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I think this is ridiculous. This child and his family were very respectful and only trying to do an accurate portrayal for a school project. They were not making fun or acting like fools. At our school we have Wax Museum in 3rd grade and many students put black on their faces if their assigned historical figure is of a darker complexion than the student. What do you think?
I think this is supidity by the school administrators. If they did a play featuring MLK and had no balck people toplay the role woudl they not put black makeup on the actor? If they didn't it would look pretty stupid. MLK was black. He was proud to be black, why should the kid playing MLK not make himself black? Wouldn;t some people be offended ot see MLK portrayed as a white guy? I think that would be more offensive to the supersensative. They are going to prohibit anything that is offensive? What is someone is offended by the head scarf of a moslem girl? What if my son is offended by guys who wear pink shirts. I am offended by kids wearing $300 Nikes. Will they ban that? Silly
He could have done a better job though. He looks ridiculous and it looks like a hitler moustache not a MLK moustache, but she should not be sent home for doing a bad job. He tried and got creative, He should have been rewarded, not castigated.
I actually don't think the black makeup job was bad though the hitler moustache was not a good choice.
Why shouldn't the teachers use this as a teaching opportunity to perhaps explain to the kids what black face used to mean? In other contexts, it is certainly offensive, but not in this one. The student obviously respected Dr. King and wanted to portray him as accurately as he could.
Well the kid learned a lot today but not about MLK Jr. He learned grownups can be jerks and make ridiculous mistakes which expose themselves as total fools.
He also learned that his parents are strong and principled people who will stand up for the truth. But did he learn a thing about racial tolerance or use of blackface to humiliate and denigrate black folks? Did he learn how blackface in entertainment even came about? I doubt it. What a missed opportunity by the teacher, school and administration.
I think this is supidity by the school administrators. If they did a play featuring MLK and had no balck people toplay the role woudl they not put black makeup on the actor? If they didn't it would look pretty stupid. MLK was black. He was proud to be black, why should the kid playing MLK not make himself black? Wouldn;t some people be offended ot see MLK portrayed as a white guy? I think that would be more offensive to the supersensative. ....
Leaving this second grade silliness and the C-D furor aside, the above point is interesting. I can only imagine that the kid looked like a character from a minstrel show, but that says nothing about the intentions, which were probably simply for realism....however unreal the end result might look.
I have never seen a black actor who is playing Hamlet in the U.S., or the black actors in the recent Shakespeare festival in London playing white characters painted in white makeup. Hamlet was a Dane, and with the exception of Otello, Shakespeare's characters were white Europeans.
I wonder why no whiteface makeup is attempted?
I do remember reading that many years ago that when Leontyne Price, a black opera singer, was singing the white lead in Traviata it was suggested that she wear white makeup. Her response was to the effect that she would look ridiculous.
Any they wonder why everyone is growing up and being manipulated by race in this country.
Because it has been that way since colonial times. Whites are just not used to having the shoe on the other foot.
However, now that the U.S. is officially a minority majority country, perhaps we will have lots of opportunities to get used to it. Or perhaps, as polls seem to indicate, younger Americans of all races increasingly do not give a pig's patootie about race.
I wouldn't have sent that kid to the principals office based on the fact that I'd be dying of laughter.
Sorry, but kids in blackface is hilarious.
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