wrong with blackface, or other things now considered offensive. This makes sense as there are clear examples of non-racist blackface, but even that likely would be consider offensive in todays society because human empathy has shifted over the years.

Well, no. Empathy is a constant in that people will tend to exhibit it. They may not exhibit it with regard to the same people over time, but the tendency will remain; as it is a human characteristic.

In other words: empathy doesn't change, what people feel empathy with respect to does.

 Orlanth wrote:

Even so the golliwog should not be seen as a racist symbol from the context of its time and how it was used.

It was racist at the time it was in vogue, and is racist today. Whether or not little girls played with it is irrelevant.

I had a golliwog when I was a kid, and I was born in the '80s. I don't know if it'd been passed down the family or something - it was hand-made, not all pretty like in the picture.

 easysauce wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Why I mention earlier of
"White Chicks"
and
"Soul Man"

geese Jihadin, did you miss the memo? Its only racist if white people do it, not if its done to white people.

Yes, that's right! Because white people are in a vastly privileged position, so when a white person is prejudiced it forms part of a larger pattern, whereas when a non-white person is prejudiced against a white person it becomes an isolated incident that is wholly ignorable. Prejudice is different when you're punching downwards.

It's like, um, Voltron. When a white person is prejudiced against a non-white person it's like they form part of Voltron and that part combines with the rest to become Voltron and destroy everyone. If a non-white person is prejudiced against a white person it's like they form part of Voltron except the rest of Voltron isn't there so they just sort of flop around on the ground without hurting anyone. This is a good analogy, right..?

It does look like something fishy may have been going on in the event of the OP, though!

 dogma wrote:

Well, no. Empathy is a constant in that people will tend to exhibit it. They may not exhibit it with regard to the same people over time, but the tendency will remain; as it is a human characteristic.

Everyone has a sense of empathy, but to what degrees and to what ends varies markedly.
So I do agree with you, but the point that everyone has a measure of empathy doesn't invalidate my point that some things which a conscience might distate is wrong today may well not trigger any conscience in the past when said reaction was acceptable mainstream culture.
Empathy is a constant in that we all have it, but its measure changes in society over time. Most forms of morality are a learned response.

 dogma wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Even so the golliwog should not be seen as a racist symbol from the context of its time and how it was used.

It was racist at the time it was in vogue, and is racist today. Whether or not little girls played with it is irrelevant.

How come, racism is a negative for action. If an activity can be positive, even inclusive and bridge building, how is it racist.
Racism is often seen today as being defined by offense taken, when it is more realistic to look at racism by offense intended but a culture of being able to take offense and expect restitution has skewed this somewhat.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I had a golliwog when I was a kid, and I was born in the '80s. I don't know if it'd been passed down the family or something - it was hand-made, not all pretty like in the picture.

 easysauce wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Why I mention earlier of
"White Chicks"
and
"Soul Man"

geese Jihadin, did you miss the memo? Its only racist if white people do it, not if its done to white people.

Yes, that's right! Because white people are in a vastly privileged position, so when a white person is prejudiced it forms part of a larger pattern, whereas when a non-white person is prejudiced against a white person it becomes an isolated incident that is wholly ignorable. Prejudice is different when you're punching downwards.

It's like, um, Voltron. When a white person is prejudiced against a non-white person it's like they form part of Voltron and that part combines with the rest to become Voltron and destroy everyone. If a non-white person is prejudiced against a white person it's like they form part of Voltron except the rest of Voltron isn't there so they just sort of flop around on the ground without hurting anyone. This is a good analogy, right..?

It does look like something fishy may have been going on in the event of the OP, though!

What about white people in a vastly unpriviliged position, such as those in Appalachia and such places? Is it right that blacks mock them by affecting hillbilly accents and dress?

Pick and choose your battle. I remember that advice someone gave Alpharius on another thread. I avoid getting in depth on this subject It irks me at time when I want to give another "Angle" to the topic My training and experience as a EOA only works in the US Military. Let's not add more "groups" of people into the situation/topic

Relapse wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I had a golliwog when I was a kid, and I was born in the '80s. I don't know if it'd been passed down the family or something - it was hand-made, not all pretty like in the picture.

 easysauce wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Why I mention earlier of
"White Chicks"
and
"Soul Man"

geese Jihadin, did you miss the memo? Its only racist if white people do it, not if its done to white people.

Yes, that's right! Because white people are in a vastly privileged position, so when a white person is prejudiced it forms part of a larger pattern, whereas when a non-white person is prejudiced against a white person it becomes an isolated incident that is wholly ignorable. Prejudice is different when you're punching downwards.

It's like, um, Voltron. When a white person is prejudiced against a non-white person it's like they form part of Voltron and that part combines with the rest to become Voltron and destroy everyone. If a non-white person is prejudiced against a white person it's like they form part of Voltron except the rest of Voltron isn't there so they just sort of flop around on the ground without hurting anyone. This is a good analogy, right..?

It does look like something fishy may have been going on in the event of the OP, though!

What about white people in a vastly unpriviliged position, such as those in Appalachia and such places? Is it right that blacks mock them by affecting hillbilly accents and dress?

Prejudice against white people isn't "right" either - it's just not the same thing as prejudice by white people.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Prejudice against white people isn't "right" either - it's just not the same thing as prejudice by white people.

Because social justice warriors are uncomfortable confronting it? Or for actual, valid reasons that have yet to be provided?

 Seaward wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Prejudice against white people isn't "right" either - it's just not the same thing as prejudice by white people.

Because social justice warriors are uncomfortable confronting it? Or for actual, valid reasons that have yet to be provided?

Because it's a lot easier to shrug off? Like my old chihuahua who was insanely food aggressive: if he'd had any real teeth, we would have had to put him down.

When Eddie Murphy says racist gak, we can laugh or fume or ignore it because he's not likely to incarcerate us/our family/a disproportionate number of our neighbors. He isn't golf buddies with our employers talking about our work ethic like it's a racial stat or whatever. Generally, it goes both ways for comedians these days. If Andrew Dice Clay was actually important, people would be a lot more upset about what he says. Or Cartman, for that matter.

 Jihadin wrote:
We have to ask Frazz about the time period he was living through when females were not allowed on stages as actors in a play. Even dirt calls him "Dad" I heard

I much prefer it now dat da Wimmimz play Da Wimminz and not menz.

Not enough info on the article and I'm not going to go looking. Context is everything. This could have been part of a lesson plan survey (I have a visual of a string of images and vignettes about racism at the time.

