The issue of Black Pete in the Netherlands is an exception that proves the rule. The act of black facing in the past was intended to portray black people as a caricature; stupid, clownish, without grace and unable to be successful in modern (read, white) society.
Sure, this is meant as a joke, but let’s look at it as a black person. Living in the United states, you are very much in the minority and the only real way you are represented is as a caricature. There is no mention of all the things African Americans did to help the advancement of this country. Over time, you come to think that this is offensive, especially at a time when African Americans are battling what they see (and so do I) as institutional and cultural racism.
Turning up to a Black Lives Matter protest as a black-faced white person is the height of white privelige. It’s not for me as a white person to claim that I don’t mean any offense when I’d be wearing the exact thing that’s been used by white people to mock black people for generations. Its not for any white person to decide what’s offensive for other races.
Again, as someone who is half black and gets seen as black by others because of certain traits I have that are supposedly predominant to one of my ethnicity more than the other, I get seen that way. Yet someone in said caricature based on a culture and having a history of it and celebrating said person is quite different to what you just gave as an example in the end.
Second as I said in my previous post, you just showed how you've taken your world view, and rather than put yourself in their perspective you instead took over and put black people from Americas perspective in place instead. And talked about how if it was done here it'd essentially be wrong. Yet why that example is being used when it should not be is the issue. Because the place we're talking about isn't America for one, so again it'd be silly to put your world view over theirs and expect your world view to be followed, I know it's mind blowing stuff that there could possibly be multiple world views, but it is a reality.
Because you get to go home and take it off at the end of the day, without actually dealing with the reality of being black. At all. It's like trying to talk to a trauma survivor claiming you totally understand when you can not, at all, because you've never experienced it. It trivializes their situation, it turns it into a costume, it a shallow and superficial effort that demonstrates absolute ignorance of the issues surrounding it.
So I should be offended when someone pretends to be black or brown...because they don't know my supposed plight that every black or brown person supposedly faces or at least a majority do. Again I really am struggling to see where this plight is coming from, still have yet to get a solid answer from anyone suggesting this when they bring it up. Especially from Pocket and Turbo who just either ignore the post or the thread. I mean if people want to have so Red Cross telethon mentality in their head every time they think about colored people, then so be it. However, to think this is reality when it isn't and then make some argument to humanity that would be best saved for a time or place that actually faces this, is what really confuses and frustrates me.
To further this I would guess it's best that people who act in movies or plays should never take up roles that depict war veterans, never take up roles that emulate a parent of a dead child or spouse or other family member, especially if it is retelling history. Never play someone who has been raped, domestically abused, or commits suicide and so forth. Because all of these are just "Acts" and in the end these dramatizations are just that and those people acting them get to go home after and not really have to understand those who actually faced this stuff. To me that's the same situation you've just described, yet it's not that sinister.
Again, your intention does not matter. If you think going to a BLM rally in black face is showing support, you are absolutely ignorant to the desires and feelings of the group you are claiming to support. It is exercising privilege to the extent that you will disregard the views of people you are supporting, which is a disenfranchised group that has been marginalized for ages, the history around the practice, and that you're just borrowing their culture when its convenient.
Yes it does, because if you think that simply being offended and then reacting to said offending in any way is right, rather than trying to understand the intent, that seems quite irrational. I can see why people would be offended, but then again it's confusing exclusion on the offset because of the fact that even without something like this happening they already think certain groups could never understand them. So if a white person can't understand them as a white person, shouldn't do something to make them inclusive on the outside to show they're all the same inward, what else is left? Are you saying that a group of black people today are the only people that understand their issues? Issues that they claim at times are on level with Jim Crow era living? Or being the new slaves, and thus equating it with American Slavery? Some of whom were actually African natives forced to migrate here which a modern black american probably has no possible way of understanding their plight and yet they have a plight of similar magnitude?
It arrogant, entitled, antagonistic and ignorant. If you can't see the problem there, I don't know what to tell you.
I feel it's equally the same the other way, I agree with you to the limited extent that yes, black face can be offensive. Though at times I find it strange people can play characters who are white or known as white while not white yourself it's okay. However, you try to do so with a black character or other race while not being that race or more so being white, and it's absolutely appalling. All based on the notion again (full circle now) that whites have not faced persecution or have a history of similar issues and thus it's not offensive if anything its something to strive for because they have privilege. Seems quite narrow in scope, ignorant, judgmental, and arrogant as well as antagonistic.
There are 6 white people for every 1 black person in the United States. If that was 3 black people killed to 19 white people, it would align more with the racial composition in the US. So, you know, you're only 5 times more likely to be killed by the police if you're black, going off the numbers you just provided. This skew in figures translates to traffic stops, arrests, and incarceration.
Sure, these issues exist for white people but it is far less of an issue after you look at the demographics.
Okay going by that standard it is just as bad or worse to be Hispanic because looking at the total police shootings to date there have been 191 black people killed compared to 123 Hispanics. Depending on what stats you use, their numbers population wise are similar to that of Blacks. So I should be in fear every time I walk out the door cause I have the worst of both world within me. Dang.
Or perhaps it's something everyone should fear since 369 whites have been killed which is more than both groups put together. Yet the magnitude is still worse when you factor in at best this is 25-27 % of the population being shot at a rate only slightly lower that the 70% population. Factor in the fact that the U.S. has a high rate of police shooting of citizens compared to other developed nations and it starts to not really matter what you look like.
