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Considering our nations history, you’d think most folks would realize the ignorance of putting on black face. Obviously history is not something that some folks have adequately learned from, given recent events.
Stereotypes embodied in the stock characters of blackface minstrels not only played a significant role in cementing and proliferating racist images, attitudes, and perceptions worldwide, but also in popularizing black culture.[8] In some quarters, the caricatures that were the legacy of blackface persist to the present day and are a cause of ongoing controversy. Another view is that "blackface is a form of cross-dressing in which one puts on the insignias of a sex, class, or race that stands in opposition to one's own."[9]
My comparison would be someone who wears a nazi costume for say a party or halloween. Totally and completely in bad taste and I wouldn't recommend or condone it. But I would not automatically label that person an anti-semite.
I do think there are appropriate times/places to wear this (historical re-enactment of war, or TV show/film). So for me I wouldn't automatically label the person, especially based on a photo decades old before everyone was so SJW/PC. I don't approve of the governor in questions comments but I wouldn't take this dug up photo as some huge scandal.
However you have to judge people's past actions on the societal standards of the time. I wouldn't judge somebody for being homophobic in the 1970s an also wouldn't judge people as harshly for wearing a blackface. It has no place in today's society though.
Yes, as it was when in the 1800's when Minstrel shows became popular in America. There was no hiding it and to this day no one has ever provided a reason why it should not be.
What should worry many in Virginia is the Governor is a doctor and the Attorney General is a lawyer. That means both made decisions that changed peoples for better or worse. And that would have started to occur just after both stated they wore Black Face in college.
The governor was treating black PEDIATRIC patients in residency, fellowship and private practice (Pediatric Neurologist) just after this time as he was graduating from medical school. Training for a specific specialty like that is done in large trauma children's centers in urban mid-large size cities. Did he treat all his patient's fairly, was there bias, did it affect outcomes?
Quite a few actors have worn klan hoods in movies. (Blazing Saddles).Is that racist? Are those actors, directors and producers racist? NO. Most of this is just nonsense.
However you have to judge people's past actions on the societal standards of the time. I wouldn't judge somebody for being homophobic in the 1970s an also wouldn't judge people as harshly for wearing a blackface. It has no place in today's society though.
Mostly this.
Back in the days of minstrel shows, people didn't know any better. By the 1970s, they knew.
However, I don't consider wearing blackface as being anywhere near as racist as wearing KKK gear.
Blackface was a costume, not in very good taste, but a costume, just meant to be a costume. KKK were actual sadistic murderers who loved to terrorize people and thought it was fun to kill them. KKK is more like a Nazi=both wore uniforms and tortured and killed people.
Dressing up like Hitler is farther removed from us in time so may not shock or instill fear as much but it's still wrong. But dressing up like the KKK is unforgivable and definitely racist. We'd have to ask a black person to tell us if blackface is racist.
Quite a few actors have worn klan hoods in movies. (Blazing Saddles).Is that racist? Are those actors, directors and producers racist? NO. Most of this is just nonsense.
No.
But if I saw an actor wearing a KKK hood with no part in a movie for one while hanging out with his friend who is wearing Blackface and posing for a year book picture, hmmm Yea.
Let me help with a local example if I will since Florida has soo much fun about it.
If a black and white man were wearing cowboy hats, riding a horses, rounding cattle with the whip, while I the black man kept yelling " your a cracker", no one would care. But if I did that in the middle of downtown with my same white friend, some might consider that racist.
Back in the days of minstrel shows, people didn't know any better. By the 1970s, they knew.
However, I don't consider wearing blackface as being anywhere near as racist as wearing KKK gear.
Blackface was a costume, not in very good taste, but a costume, just meant to be a costume. KKK were actual sadistic murderers who loved to terrorize people and thought it was fun to kill them. KKK is more like a Nazi=both wore uniforms and tortured and killed people.
Dressing up like Hitler is farther removed from us in time so may not shock or instill fear as much but it's still wrong. But dressing up like the KKK is unforgivable and definitely racist. We'd have to ask a black person to tell us if blackface is racist.
Even worse is if was a racist black-faced Nazi.
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