Show that. Show a noose. Show sign with different water fountains. Klan marching and protests with dogs and fire hoses I think that would be an excellent start.
End it with the minutes of King's Speech at the Mall of America, and just end it with a pic of Obama being sworn in.

Frazzled Flawless Victory!

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I had a golliwog when I was a kid, and I was born in the '80s. I don't know if it'd been passed down the family or something - it was hand-made, not all pretty like in the picture.

 easysauce wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Why I mention earlier of
"White Chicks"
and
"Soul Man"

geese Jihadin, did you miss the memo? Its only racist if white people do it, not if its done to white people.

Yes, that's right! Because white people are in a vastly privileged position, so when a white person is prejudiced it forms part of a larger pattern, whereas when a non-white person is prejudiced against a white person it becomes an isolated incident that is wholly ignorable. Prejudice is different when you're punching downwards.

It's like, um, Voltron. When a white person is prejudiced against a non-white person it's like they form part of Voltron and that part combines with the rest to become Voltron and destroy everyone. If a non-white person is prejudiced against a white person it's like they form part of Voltron except the rest of Voltron isn't there so they just sort of flop around on the ground without hurting anyone. This is a good analogy, right..?

It does look like something fishy may have been going on in the event of the OP, though!

You and I watched very different Voltrons.

If you stand against racism, you ought to stand against all racism, regardless of its source or target. That being said, whitewashing (pun definitely intended) history by not discussing the things people did that we would find racist today is a propagation of ignorance.

It should be known that at one time, science had proven that black people were inferior to white people and indeed were a different race, and that women were less intelligent from having smaller brains. Blackface is ridiculous and offensive, and it can be funny when it is used today and recognized as such- look at Sergeant Osiris, Robert Downey Jr in Tropic Thunder. In the midst of a hilarious satire, it dissects the issue rather thoroughly. I can't speak to White Chicks as I did not see it- but I do know the Wayans brothers are well known for a level of satire- one that doesn't appeal to me, but one that is no less valid.


We need to learn to be critical of what any authority tells us, and to look with suspicion on data presented as fact, then draw our own conclusions. Particularly when it involves declaring any group of people wholesale. If that cannot be achieved by a study of history, then we must rely on acidic humor to burn a few cracks for enlightened thoughts to pierce.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I had a golliwog when I was a kid, and I was born in the '80s. I don't know if it'd been passed down the family or something - it was hand-made, not all pretty like in the picture.

Not only did you own a golliwog, now you are saying it wasn't attractive, I am shocked and appalled at your racism

I just remembered my mum had a white golliwog, all skinny and weak looking, with straw coloured hair and blue eyes, I'm off to picket her house.

If its racist to show videos of blackface performers, does that also make it racist to show videos pertaining to the holocaust, or video footage of the KKK, or any of the various other hate groups that have plagued our history? something about this stinks.

 d-usa wrote:
This picture is racist because he played up every possible black stereotype when he painted himself. Bit bulging eyes, big fat lips, these are no different than putting a giant fake nose on your face and saying "look, I'm a Jew" or painting yourself in red-face.

"I pay tribute to black music by stereotyping blacks when I black up" is racist, pretty simple.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to reading Black Dynamite.

Relapse wrote:


What about white people in a vastly unpriviliged position, such as those in Appalachia and such places? Is it right that blacks mock them by affecting hillbilly accents and dress?

The thing is, you lack an understanding of 'white privilege' and the discrimination happening. Being poor and in Appalachia, those people still maintain a level of privilege simply by being white in society and the institution.

A White male with a criminal record is 5% more likely to get a job than an equivalent black male with a clean record. For some reason, white men will be given a 'second chance' and employers will be willing to consider the circumstances of the record over black men who have no record.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/09/study-black-man-and-white-felon-same-chances-for-hire/

The results of these studies were startling. Among those with no criminal record, white applicants were more than twice as likely to receive a callback relative to equally qualified black applicants. Even more troubling, whites with a felony conviction fared just as well, if not better, than a black applicant with a clean background.
Racial disparities have been documented in many contexts, but here, comparing the two job applicants side by side, we are confronted with a troubling reality: Being black in America today is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job.

A White person has a 78% chance to be admitted to a university when compared to a black person with the exact same grades only having 22%.

These are things which even in 'poor white Appalachia' that simply being white gives those people advantages and options that 'poor black Chicago' doesn't have.

There is institutional discrimination, and has been for centuries... and even when things like blackface were started, there was institutional racism of blacks being inferior. It was degrading and based upon race then. It was not done to 'teach children that blacks are good and equal to whites, so have this blackface doll'. It was done because blacks were buffoons, scientifically inferior, and sub-human in the eyes of the people of the day, and things like blackface and golliwogs perpetuated that.

nkelsch wrote:

Relapse wrote:


What about white people in a vastly unpriviliged position, such as those in Appalachia and such places? Is it right that blacks mock them by affecting hillbilly accents and dress?

The thing is, you lack an understanding of 'white privilege' and the discrimination happening. Being poor and in Appalachia, those people still maintain a level of privilege simply by being white in society and the institution.

Thats a staggeringly stupid statement.

Yes, if your argument is anything to the effect of 'check your privilege' chances are you've already lost your argument, particularly when you're online and don't necessarily know the background and history of the person on the other end.

If the parents and the children were not offended by this, and only the school official was it starts to look a little like this;

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yes, if your understanding is anything to the effect of 'check your privilege' chances are you've already lost your argument, particularly when you're online and don't necessarily know the background and history of the person on the other end.

The issue is, in today's society... When two people are economically equal, being white gives you an advantage which is proven statistically every day in society. This is discrimination based upon race. This trotting out of 'poor Appalachians' as some how the fact there are poor white people invalidates all civil rights discussions is pointless.

Privilege isn't about being rich/poor... It is about how two people who are equal in every measurable circumstance how one is seen as superior and treated as such for something like gender/race/so on. It is about opportunities available and discrimination. Whatever your 'personal circumstances are' it doesn't change the opportunities available on average in society or the institutional discrimination which is in place. Being poor or your personal circumstances doesn't change the institutional barriers which exist out there.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
If the parents and the children were not offended by this,

Since the parents weren't there and didn't see what was presented I don't really care what they think about it. Until we know what was actually said and done it is just one emotive argument after another based on superficial anecdotal evidence. It seems everyone wants to pick sides when there isn't really enough information to do so.

nkelsch, do you know if that study was based off of interviews, or just submitted resumes? I didn't see it differentiated in the article. I know I've never put my race on a job application, and it isn't on my resume.

