Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

5/17/2012 4:10:16 PM

wtf does that have to do with this story?

5/17/2012 4:22:06 PM

the kid's picture makes me think of michael scott as a second grader

also, why aren't people enraged about his fake mustache as well

5/17/2012 4:51:39 PM

As an owner of a mustache I find that highly offensive

5/17/2012 5:18:22 PM

^^YES!!! to the Michael Scott thing.

5/17/2012 5:22:26 PM

Quote :

" Seriously. How about if the kid had been dressed in Nazi regalia for a European history event? Would that be cool? The point isn't about historical accuracy. It's about how the history has been used to subjugate people. White supremacists still wear Nazi regalia as a sign of presumed racial superiority. Dumbasses still wear blackface as a way to denote racial inferiority of the object (i.e., African Americans) and racial superiority of the subject (i.e., the White person in blackface). "

Is he portraying a Nazi? If so, then YES!

WTF is this? It is in no way racist to put on makeup to look like someone else. Putting on dark makeup is not blackface.

For reference, this is blackface



This is not blackface

5/17/2012 5:36:00 PM

he may be attempting to look like MLK, but that mustache is from the Indian subcontinent

5/17/2012 5:56:52 PM

that mustache is straight from a certain bavarian corporal.

but thank god his report wasnt on bert williams.

5/17/2012 6:10:17 PM

NumbWall:

Quote :

"Racial sensitivity is getting out of hand."

5/17/2012 6:49:00 PM

^^^^ if your comparison pictures of blackface and not blackface is what you want me to use to determine whether or not the kid is in blackface, then he's definitely in blackface.

[Edited on May 17, 2012 at 7:22 PM. Reason : k]

5/17/2012 7:21:44 PM

His intention was to look like MLK, not belittle black people. Just because he sucks at makeup doesn't make him or his parents racist or insensitive.

5/17/2012 7:24:48 PM

Quote :

"ITT White people complain about having to remember the historical context of blackface."

5/17/2012 7:25:44 PM

you actually think this child was creating a "stereotyped caricature of a black person?"

he was doing a report on MLK; you are delusional and pathetic.

5/17/2012 7:33:55 PM

^ no, i'm saying he's wearing blackface. regardless of the intentions of the student, his parents, or the school, the historical significance of blackface as an agent of racial oppression has to be acknowledged and dealt with. individuals at the school were offended by the costume. so, it makes logical sense that the kid would be asked to remove the makeup. no further action should be taken.

5/17/2012 7:48:26 PM

so in other words, you dont know the definition of blackface, and you think it simply means "a black face."

cool.

[Edited on May 17, 2012 at 7:52 PM. Reason : -]

5/17/2012 7:52:10 PM

^ sorry dude, but given the historical context of the US, black face paint used to represent an African American = blackface. there's no way to separate them.

5/17/2012 7:57:53 PM

5/17/2012 8:07:59 PM

numbwall youre a fuckin idiot just shut up you dont know what youre talkin about

5/17/2012 10:00:46 PM

NumbWall?

more like Dumbwall.

AMIRITE?

5/18/2012 12:58:33 AM

I'm trying to figure out how the hell this thread got to page 3 before this was posted:

5/18/2012 2:09:24 AM

Quote :

"people are using the term "blackface" too liberally theres a difference between character depiction and making fun of a stereotypical sect of a population in general and acting like a coon people dressing up as celebrities and cartoon characters does not mean they are esposuing some sort of latent racism. jesus black face is not simply throwing on some black shoe polish, it was a whole act aimed at exploiting the old south black bumpkin"

/thread

people who call Racist on non-racist things fuck things up by undermining actually racist aspects of our society. the fact that a 1/3 of black men are in some manor entangled in the criminal justice system is racist. but its hard to explain that to my fucking backward grandpa when he's all frothed up over the knee-jerk jerk-offs complaining about a kid dressed up as a black guy.

the offensiveness of black face is entirely tied to intent.

5/18/2012 2:38:07 AM

Quote :

"the offensiveness of black face is entirely tied to intent. "

5/18/2012 9:40:27 AM

Quote :

"the offensiveness of black face is entirely tied to intent. "

5/18/2012 9:42:16 AM

Quote :

""the offensiveness of black face is entirely tied to intent if the person seeing the potential blackface is offended and to what degree. ""

Revised to be more realistic.

