Links - 11th June 2019 (2) (Blackface)

New Orleans Group Faces Calls To End Its Use Of Blackface At Mardi Gras - "This Tuesday's Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans has thrust into the spotlight a controversial local tradition dating back more than 100 years.Every year, members of the city's Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club don grass skirts, feather headdresses and bone jewelry for the Mardi Gras parade.The Zulus' African-American members — and even some of their white members — also paint their faces black.The practice has been an oddity existing in plain sight since the Zulu club adopted it in 1909 to pay homage to Zulu warriors in South Africa... "The Zulu club was founded in response to the racism that was present in Mardi Gras where black people were not allowed to participate" in the parade-day celebrations of historically-white social clubs, said Shantrelle P. Lewis, an historian who studies blackface traditions, in an interview with NPR's Michele Martin. For the Zulus, she said, "it was a way to combat some of the racism and segregation taking place in Mardi Gras."But now, some in New Orleans are accusing the Zulu club of racism... At last month's protest at the clubhouse by Take 'Em Down NOLA, several Zulu members put on black face makeup to taunt the demonstrators... "If you're looking at the Zulu club within a tradition of masquerading and masking... then painting one's face is a part of Carnival," said Lewis. And as a proud New Orleans native, she said she finds the Zulu costume to be appropriate, given the context. "While it's connected to minstrelsy, historically it was more rooted in this idea of a masquerade." Furthermore, Lewis said, it's a New Orleans tradition that many outsiders simply wouldn't understand. "New Orleans understands New Orleans' traditions, and the city has been very insular," Lewis said, echoing local writers who blame "clueless outsiders" for misunderstanding local culture."A lot of our traditions have existed without the participation and the scrutiny of people outside of New Orleans. And for the average black person in New Orleans, including members of my own family, they simply do not connect the blackface in Zulu with minstrelsy ...and they most certainly are not looking at it as an offense.""
Offence culture only knows how to destroy, not create

Gucci withdraws jumper after 'blackface' backlash - "Luxury fashion brand Gucci has withdrawn a woollen jumper from sale after the item was criticised for "resembling blackface.""
All black clothes should be banned

Katy Perry: shoes evoking blackface face criticism

People Are Complaining That Charcoal Face Masks Are Blackface And Racist

'New York Times' Takes On 'Blackface' In 'Mary Poppins' - "The 1964 adaptation of "Mary Poppins" starring iconic actors Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke includes a scene wherein the magical nanny gets soot on her pristine face. Andrews, playing Poppins, powders her face with more soot and leads the Banks children and Van Dyke, playing a charming chimney sweep named Bert, on a march across London rooftops.Pollack-Pelzner reluctantly admits that the scene is innocuous enough, though he ties it to roots of blackface and accuses "Mary Poppins Returns" of evoking minstrelsy and keeping with supposed Disney tradition."

Blackface in this Phoenix restaurant's photo? That's what I see - "Friends said, “It’s coal miners at a pub after work.” It was a photograph of coal miners with blackened faces. I asked a Latinx and white woman for their opinion. They said it looked like coal miners at a pub after work. Then they stepped back, frowned and said it’s men in blackface... At the downtown Phoenix restaurant, my concern that the photograph of men in blackface was a threat to me and my face and voice were ignored.A business’ photograph of men with blackened faces culturally says to me, “Whites Only.” It says people like me are not welcome."
Class privilege means mocking coal miners who risked their lives and didn't have time to clean up

Mark Herring and the Grey Zones of Blackface - "Perhaps there is a difference between blacking up to mock black people, as the person pictured on Northam’s yearbook page seems to have done, and blacking up in affectionate imitation of a black person, as part of seeking to resemble said person, as Herring did. One indication that the latter is reasonable is that it was common among highly enlightened people in times hardly as removed from ours as Al Jolson and The Birth of a Nation... two female friends, one white and one black, “switched” races for the night. The black one wore whiteface and the white one wore blackface. Not with an Afro wig or big red lips, but thoroughly blacked up. I believe she wore a head scarf, which could be seen as a “black” garment under the circumstances. Their idea was to ridicule the very idea of racial categories. They went about with an ironic air, the black one chirping “I’m white!” and the white one chirping “I’m black!” Yet the black woman was what we would today term a highly woke individual. And no one chided the white one for, say, failing to attend to the fact that blackness is not just a matter of skin tone but of grappling with the coded hostilities baked into a fundamentally racist society. She was read as making a little joke, a wise one, even—and remember, this was a dorm full of people voting for Mondale, renowned (and often ridiculed) for being gay-friendly in a way alien to most of the campus beyond at the time, very comfortably interracial, replete with international students and all manner of the “different,” and professionally intolerant of the repressive, bigoted world of Reagan’s America beyond our dorm doors... The idea, apparently, is that whenever any white person puts on brown makeup, it can be read as a salute to, or at least not attendant to, the brutally dismissive blackface practices of minstrel performers from the 19th century well into the 20th. To wear blackface is to condone white men prancing around onstage talking in cartoonish syntax and promulgating an idea that the essence of blackness is resounding ignorance, sexual rapacity, and buffoonery.But minstrelsy was a very long time ago now. Ever fewer people now living experienced it live. While we must never return to minstrel-style hijinks, does it really make sense, does it really serve a purpose, to ban anyone ever putting on brown makeup as part of mimicking a person of color regardless of his or her intent? Must we really have it that a white person dressing as a black person must do it with his or her own pale skin on view? The likely outcome will be a tacit societal rule that black Americans are the only people in the country who are never to be imitated, even in praise, except by other black people. And what purpose would that glum, peculiar stricture serve?... Much of this special kind of vigilance, which leaves many people who thought of themselves as on the barricades a few years ago scratching their head, can be seen as a quest for power. To get someone fired from his job and publicly shamed for, say, having blacked up to dress as a black pop artist 40 years ago is to wield force, to have an effect; it is a kind of whip held at one’s side. If we not only ban brown makeup even as part of an affectionate costume, but also declare that past use of brown makeup is sufficient for banishment from polite society, then we lay claim to a wisdom that people just a few years ago lacked, and accuse the recent past of deep ignorance"