And although resumes may be equally impressive- I don't think you can ever engineer two interviewees to be equally impressive to an interviewer. I could be wrong, and I know we have some dakkanauts in hiring.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
nkelsch, do you know if that study was based off of interviews, or just submitted resumes? I didn't see it differentiated in the article. I know I've never put my race on a job application, and it isn't on my resume.

And although resumes may be equally impressive- I don't think you can ever engineer two interviewees to be equally impressive to an interviewer. I could be wrong, and I know we have some dakkanauts in hiring.

Callbacks... So post-interviews

And there are also studies based upon resumes 'names' where people discount resumes because they sound or are stereotypical.

http://jezebel.com/5822293/man-takes-fake-white-name-to-test-job-discrimination

http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant, Bertrand and Mullainathan note in Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination (NBER Working Paper No. 9873). It indicates that a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience. Race, the authors add, also affects the reward to having a better resume. Whites with higher quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower quality resumes. But the positive impact of a better resume for those with Africa-American names was much smaller.

Simply being black or having a 'black sounding name' makes it harder to get a job when everything else is equal. These are things which happen inside people's brains and are sometimes subconscious... They can't explain *why* they passed over a candidate or resume... but you add it up and you see a large impact from all those micro incidents.

Thanks, I had heard of the study on names before. Definitely appropriate for this discussion. I wonder if we'll ever get to the point when you only see an applicant's number, and never learn their name.

The more we can do to assure that merit is the most valuable asset of an employee, the better!

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Thanks, I had heard of the study on names before. Definitely appropriate for this discussion. I wonder if we'll ever get to the point when you only see an applicant's number, and never learn their name.

The more we can do to assure that merit is the most valuable asset of an employee, the better!

Interviewing is a dirty process as you are totally at the whims of the personal biases of the hiring person. I knew a woman who wouldn't hire fat people because she didn't want to look at them. Good luck proving it. When you have seemingly equal candidates, someone with a bias can always make a justification why they chose A over B and make it seem acceptable to most everyone. And we all have prejudices which impact interviews of candidates, and while some of those may not be consciously racist, some of them may be impacted by subconscious or institutional illegal discrimination.

 Jihadin wrote:
White Chicks
Soul Man
...........

Both were gakky movies.

Also, Juwanna Man, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Tootsie.

nkelsch wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yes, if your understanding is anything to the effect of 'check your privilege' chances are you've already lost your argument, particularly when you're online and don't necessarily know the background and history of the person on the other end.

The issue is, in today's society... When two people are economically equal, being white gives you an advantage which is proven statistically every day in society. .

And then you said it about the Appalachians, some of the poorest of the poor. When you have people who've never had running water or electricity and make some asinine statement about them being privileged, either your argument lacks coherent logic, or you do.

nkelsch wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

You keep on focusing on "Jazz players liked African American culture" to defend all blackface anywhere and I think your UK experience with blackface is tainting your opinion on US blackface.

Europeans often think they can't be racist and that racism is a US only problem. Example: The Dutch and Black Pete https://www.facebook.com/pietitie

They try to claim pete is not a black person, and he is a magical elf with chimney soot on his face. But since it is based off real people, and the real 'pete' was black... any attempt to hide or remove his true origins is insulting. Why can't he be black? Why must we explain away his blackness as if a white elf with soot is ok but 'being African origin' is bad. Also... Santa claus has evolved over the years and the adition of his 'black servant' is much more recent... And started around the time of abolishing slavery. It warps, distorts and exaggerates black bodies and points to a cultural/social period in history where blacks were openly ridiculed and seen as buffoons. And Black Pete’s image was made PRECISELY in that old, racist tradition.

And the outrage of the Dutch in defending black pete is full of racism.

”All problems started when we brought you in. So if you want it to stop, get back to the dark of Africa.”
“We have to rid our country from things that don’t belong here: make a fist!!”
”You have white PEOPLE and black ANIMALS – you have to have some difference.”
”Get out of the country, give back everything you stole.”
”Those lazy [see forum posting rules] should be glad to see blacks working”
”All those [see forum posting rules] should go back to cooncountry. Netherlands is the Netherlands not a swarma country black pete isn’t black from gak like the [see forum posting rules] but from the chimney.”
“if only you’d been born white”

So even if you are naive to believe the origins are not racially motivated, today it is a rally point for bigots in the netherlands and is currently harming africans in that country who are bullied, attacked and harmed by the still current practice. You have dark skinned children being told to 'scrub away the black' because it is soot.

Blackface was racist when it started, it is racist now. There was never a point where it wasn't racist.

Lol wat. So, you managed to dig up some Dutch morons and provided them as a source for why it's bad? I was raised with this tradition, at no point in my life has it been promoted as a racial thing UNTILL people started yelling about removing it, then suddenly it became a big racist deal.

I don't really care what happens to the tradition, IMO traditions are a stupid concept for keeping dumb gak around anyway.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
It's like, um, Voltron. When a white person is prejudiced against a non-white person it's like they form part of Voltron and that part combines with the rest to become Voltron and destroy everyone. If a non-white person is prejudiced against a white person it's like they form part of Voltron except the rest of Voltron isn't there so they just sort of flop around on the ground without hurting anyone. This is a good analogy, right..?

I'm glad we're all just "white men" now and not individuals If John in Tennessee is getting his ass beat one night he can rest easy knowing Jake in California can get that job easier.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
I'm glad we're all just "white men" now and not individuals

Of course people are individuals and individuals vary, but when talking about systemic issues and social problems you can't use individuals as the measure as no individual makes up society. One must look at larger trends among groups of people.

 Orlanth wrote:

Everyone has a sense of empathy, but to what degrees and to what ends varies markedly.

Many sociopaths don't have one at all. People tend to exhibit empathy, but they do not necessarily do so. The tendency is the human characteristic, not the trait.

 Orlanth wrote:

So I do agree with you, but the point that everyone has a measure of empathy doesn't invalidate my point that some things which a conscience might distate is wrong today may well not trigger any conscience in the past when said reaction was acceptable mainstream culture.

So, cultural relativism?

 Orlanth wrote:

How come, racism is a negative for action. If an activity can be positive, even inclusive and bridge building, how is it racist.

Because it involves stereotypical, and often harmful, characterization according to racial categories?

You're digging a pretty deep hole for yourself, given that the standard you just erected would label lynching as racial inclusion.

 dogma wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

How come, racism is a negative for action. If an activity can be positive, even inclusive and bridge building, how is it racist.

Because it involves stereotypical, and often harmful, characterization according to racial categories?

You're digging a pretty deep hole for yourself, given that the standard you just erected would label lynching as racial inclusion.