5/18/2012 9:54:28 AM

You have a right to be offended by whatever asinine crap you want but that doesn't mean the rest of the world should tip toe around your sensitive nature.

5/18/2012 10:03:48 AM

^^i disagree. if the person that is dressing up to be MLK isn't intending to be racist, it doesn't matter if someone sees it and is offended, that's their problem.

If somebody is offended by a little boy dressing up as MLK for a school project because they darkened their face to look black (since MLK was black), then it is the offended that is perpetuating racism, not the kid (or whoever it might be).

[Edited on May 18, 2012 at 10:20 AM. Reason : ]

5/18/2012 10:12:43 AM

^^^you can argue that all you want but the kids face shouldnt be plastered all across the national news. It should have been dealt with in-house.

[Edited on May 18, 2012 at 10:35 AM. Reason : r]

5/18/2012 10:35:29 AM

Actually I was just being sarcastic. I really don't see anything wrong with it.

On a semi related note, one of the best scenes from one of my favorite movies is a report on Abe Lincoln:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX0dDyP5HOc

5/18/2012 10:53:02 AM

Quote :

"You have a right to be offended by whatever asinine crap you want but that doesn't mean the rest of the world should tip toe around your sensitive nature"

[Edited on May 18, 2012 at 12:18 PM. Reason : ]

5/18/2012 12:18:27 PM

The TM case must be losing steam for this story to be making headlines.

5/18/2012 9:07:23 PM

you have a point, there

5/18/2012 11:54:27 PM

It blows my mind...the inane things that people choose to blow up over while allowing issues like gross subversion of constitutional liberty slip under the radar

but I guess forming an opinion on racism requires no research so every loudmouthed ignorant chucklefuck has one. If you're offended, miffed, offput, perturbed, confused or otherwise upset by a child in black facepaint portraying a respected black figure then you're simply an idiot. Take a step back, breathe, and focus your energy on something more pressing.

Honestly, while we're giving things more thought than warranted, why not appreciate the fact that an uncorrupted white youth has no qualms with appearing black and publicly glorifying Dr. King?

[Edited on May 19, 2012 at 3:54 AM. Reason : .]

5/19/2012 3:51:47 AM

it's troubling to live in a culture that's more interested in the signifier than the signified

people get distracted by symbols, losing focus on the things they're meant to represent

example: if a video was released showing a younger Obama burning an American flag half the country would lose their shit and it would be the biggest news story for at least the next 2-4 weeks. however, after the Obama administration moves to actually encroach on our civil liberties, by signing the NDAA, codifying indefinite military detention without charge or trial, issuing National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order, which eases and expands the ability of the government to institute martial law, and signing HR 347, making it a federal offense to "cause a disturbance" at certain political events few people, relatively speaking, seems to give a shit.

none of this should come as a surprise, though, as we have a population that's been crippled by an education system that's designed to eliminate imagination, critical thinking and independent thought while intentionally cultivating servility and confusion rendering people incoherent in both thought and speech.

5/19/2012 12:38:16 PM

^ i don't care about your tea party diatribe (it seems unrelated to the topic at hand), but if you're saying that the reason i'm upset about blackface is because i got brainwashed by what i learned in school, then that's bullshit. we talked about slavery and jim crow for maybe a sum total of an hour in high school. everything else i've learned came from independent research and college. the shortcomings of high school education in areas of racial awareness and acceptance is a huge part of the reason that so many people in this thread have a very skewed (or total lack of) understanding of the history of blackface and what it actually represents.

[Edited on May 19, 2012 at 1:34 PM. Reason : g]

5/19/2012 1:31:10 PM

inb4 God hates on whitey.

[Edited on May 19, 2012 at 8:25 PM. Reason : keep it jungle]

5/19/2012 8:25:16 PM

Quote :

"about blackface is because i got brainwashed by what i learned in school, then that's bullshit. we talked about slavery and jim crow for maybe a sum total of an hour in high school. "

I call bullshit considering half the high school US History textbook covers from the early 1800s to the 1970s. Either you had a shitty teacher that didn't hold class for half a year or you were asleep for that time.