The Independent - Posts - "'What is blackfishing? The influencers accused of using makeup to 'pretend' to be black'
'Blackfishing' is a new, worrying trend online"
These are the same people who bash those who are concerned about trans people because trans people are not hurting anyone
Comments: "Is it worrying? I mean, who is worried? Syria, worrying. Climate change, worrying. Plastic in oceans, worrying. US new alignment with dictatorships, worrying. Refugee crisis, worrying. Ongoing poverty & starvation etc, worrying. White women taking selfies with the wrong shade of makeup, distinctly not worrying."
"Can we drop the word influencer to describe women who take selfies and get paid to promote skinny tea ?"
"Well i guess we should get offended by Geisha make up and clowns and any black person lightening their skin, or straightening their hair..?? Seriously .. as stupid as this comment sounds, is how stupid this post is,let people be who they want"
"Does Michael Jackson fall into the category for white fishing ?"
"This does smack of a bit of a double standard here. First there is criticism that western beauty standards are too white. Then when people recognise the beauty of black women and wish to emulate that beauty, it’s not appropriate and comes from a place of white privilege. Perhaps I’m ignorant but acknowledging the beauty of women from different backgrounds to ourselves is surely a good thing?"
"You should come to Italy from may to september and see how many italians do their best to look like ebony on the beach "
"What about those who get a tan? Are they ‘brownfishing’? 🤦"
"idiotfishing is a more worrying trend people online pretending to have a valid point."
"Stop.Seriously.No one cares. For people who are supposedly about letting people be what they identify as--- they seem to be awfully intolerant of people who do exactly that."
"So using white makeup is white privilege, using darker make-up is blackfishing, getting tan is insulting to the aborigen people, get you hair straight is coping asian culture, if I draw a black point on my chin Marie Antoniette will come from the ground telling me I'm fking coping the french beauty, if i do rasta i'll be insulting rastafarian and doing afro hair i'm coping africa hair, if I place a pair of cat ears my cat will come to smash my face accusing me of cat fishing. And I can go on and on."

'Saturday Night Live's' Blatant Hypocrisy on Blackface - "for years SNL has apparently considered blackface funny enough that they’ve had white actors don blackface for a sketch... there’s the infamous Jimmy Fallon impersonation of Chris Rock, which aired on SNL back in 2000... You’ll note that Hammond is wearing blackface while sitting next to Kenan Thompson, who, just last night, said on SNL that wearing blackface “was never funny or cool.” Thompson didn’t have a problem actually sitting next to Hammond donning blackface for the sketch. It must have been funny and cool at the time... I suppose Kenan Thompson should have said blackface "is never funny or cool — unless Saturday Night Live does it.""

Jimmy Kimmel Once Dressed Up in Blackface and Mocked Black Athletes - "Amid Megyn Kelly’s controversial remarks about blackface on Halloween, a video has resurfaced of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel wearing blackface and seemingly mocking black athletes"

Oscars Host Jimmy Kimmel Calls for 'Night of Positivity' — Then Lets Loose With Political Jabs

Critics: Will Smith Too Light-Skinned to Play Serena Williams' Father - "The new film King Richard is facing allegations of “colorism,” as critics say that actor Will Smith’s lighter skin tone does not match the actual skin tone of the character he is cast to play."
Obama wasn't black enough either

The white-black theatre director - "Lennon has described himself as a ‘mixed heritage individual’, arguing that ‘racial identity is not always black and white’ and that ‘everybody on the planet is African. It’s your choice as to whether you accept it.’ Dolezal has claimed ‘the idea of race is a lie’. ‘What I believe about race is that race is not real’, she said, ‘it’s not a biological reality. It’s a hierarchical system that was created to leverage power and privilege between different groups of people.’... Swap the words white and black for man and woman and Dolezal and Lennon would be celebrated for bravery and for challenging convention... Today’s identity politics means that the biologically arbitrary differences of race are seen as rigid and entrenched. The old slogan ‘one race, the human race’ is considered by many radicals to be a racist denial of difference and privilege. Now, hairstyles, music and clothes are all firmly demarcated as belonging to one racial group or another and no transgressions are permitted. At the same time, the scientific reality of sex differences is seen as a random act of violence that should count for nothing. How people identify, how they dress and look, is all that counts in defining what makes a man and a woman. The upshot of all this is not a looser, more liberal view of what men and women can be, but the opposite: a more conservative division between people. Denying the rigidity of racial divisions and the flexibility of gender divisions are both crimes in the eyes of today’s identitarians. Dolezal was accused of being a ‘race faker’."
Since race is, we are told, a biological myth and it's socially constructed, why the outrage when people identify as a different race?