People are delusional if they think minstrel shows were 'racial inclusion'. It shows racial inclusion as much as '50% off drivers ed classes for asian drivers'. Oh... It gives them financial help! how can it possibly be considered harmful? Because it is perpetuating harmful stereotypes... Like asians are bad drivers, or Blacks are sub-human buffoons which dance for our amusement, or teaching kids dark skin is 'unwanted' and needs to be washed off or is associated with non-human monsters (however nice they may be, are still sub-human monsters).

nkelsch wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

How come, racism is a negative for action. If an activity can be positive, even inclusive and bridge building, how is it racist.

Because it involves stereotypical, and often harmful, characterization according to racial categories?

You're digging a pretty deep hole for yourself, given that the standard you just erected would label lynching as racial inclusion.

People are delusional if they think minstrel shows were 'racial inclusion'. It shows racial inclusion as much as '50% off drivers ed classes for asian drivers'. Oh... It gives them financial help! how can it possibly be considered harmful? Because it is perpetuating harmful stereotypes... Like asians are bad drivers, or Blacks are sub-human buffoons which dance for our amusement, or teaching kids dark skin is 'unwanted' and needs to be washed off or is associated with non-human monsters (however nice they may be, are still sub-human monsters).

This sort of reaction is what happens when dogma takes on line out of context.

I tend to write comprehensive posts, and make my points clearly, it is dishonest to cherry pick a single line , ignore the context that founds it and attack. But its what you always did dogma, pity you are now sinking back to old ways.

The examples of positive and inclusive reaction from the genres was indicated with examples, and those examples (one of which is the resction of child owners to goliwogs) are a total opposite to a lynching, unless you mean 'lynching' to mean being dressed up in an apron and invited for a cup of tea.

So to answer nkelsh, in modern parlance blackface would be racist, in earlier times this is not necessarily so. Plenty of examples of blackface without racist content were shown, non racist blackface performers were highlight (Al Jolson) and imagery associated with blackface was shown with examples to be used in a positive setting. All these can be seen in the earlier posts.
Consequently it is clearly revisionist to create an enveloping label as 'racist' for the entire genre as if people in the past were of the same moral ouitlook as the current generation, and our own current morality is not necessarily superior either, as evidenced by ther compensation culture and uneven empowerment on race relations issues..

 Orlanth wrote:

So to answer nkelsh, in modern parlance blackface would be racist, in earlier times this is not necessarily so. Plenty of examples of blackface without racist content were shown, non racist blackface performers were highlight (Al Jolson) and imagery associated with blackface was shown with examples to be used in a positive setting. All these can be seen in the earlier posts.
Consequently it is clearly revisionist to create an enveloping label as 'racist' for the entire genre as if people in the past were of the same moral ouitlook as the current generation, and our own current morality is not necessarily superior either, as evidenced by ther compensation culture and uneven empowerment on race relations issues..

They were racist then. They were not 'positive' then. It is revisionist history to label them 'not racist'.

Know what would have been inclusive? having black performers perform not painting one's face to imitate and parody them or forcing black performers to black face it even more to degrade them. 'Black-face' even back then was feeding into the perception that Blacks were buffoons, lovable dancing buffoons, but still ignorant, 'less intelligent than whites' buffoons. To say that black-face meant anything but that, even back then is delusional. It was harmful at the time, it was insulting at the time and it was racist at the time regardless if the people felt it was so. Al Jolson was doing blackface because whites enjoyed laughing at blacks... and while he may have been trying to expose traditionally 'black' music and black people for wider exposure on broadway, he had to do it by appealing to white people's sense of racism by basically feeding into their racist stereotypes and perceptions by performing those stereotypes. The whole point was to get people who looked down on blacks to enjoy the show by appealing to their hate and trying to get them to laugh at the stupid 'n-word' but hopefully take away some enjoyment of the music. While it may have had some beneficial sides, it was, at its core, a racist act appealing to horribly racist people at the time, the general public. Some would even say it was a cowardly way to try to integrate... but the alternatives may have gotten people killed at the time.

At one time people thought owning slaves was 'not racist' because they saved them from the horrible jungles of Africa and gave them religion, a place to live and something to eat. In some people's eyes, they were doing a 'good thing' by helping out those forsaken, people by giving them a better life.

It was still horribly racist then... To say slavery was not racist, is revisionist history the same way saying 'blackface' was not racist.

Well, according to him evey racist today is not racist unless they say so.

Everyone is racist and/or indiscriminate towards anyone regardless of what they think. They might know and then again they might not know it at all

nkelsch wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

So to answer nkelsh, in modern parlance blackface would be racist, in earlier times this is not necessarily so. Plenty of examples of blackface without racist content were shown, non racist blackface performers were highlight (Al Jolson) and imagery associated with blackface was shown with examples to be used in a positive setting. All these can be seen in the earlier posts.
Consequently it is clearly revisionist to create an enveloping label as 'racist' for the entire genre as if people in the past were of the same moral ouitlook as the current generation, and our own current morality is not necessarily superior either, as evidenced by ther compensation culture and uneven empowerment on race relations issues..

They were racist then. They were not 'positive' then. It is revisionist history to label them 'not racist'.

So how is a golliwog intrinsically racist, as opposed to racist according to current social doctrine?

nkelsch wrote:

Know what would have been inclusive? having black performers perform not painting one's face to imitate and parody them or forcing black performers to black face it even more to degrade them. 'Black-face' even back then was feeding into the perception that Blacks were buffoons, lovable dancing buffoons, but still ignorant, 'less intelligent than whites' buffoons. To say that black-face meant anything but that, even back then is delusional.

Again this misses the point, not all blackface was like that, get it into your head.
Examples of non racist blackface were given, this is why the Minstrel Shows continued up until the 1970's, long after black empowerment movements.

I agree that it was possible to add a racist dialectic to blackface, but it isnt intrinsically evil.

nkelsch wrote:

While it may have had some beneficial sides, it was, at its core, a racist act appealing to horribly racist people at the time, the general public. Some would even say it was a cowardly way to try to integrate... but the alternatives may have gotten people killed at the time.

So you see there was a benefical side, wheres there is no beneficial side to racism. So at its core blackface could be performed without racism.

Also you are being revisionist my assuming on a social state on an audience of which you are ignorant, there is no evidence that al Jolson was racist, and likewise it is dogmatic to wave off entire popular culture as racist. This however is common to revisioism. were it an evil there would have been contemporary movements to have it banned, like there were movements to have slavery banned and to allow votes for all. However society did not see it as an 'evil'.

nkelsch wrote:

At one time people thought owning slaves was 'not racist' because they saved them from the horrible jungles of Africa and gave them religion, a place to live and something to eat. In some people's eyes, they were doing a 'good thing' by helping out those forsaken, people by giving them a better life.