5/19/2012 9:01:19 PM

^ as scary as it is, it's true-- even my AP history class glossed over it. i went to a pretty crappy high school in rocky mount. i'm 30, so this would've been late 90s. I imagine and hope the curriculum has been updated, but when i was in school we definitely learned the "War of Northern Aggression" version of civil War and Reconstruction-Era hisory.

5/19/2012 9:20:05 PM

Again I call bullshit, especially in an AP course. I, too, took AP History in the late 90s. You would have failed the national exam if 150 years of history were "glossed over."

5/19/2012 9:23:41 PM

^ i never said we didn't learn those 150 years of history. of course we did. but my teacher taught history exclusively from the perspectives of white people. i distinctly remember finding it odd how deliberately she appeared to skip over certain portions of the textbook that emphasized african american history.

what would i accomplish by vabricating this information? it's a really salient memory, and i'm fairly certain this is a typical experience in the south and elsewhere. it's only within the last two decades that history books have devoted more than lip service to any aspects of african american history other than white-washed information about slavery, MLK, and rosa parks.

5/19/2012 9:34:34 PM

Not sure how you would know it was only lip service if you didn't read those parts of your textbook in high school.

5/19/2012 9:42:52 PM

5/19/2012 9:45:25 PM

Quote :

" sorry dude, but given the historical context of the US, black face paint used to represent an African American = blackface. there's no way to separate them."

I'm sorry, you are clearly wrong on this one and need to give it up.

Blackface was accompanied by a whole act meant as a caricature of black stereotypes. I don't know that I'd say it was intended to subjugate blacks--I don't know that it was largely malicious, so much as meant to be a laugh at the expense of a race, and in a "yeah, we really are better than you" sort of way. At any rate, regardless of the utter dissimilarity in intent and delivery here, blackface was also characterized by a certain style of makeup that is just not seen on this little boy.

Black face paint used to represent an African American just flat-out does not necessarily equal "blackface". I mean, black actors back in the day used to get painted up in blackface when playing those characters. Your statement is the equivalent of saying that "white face paint = mime." Obviously when Eddie Murphy dressed up as a white guy, he wasn't a mime.

5/19/2012 11:52:43 PM

Quote :

"the offensiveness of black face is entirely tied to intent."

I agree.

Although it is racially insensitive to use straight black paint rather than a brown. I question the intelligence of this family, but it's not racist. Just clueless white people.

[Edited on May 20, 2012 at 12:04 AM. Reason : ]

5/20/2012 12:00:27 AM

^^I agree. That is, I doubt a bunch of guys got in a room and made some master plan where blackface was a key component of their war
on African Americans. But it was a major factor in people's perceptions of race. Children were raised on
it...their ideas/opinions were largely informed by that garbage.

Still, it seems ridiculous to get up in arms about a white kid in face paint when we tolerate very similar stuff from
African American performers today. (Children are still being raised on it...)

And I like that you've noted that black people also did blackface back in the day. It was a job that paid money, and I suspect
black/white performers saw it in just that way. It's not like actors were clamoring to make asses of themselves and mock people,
but they did...

[Edited on May 20, 2012 at 1:31 AM. Reason : ]

5/20/2012 1:26:40 AM

^ Black people who wore blackface weren't clamoring over that role. in many cases it was the only acting job they could get. having to pay the bills will make you do some dumb shit.

5/20/2012 2:31:12 AM

That's exactly what I said.

5/20/2012 4:02:55 AM

5/20/2012 9:09:31 AM

^^ lol he obviously suffers from a lack of reading comprehension.

5/20/2012 1:37:06 PM

^ sick burn

5/20/2012 1:43:20 PM

Quote :

"And I like that you've noted that black people also did blackface back in the day. It was a job that paid money, and I suspect black/white performers saw it in just that way. It's not like actors were clamoring to make asses of themselves and mock people, but they did..."

Likely the case, but completely beside the point.

That was in response to NumbWall's comment that "black face paint used to represent an African American = blackface." Obviously black guys didn't paint their faces so that they represent..."black guys." They did it because "blackface" is a certain style of makeup, typically accompanying an entire act. Putting black makeup on your face doesn't make it blackface any more than putting on white makeup makes you a mime. Hell, if you just put on some white makeup, you wouldn't even be dressed as a mime.

5/20/2012 2:20:52 PM