This is why blackface is offensive: A brief history

KLS.COM ^ | 02/03/2019 | By Harmeet Kaur, CNN

[SeekAndFind]

RE: The performances were intended to be funny to white audiences. But to the black community, they were demeaning and hurtful.

The obvious next question is WHY?

But to ask is to be condemned as racist already. Ask Megyn Kelly.

[babble-on]

They were demeaning and hurtful because they mocked blacks, who were a hated underclass, as stupid fools. There were intended to be demeaning and hurtful. That was the whole joke from start to finish.

[mbarker12474]

It was offensive to Ted Danson and Whoopie Goldberg:

[Carriage Hill]

"It's been nearly 200 years since white performers first started painting their faces black to mock enslaved Africans in minstrel shows across the United States. It was racist and offensive then, and still is today."

It wasn't offensive then; it was de rigeur on Broadway and on TV.

So Michael Jackson lightening his skin wasn't offensive? He was a good looking black kid who died looking like an ugly white woman. There are other blacks who lighten their skin. Why don't you SJW Scumbags single them out. It's "cultural appropriation" (your confused term) and I don't like it.

[SpaceBar]

Historical revisionism. Now with flavor crystals!

[TangledUpInBlue]

My wife and I were talking about this over the weekend during his press conference. We’re not black, but we’re also not offended by black face and don’t think people “used to be”. Again, PC run amok?

As a kid, I remember people “browning” their faces in high school during Halloween to dress up as Bob Marley, the rainbow afro guy from Monday Night Football, Fat Albert, and Michael Jackson. Especially after thriller came out.

To me that’s not racist. I’m lost as to why people think it is. It made the costume better.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I was at a Halloween party in high-school where a white couple came dressed as a black couple. Including blackface.

Another kid, who was black, came dressed in a KKK hood.

The three of them rode home on the bus together.
It was all about poking fun. Nobody took things so seriously.

[SeekAndFind]

I was a foreign student in Japan on scholarship from the Japanese Minisitry of Education (Monbusho) in the 1980’s.

We had a Halloween party at a nearby University ( Osaka Gaidai ) with both Japanese and Foreign students attending.

One German guy came as “Shintaro the Samurai”, complete with his eyes looking chinky and wearing a samurai suit.

Guess what? Everyone applauded him ( including the Japanese students ) and he won the best costume that night.

The Japanese were not offended by a white man trying to look like a Japanese. Why are we suddenly so worked up over this?

As for putting on a blackface, why should it be interpreted today as MOCKERY? Why can’t it be seen as playful fun like the German wanting to look like a Samurai?

[morphing libertarian]

we have a virus in the US called PC and so far there is no cure.

[canuck_conservative]

... is a photo in Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's ...

Once again, CNN deliberately leaves out that Northam is a Democrat

self-imposed censorship - typical Leftist Media ... again

[Tzimisce]

They’re taking our Free Speech/Free Expression and all we’re getting is a condescending lecture about how it will make America a better place. 😞

[PGR88]

Its mocking a time gone by.

Does dressing up as a Pilgrim on thanksgiving “mock” Pilgrims?

[TalBlack]

I saw, recently, some B movie made on the 1940s. It was about a series of murders at a radio station. Along the way a white bellboy in blackface and a black porter do a comedy bit together. The bellboy was the clown and the black guy was the straight man. Didn’t look too demeaning to me.

[Darteaus94025]

You are entitled to your interpretation, and I’m not trying to change it. I am pointing out that there are other interpretations and an intelligent, open minded person will recognize that.

I believe this is another situation where insensitivity or buffoonery or clowning to get paid for providing laughs gets weaponized into an instrument of attempted racial guilt infliction. I decline to participate as a victim or a member of the racial lynch mob.

[Carriage Hill]

CWII is the cure.
We’re headed to socialist/fascism/communism on a rocket.

[Altura Ct.]

I...don’t...care.

I am so tired of every bit of all this race crap. It is hypocritical to the max and one way as h**l.

[Secret Agent Man]

I fail to se the difference in White Chicks.

They dressed up as white girls in white face, to wear and apply accentuated features of whites, to play a highly stereotyped role for the amusement of audiences.

Its just another double standard.

Botom line is all this stuff the race baiters do is not about ending anything, its about hatred and revenge on people who do not or think what they claim all white people do and think.

Further this whole claim is worthless as the standard is only applied whenmits convenient, or on their enemies, and let their friends slide. Like the Ted Danson/Whoopi photo example.

Sad times we are in. Socialists have succeeded in balkanizing peoples and we are far worse off, all on purpose.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: It was offensive to Ted Danson and Whoopie Goldberg:

Because we know that Danson did not mean to offend. he was trying to be funny.

In 1937, there was a film, THE GOOD EARTH that won 2 academy awards and was nominated for 5 Oscars including best picture.

Guess what? All of the actors who played the Chinese peasants in the movie were WHITE ( Paul Muni was Wang Lung and Luise Rainier as O-Lan ). They were Caucasians made to look like Chinese.

No one made a big deal of it. No Chinese were offended. In fact, it was a hit movie in Southeast Asia.

Why can't we go back to those times instead of tearing each other apart and destroying careers over something so benign?

In fact, we are now calling Mary Poppins racist for Chimney Sweeps having black coals on their faces !!!

Paul Muni as Wang Lung and Luise Rainer as O-Lan in the Good Earth

[PGR88]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_LeJfn_qW0