No woning slaves was always racist, which was why slavery operated in conjunction with anti-slavery movements, it wasnt revisionism to consider slavery racist as abolitionism was contemporary with slavery.
Still slavery is a good example because it brings us back to the example of Thomas Jefferson, was he enlightened or a bigot. Allowing for the fact that in current parlance a bigot is definitly not enlightened, you have hard choice. Take history in context, or evaluate solely on modern morality.

nkelsch wrote:

It was still horribly racist then... To say slavery was not racist, is revisionist history the same way saying 'blackface' was not racist.

As thats not what I am saying, try again.

 d-usa wrote:
Well, according to him evey racist today is not racist unless they say so.

If someone is going to speak for me, I would prefer them to be able to think through a logical argument first.
You dont, so no thanks, I will speak for myself.

Frankly you have nothing to add, as your last comment testifies.
I have spent a lot of time showing clearly and logically the distinct differences between my opinion and that one you just assumed I hold.

You said they were not racist because they said they weren't or didn't think they were.

If that applies then it applies now as well, anything other than that would be revisionist.

So if racists that didn't think they were racists were in fact not racist back then, according to you, then that should still apply to racists today. Or else you are making a very silly and inconsistent argument.

Blackface was done because stage shows banned blacks from performing and when a white person put on black face and acted like a buffoon, reinforcing negative stereotypes of the time, it appealed to the racist views of the public at the time. People appealed to racisim to build fame and walth via these performances. That is 100% textbook racisim.

To pretend that blackface started and perpetuated as a tactical integration movement and was actually intended as a civil rights movement, THAT is 100% revisionist history.

And even if one performer who was doing blackface felt that 'hey blacks ain't that bad!', a heck of a lot of other performers were simply trying to make money and draw a crowd and blackface was not at all a universal protest movement to facilitate the integration of blacks into Broadway. It was harmful, it perpetuated and reinforced negative views and has had long lasting harm which can be seen even today as people blindly defend blackface as 'tradition' or 'not racist'.

At its core, blackface was done to appeal to the hate and negative attitudes of people towards blacks at the time... for money and fame. It doesn't get more racist than that.

 Orlanth wrote:

The examples of positive and inclusive reaction from the genres was indicated with examples, and those examples (one of which is the resction of child owners to goliwogs) are a total opposite to a lynching, unless you mean 'lynching' to mean being dressed up in an apron and invited for a cup of tea.

Blackface is precisely the opposite of "inclusive". It is, very literally, shoehorning a white actor into a role meant for a black one because no black actor was castable. It is akin to casting boys as women in Shakespearean plays, or a white man as Othello.

 d-usa wrote:
You said they were not racist because they said they weren't or didn't think they were.

This applies to a society as a whole.

 d-usa wrote:

If that applies then it applies now as well, anything other than that would be revisionist.

Here is where you get things wrong, again.
Now there are people pointing out racism to a much larger degree, so people are aware of it.
There is a world of difference between being in denial of racism, and living in a society where certain acts were not even considered racist. The former implies the people know what they are doing is wrong, the latter implies they are innocent.



Also you don't know what revisionism is:
Historical revisionism, the critical re-examination of presumed historical facts and existing historiography.

As we are talking about modern society its wouldn't be revisionism to apply a different criteruia (assuming you had a valid point to begin with) because we are talking about the present tense, which we can change without revisionism.

 d-usa wrote:

So if racists that didn't think they were racists were in fact not racist back then, according to you, then that should still apply to racists today. Or else you are making a very silly and inconsistent argument.

Don't start a sentence with 'so' unless you are following up an established logically consistent argument.



'A new bigotry'

I see you are still struggling with my points, so I will make it simpler. We need to find ourselves in the boots of previous generations so one can understand them better, this can be done by showing how we today can be the barbarians of tomorrow.

It is likely due to world food shortages that the next big societal ethos change will be regarding meat eating. This is because economic factors were a large driving force of previous ethical changes, for example female emancipation occurred due to the rise of a middle class, not an epiphany that women deserved more rights than they previously had.
So to hypothesise future large scale change, specifically food shortage, caused by environmental damage, increased gentrification of the developing world and overpopulation may cause society to rethink whether humans can afford to eat meat when land can be used ten times more efficiently if people were fed on a vegetarian diet. I am not a veggie by the way, and am making no partisan comment just setting out a scenario.
as vegetarianism becomes more and more necessary it is likely that this will be capitalised upon to make meat eating not only unviable but also unethical. Just in the way socio-economic changes turned female emancipation from a fringe argument to a mainstream moral argument.
It is not certain but by the end of this century at least as world population tops nine or ten billion that meat eating will be phased out by social pressure. Imagine you lived in the late 21st century, in a society without meat, where meat eaters are perverse people written off by society as animal eating barbarians, and this means they are animal haters, and follow bigoted outdated custom.

Do these labels fit us today, are we animal eating barbarians, is our whole society basically filled with bigots who hate animals. To the people with the mindset of your position on this thread that would be an overwhelming yes. We would all be 'animal racists' or some such, however the opinion goes. Now there are exteme minorities who beleive this is true now, but those are extreme minorities. Likewise there were people prior to the 19th centuiry who beelived if was perfectly ok for a black or a woman to vote, but were written off as eccentric.

Point is the reasonable man of today is tomorrows bigot, because society changes. First race rights, then gender rights, animal rights may be coming soon, if so how will future generations judge us?
Going to a blackface show in 1880 might be as innocent as eating a hamburger in 1980, but both might be barbaric according to the society of a century hence.

Now we don't know how society will change, I am just giving a hypothetical example, you could find another thing we do today you might think human society will find outrageous and unacceptable in a hundred years time. If you do use that example instead, and ask if you are a screaming bigot because you are the bigot of tomorrow, or not because you should be judged according to the standards of today. If you come to the latter conclusion, then apply this back to previous generations also.

So you have not provided any proof that blackface artists and minstrel show performers and audiences were not racist. Now you argue that society as a whole didn't think they were racist, once again without any proof?

 Orlanth wrote:

So how is a golliwog intrinsically racist, as opposed to racist according to current social doctrine?

Because it is a caricature of a particular race.

I don't see how this is difficult to understand.

If the teacher and/or video was making the argument Orlanth is making, then I would understand a principal pulling the plug...

nkelsch wrote:
Blackface was done because stage shows banned blacks from performing and when a white person put on black face and acted like a buffoon, reinforcing negative stereotypes of the time, it appealed to the racist views of the public at the time. People appealed to racisim to build fame and walth via these performances. That is 100% textbook racisim.

