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 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.


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 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.


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 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.


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 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.

 Orlanth wrote:
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....

I actually wrote it up as a general point originally, but then on thinking about it a bit more and all the comments that came before yours that pointed out that we really don't know what happened, I figured that you started it

Your point is fair, though.

Reasonable sounding comment , however my original comment stands. If you looked at the context, (funny how nobody does this before trying to take me on,) you will find out it is about modern schooling. Should people be offended by historical depictions they see, and was from early on in this discussion. I argue that getting upset because you see blackface in a schoo, video is like beijng upsert because you see a Nazi unifrm, evejn accounting for modern sensibilities its more healthy to leave all this in, and people should not be offended by seeing these types of images, even if distasteful, lest they grow up unable to look at history with a clear mind.

i do not compare blacking up as if similiar to putting on a Nazi uniform.

While no subject should be considered off topic, there is always limitations on the way in which lessons are taught. Sex ed gets it's lessons across without actually showing people doing it. World affairs doesn't actually show bloated and decaying corpses in Africa and Asia. That isn't political correctness gone mad, but that basic form of censorship we used to call 'manners'.

The upside of which is that we accept some things will offend or disturb some people for whatever reason, and if their presence is likely more distracting and harmful than is needed then we leave them out.

Now, does that automatically include blackface? I don't know, it would depend on the context. Even then I'd be inclined to think not, but then I'm not American and the issue is seen quite differently there. We all have our sensibilities*. Point being, we need a lot more detail to know if the teacher was acting inappropriately or not.


*A friend of mine went and worked in the UK for a year, and at his first job they asked him what they should call him, what his nickname was. "My friends call me Pykey", he replied, because his last name was Pyke. Having no idea what that term meant in the UK, he didn't understand the stunned silence around him.

 sebster wrote:

While no subject should be considered off topic, there is always limitations on the way in which lessons are taught. Sex ed gets it's lessons across without actually showing people doing it. World affairs doesn't actually show bloated and decaying corpses in Africa and Asia. That isn't political correctness gone mad, but that basic form of censorship we used to call 'manners'.

The upside of which is that we accept some things will offend or disturb some people for whatever reason, and if their presence is likely more distracting and harmful than is needed then we leave them out.

Now, does that automatically include blackface? I don't know, it would depend on the context. Even then I'd be inclined to think not, but then I'm not American and the issue is seen quite differently there. We all have our sensibilities*. Point being, we need a lot more detail to know if the teacher was acting inappropriately or not.

Ok, I see your point here, and it is very valid.
Ok is blackface synonymous with sex ed, or synonymous with porn in terms of modern classroom acceptability. Hmm. This probably comes down to YMMV, and how its taught. Also sometimes the distasteful images ought to be shown, Holocaust victims for example,

 sebster wrote:

*A friend of mine went and worked in the UK for a year, and at his first job they asked him what they should call him, what his nickname was. "My friends call me Pykey", he replied, because his last name was Pyke. Having no idea what that term meant in the UK, he didn't understand the stunned silence around him.

Nice story. It works the other way around too.

A friend of mine's brother moved to America with his wife. They went shopping for beds, the enthusiastic salesman was introducing the couple to a particularly comfortable matress and said to the wife 'sit down on this, your fanny will soon make a dent in it.'
She blushed a bit apparently, in the UK fanny doesn't mean bottom.

*A friend of mine went and worked in the UK for a year, and at his first job they asked him what they should call him, what his nickname was. "My friends call me Pykey", he replied, because his last name was Pyke. Having no idea what that term meant in the UK, he didn't understand the stunned silence around him.

Sorry but whats bad about that? You can PM if needed.