Bollocks, there are contemporary examples of blacks performing blackface, often alongside white also in blackface.
There were instances of blackface being used for whites only perfomances and this was considered racist at the time, and was stopped after a public backlash. Note that regular blackface was not considered racist and did not suffer the same backlash, it could easily have done so, had people thought it racist.

Wiki wrote: D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) used whites in blackface to represent all of its major black characters, but reaction against the film's racism largely put an end to this practice in dramatic film roles.

Note also that blacks worth the full setup including face paint so you could change from black to blackface indicating that blackface was a caricature of black ethnicity and not the black ethnicity itself. This deserves explanation because caricatures were very common, applied to just anot any people group and was not considered racist because nobody was singled out. Caricatures were popular as they predated celluloid and provided a transferable image prior to the era of the camera and of film. To explain this people know what a Russian is like because we see Russians on TV, on the internet and are wired for it. Basck in the 19th century this didn't exist, so to depict a Russian you needed a Russian caricature. This applies to every group imaginable, from races to nationalities to religious groups, some of these caricatures survive today as racist sterotypes, so you can be forgiven for thinking that is how they started out, but it just isnt true.

nkelsch wrote:

To pretend that blackface started and perpetuated as a tactical integration movement and was actually intended as a civil rights movement, THAT is 100% revisionist history.

Please quote where I said that. Go ahead, try.

nkelsch wrote:

And even if one performer who was doing blackface felt that 'hey blacks ain't that bad!', a heck of a lot of other performers were simply trying to make money and draw a crowd and blackface was not at all a universal protest movement to facilitate the integration of blacks into Broadway. It was harmful, it perpetuated and reinforced negative views and has had long lasting harm which can be seen even today as people blindly defend blackface as 'tradition' or 'not racist'.

Who implied or said blackface was a protest movement?

nkelsch wrote:

At its core, blackface was done to appeal to the hate and negative attitudes of people towards blacks at the time... for money and fame. It doesn't get more racist than that.

So we don't need history nkelsh can use his magic powers of know-it-all and look into the heads of what must have been millions of people who saw blackface performances over the best part of a century, and write them all off as racist.

 dogma wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

The examples of positive and inclusive reaction from the genres was indicated with examples, and those examples (one of which is the resction of child owners to goliwogs) are a total opposite to a lynching, unless you mean 'lynching' to mean being dressed up in an apron and invited for a cup of tea.

Blackface is precisely the opposite of "inclusive". It is, very literally, shoehorning a white actor into a role meant for a black one because no black actor was castable. It is akin to casting boys as women in Shakespearean plays, or a white man as Othello.

Ok, there are so, many things wrong with this.

Blackface is precisely the opposite of "inclusive".
Blackface covered a lot of sub-genres. Many of which were positive, such as golliwogs, or harmless vaudeville acts, some blackface proliferated until the late 20th century and the genre had a global perspective also.
To say its precisely the opposite of inclusive is way out of touch because blackface was too widespread to be quantified by a single sub-genre, let alone place a moral burden on it.
Notice that I haven't said that you cant apply racism through blackface, there were many racist blackface acts, but blackface itself, like many other entertainment genres and related subcultures is what iyou put into it, and there is room for positivity also. As some blackface sub-genres were demonstrably positive (back to golliwogs as childrens toys) then there is no room to claim a logical catch all as racist or even non inclusive when there are large scale cases of the opposite.

It is, very literally, shoehorning a white actor into a role meant for a black one because no black actor was castable.

Yes this could be done because of racism, and when done so there might have been a public outcry, even in times when public outcries on race relations issues were rare.

However this could also be because of a shortage of people of the relevant racial group. Some nations even today have a negligible black population, Japan for instance, and it may be necessary to dress a local actor in blackface.

It is akin to casting boys as women in Shakespearean plays, or a white man as Othello.
The boys as women thing was because of societal attitude to women in entertainment, its no surprise that things happens in the 16th century we would not be comfortable with today.

Again there were black in England in Shakespeares time, but not many. It is not inconceivable that you couldn't find a black thespain to play Othello. It should also be noted that Shakespeare still wrote the play with a black lead character, with many positive characteristics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
So you have not provided any proof that blackface artists and minstrel show performers and audiences were not racist. Now you argue that society as a whole didn't think they were racist, once again without any proof?

I dont need to, this is an accusation, you need to prove they were.
You can't prove a void anyway, this is why the logical burden is on you.

I have highlighted persons for whom no racism could be found with the search tools available, Al Jolson for example. Though I dont claim to be the definitive expert on his whole life.

 dogma wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

So how is a golliwog intrinsically racist, as opposed to racist according to current social doctrine?

Because it is a caricature of a particular race.

I don't see how this is difficult to understand.

As the caricatures contemporary with blackface covered all races commonly heard of, blacks were not singled out. I have yet to see a Frenchmen in a beret and horizontal blue and white stripes, but that was the caricature so people would see the person on stage and see 'Frenchman', the Frenchman caricature would also have certain mannerisms. This type of caricature is common in vaudeville, and vaudeville is still around today, and still uses most of the caricatures, though due to modern sensibilities blackface is no longer one of them.
This again is of interest as it indicates how the ethos of what is acceptable caricature is not even across the board. So for example blackface may be racist today, but Uncle Sam is not. Why not, because society chooses what is acceptable and what is not, as its a choice there is an ability for peoples to change their minds over time. Uncle Sam may well be a racist stererotype sometime in the future, is it therefore racist now?

 d-usa wrote:
If the teacher and/or video was making the argument Orlanth is making, then I would understand a principal pulling the plug...

Maybe, and maybe the children from the classroom were smart and understood better than you and told their parents, 'hey this makes sense, teacher is ok'.
You cant have it both ways.

nkelsch wrote:

Relapse wrote:


What about white people in a vastly unpriviliged position, such as those in Appalachia and such places? Is it right that blacks mock them by affecting hillbilly accents and dress?

The thing is, you lack an understanding of 'white privilege' and the discrimination happening. Being poor and in Appalachia, those people still maintain a level of privilege simply by being white in society and the institution.

A White male with a criminal record is 5% more likely to get a job than an equivalent black male with a clean record. For some reason, white men will be given a 'second chance' and employers will be willing to consider the circumstances of the record over black men who have no record.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/09/study-black-man-and-white-felon-same-chances-for-hire/

The results of these studies were startling. Among those with no criminal record, white applicants were more than twice as likely to receive a callback relative to equally qualified black applicants. Even more troubling, whites with a felony conviction fared just as well, if not better, than a black applicant with a clean background.
Racial disparities have been documented in many contexts, but here, comparing the two job applicants side by side, we are confronted with a troubling reality: Being black in America today is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job.

A White person has a 78% chance to be admitted to a university when compared to a black person with the exact same grades only having 22%.

These are things which even in 'poor white Appalachia' that simply being white gives those people advantages and options that 'poor black Chicago' doesn't have.

There is institutional discrimination, and has been for centuries... and even when things like blackface were started, there was institutional racism of blacks being inferior. It was degrading and based upon race then. It was not done to 'teach children that blacks are good and equal to whites, so have this blackface doll'. It was done because blacks were buffoons, scientifically inferior, and sub-human in the eyes of the people of the day, and things like blackface and golliwogs perpetuated that.

You lack an understanding of what it's like to be poor in an area like that.

You are arguing that there was a lack of racism amidst racist actions and racist caricatures. There is definitely a burden of proof there for you, especially since you are so far out in left field and argue that 1880s-1940 was filled with a society that didn't think blackface was racist.

But people thought it was racist even then:

http://www2.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/17841865/music4.htm

However, not all people agreed with the misrepresentation of black people. According to information gathered from author Thomas Hampson's PBS World Wide Web site, called I Hear America Singing, Stephen Foster, who was made famous by early songs in minstrelsy, began to do away with any words that were really offensive or trashy in his dialect songs. He also refused to allow his sheet music to carry pictures that poked fun of blacks, and finally he created songs that depicted blacks with compassion and dignity.

 Orlanth wrote:


It is, very literally, shoehorning a white actor into a role meant for a black one because no black actor was castable.

Yes this could be done because of racism, and when done so there might have been a public outcry, even in times when public outcries on race relations issues were rare.

However this could also be because of a shortage of people of the relevant racial group. Some nations even today have a negligible black population, Japan for instance, and it may be necessary to dress a local actor in blackface.

But it wasn't. It was done because people banned blacks from performing on broadway and other shows because they were black and black people were 'bad' in the eyes of the majority of the audience. It wasn't that they were not available, it was because whites would have booed them off stage due to racism.

You are trying to come up with convoluted exceptions of how it might have independently have been done in a 'non-racist' way to say it was never racist anywhere. To compare a theatrical role in japan where there is a lack of black actors to the situation of vaudeville shows where white people dressed in blackface and performed horribly racist and ignorant comedy skits to directly portray blacks in a negative light is insulting and absurd. To even try to come up with justifications like mythical Japanese theater houses performing legitimate theater with characters which required to be cast as a black man to basically blanket justify all blackface is a problem. If you want to defend isolated examples as 'not racist' then do so... but you can't turn around and say 'everything was not racist because the people at the time felt treating blacks as sub-human was ok.'

And when you try to say 'harmless vaudeville acts' were harmless when they were really were harmful and racist, that is disturbing as they were appealing to the lowest common denominator and prevalent attitude of the population, you are just defending your hole you are digging. They were not doing the roles due to lack of available black actors or as a positive representation of blacks to the white community to force integration. It was to make fun of, insult and degrade a race for fun and profit.

Alright. That'll do Donkey, that'll do.

This discussion is officially going in circles. Orlanth I understand your point and I understand some of it intent wise may even have been true at the time. But when people look back they look through a prism of modern values, and there is no doubt by modern standards, the use of blackface was wrong and very often derogatory in nature. Black people find it offensive, and with good reason. Ask Julianne Hough.

It's an extremely delicate topic and maybe a bit too much for Dakka. My advice to you though is to understand your personal feelings aside, to North Americans and most others, Blackface = bad. Period. Whatever it may or may not have been at the time, it is what it is today, and it appeals to a certain type of person generally. This generalism may not apply to you, but you cannot ignore it exists because it doesn't apply to you.

That being said, I have a feeling that this thread needs to close, real soon if the people who have been dominating the posts repeating themselves back and forth don't take a step back and let others talk about it free of the never-ending battle. Please use the Mod alert if things start getting out of hand again, but let there be no mistake, blackface = not good to most people, no amount of loopholing will change that. It's how people feel, historically accurate or not.

nkelsch wrote:

But it wasn't. It was done because people banned blacks from performing on broadway and other shows because they were black and black people were 'bad' in the eyes of the majority of the audience. It wasn't that they were not available, it was because whites would have booed them off stage due to racism.

Fact check time black Broadway acts included the Virgina Minstrels, Brown Tom Thumb and Master Juba these are of note because black minstrels were actually rare before the American Civil War. After the American Civil War black blackface acts and black acts in general became much more common.

Please stop posting crud. Your comments do not correlate with recorded history as a small fact check will show, it took only a brief search to find evidence debunking what you claimed.
If you want to post about historical topic, study the history instead of making it up as you go along to fit a preselected label.

nkelsch wrote:

You are trying to come up with convoluted exceptions of how it might have independently have been done in a 'non-racist' way to say it was never racist anywhere.

Actually I can quote where I said the COMPLETE OPPOSITE.

Also I stated several times that you could choose to apply a racist label to blackface, so I dont know where you get the idea that I claimed it was never racist anywhere.
Instead what I do say is that the examples disprove the motion put forward that blackface was racist everywhere.

Here are three yes three examples from the very last post.

....here were instances of blackface being used for whites only perfomances and this was considered racist at the time...

....Notice that I haven't said that you cant apply racism through blackface, there were many racist blackface acts, but blackface itself, like many other entertainment genres and related subcultures is what iyou put into it, and there is room for positivity...

....Yes this could be done because of racism, and when done so there might have been a public outcry,also.....

nkelsch wrote:

To compare a theatrical role in japan where there is a lack of black actors to the situation of vaudeville shows where white people dressed in blackface and performed horribly racist and ignorant comedy skits to directly portray blacks in a negative light is insulting and absurd. To even try to come up with justifications like mythical Japanese theater houses performing legitimate theater with characters which required to be cast as a black man to basically blanket justify all blackface is a problem. If you want to defend isolated examples as 'not racist' then do so... but you can't turn around and say 'everything was not racist because the people at the time felt treating blacks as sub-human was ok.'

i dont know where to begin with this. Really you cant be that stupid, I have faith in you to say you must be posting without reading the thread.

nkelsch wrote:

And when you try to say 'harmless vaudeville acts' were harmless when they were really were harmful and racist,.....

Do you actually know what vaudeville is, do you? Because you are getting all upset about somethibg you patently know nothing about. This is never a good sign.

Even d-usa has the smarts to make a distinction between 1880s minstrel shows and 1930's Blackface talkies. Vaudeville was even tamer than them, and vaudeville is still performed today, even in very politically correct countries like Britain. And yes vaudeville acts still use caricature acting, usual along national and regional lines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MajorTom11 wrote:
Alright. That'll do Donkey, that'll do.

This discussion is officially going in circles. Orlanth I understand your point and I understand some of it intent wise may even have been true at the time. But when people look back they look through a prism of modern values, and there is no doubt by modern standards, the use of blackface was wrong and very often derogatory in nature. Black people find it offensive, and with good reason. Ask Julianne Hough.

I can definately see this. Yes anyone peforming blackface now is probably at risk of becoming a victim of violent abuse and may even be arrested in some countries.
However for historical study a balanced viewpoint is essential.

 MajorTom11 wrote:

It's an extremely delicate topic and maybe a bit too much for Dakka. My advice to you though is to understand your personal feelings aside, to North Americans and most others, Blackface = bad. Period. Whatever it may or may not have been at the time, it is what it is today, and it appeals to a certain type of person generally. This generalism may not apply to you, but you cannot ignore it exists because it doesn't apply to you.

That being said, I have a feeling that this thread needs to close, real soon if the people who have been dominating the posts repeating themselves back and forth don't take a step back and let others talk about it free of the never-ending battle. Please use the Mod alert if things start getting out of hand again, but let there be no mistake, blackface = not good to most people, no amount of loopholing will change that. It's how people feel, historically accurate or not.

It's not good to have to pander to ignorance.
Dakka has the advantage that all this happens from the safety of our chairs, we need not go down the route of fearing when some vocal group is going to kick off if their viewpoint is criticised.
Anyway I got to reply to this lot because some people have quoted me literally backwards which is strange allowing for the number of times my point has been made. As this comes with a large racism label its best not to just leave it be without some form of self defence.

Very well, this ends it for me at least. Everyone gets a free swipe back.

The examples of positive and inclusive reaction from the genres was indicated with examples, and those examples (one of which is the resction of child owners to goliwogs) are a total opposite to a lynching, unless you mean 'lynching' to mean being dressed up in an apron and invited for a cup of tea.

Eh? Tea Party reference?

I Googled "Lynching, Tea"

My fellow brothers and sisters from across the pond in UK. Clarify please out of curiosity

For some reason, reports about bizarre events at school are the most likely to be wildly misreported. I don't know what it is about school, but for some reason you get a much higher ratio of stories that sound outrageous, until a week or two later when you read that the events were not that remarkable and it's just that some really important facts were left out of the original story.

And when the story is as vague as this was, well I don't think there's anyway of forming any kind of conclusion without hearing a much better, more detailed report of the story.

 Orlanth wrote:
Pretty simplistic rather than simple. There is a difference. A teachers showed this material to his students so its for educational purposes, do you really think we should mollycoddle kids against seeing politically offensive imagery.

Except you have no actual clue as to what was shown, why it was shown or what context surrounded the events. You just heard a story that hinted at a narrative that sounded like it fit a rant you like to go on, and off you went.

Half assed journalism dragging along the easily outraged, here we go again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:
Might the same someone also get offended by images of Nazis?

The sensible comparison would not be to images of Nazis, but to anti-Semitic propaganda produced by the Nazis.

Or to those comic books made by the Allies where soldiers and superheroes slaughter buck-toothed, spectacle wearing Japanese stereotypes.

I'm paid to do diorama's of scale military models. I do a lot of German Panzers with unit insignia yet I am not a Nazi. Awhile back I did a favor for friend and painted his Confederate Army for him yet I am not a Southerner. I can give a class on "Blackface" as a EOA and not be considered a racist yet be label as racist due to I showed and discuss "Blackface". Yet the topic being how racism comes about and its acceptable being that gimmick is acceptable. Humor and jokes is another avenue to Racism and Indiscrimination.

nkelsch wrote:
The thing is, you lack an understanding of 'white privilege' and the discrimination happening.

I also lack an understanding of astrology and other fictional constructs.

Got me on Geometry and Algebra.

 Jihadin wrote:

The examples of positive and inclusive reaction from the genres was indicated with examples, and those examples (one of which is the resction of child owners to goliwogs) are a total opposite to a lynching, unless you mean 'lynching' to mean being dressed up in an apron and invited for a cup of tea.

Eh? Tea Party reference?

I Googled "Lynching, Tea"

My fellow brothers and sisters from across the pond in UK. Clarify please out of curiosity

Ok.

I will explain, because the comment isnt hostile, and it doesn't constitute continuing the argument.

I was mentioning that one particular forms of blackface, the golliwog. Little girls played with dolls by 'loving' them and 'caring' for them. a typical example being the teddy bears picnic, where all the plushies have tea at the dolls house.
Thus we see examples of a blackface character being reacted to in a positive way, which debunks the mantra that the public reaction to blackface was exclusively one of ridicule or racial hatred. A childlike innocent love was a third option.

Someone posted that if I can see a positive side to blackface then I could see a positive side to lynching. This was accompanied by a heavily edited quote from me, the comment quoted from twisted to provide the aforementioned 'logic'; was about the relationship between young people (of the time) and their golliwogs, without any context of course. Because it so clearly didnt add up the quote had to be cut down to prevent the trick from being self evidently ridiculous. Still there is some black humour in comparing a lynching to a teddy bears tea party while looking for possible type matches.

I know where you are coming from Orlanth

 sebster wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Pretty simplistic rather than simple. There is a difference. A teachers showed this material to his students so its for educational purposes, do you really think we should mollycoddle kids against seeing politically offensive imagery.

Except you have no actual clue as to what was shown, why it was shown or what context surrounded the events. You just heard a story that hinted at a narrative that sounded like it fit a rant you like to go on, and off you went.

Half assed journalism dragging along the easily outraged, here we go again.

So you should apply the same logic to those who insisted the content was racist. It fits a whole lot better,

I at least quoted and looked at the link on the OP and cross referenced several newspapers covering that.
You ought to be a little more fair in your critique, as I was one of the few who did.
Much of the replies have been without research of any kind, I have documented throughout

The "easily outraged being dragged along" schtick well, you will still find that if you look with honest eyes....

 Orlanth wrote:
Might the same someone also get offended by images of Nazis?

The sensible comparison would not be to images of Nazis, but to anti-Semitic propaganda produced by the Nazis.

Or to those comic books made by the Allies where soldiers and superheroes slaughter buck-toothed, spectacle wearing Japanese stereotypes.