Mrs.Anteater
Just keep going....
Trudeau’s blackface brings up discussion about what are things you can’t do today due to cultural sensitivities that were acctable in everyday life in the past. And what determines the limit?
An example:
:
These marshmallow sweets used to be called “ negro kisses” when I was a kid and were very popular on kids birthday parties ( i.e. for eating contests). There are also other bakery items in Germany that were called “negro heads” , “ snails” (look like cinnamon rolls),
“ pig ears” - the latter do not have anything to do with racism. Of course, today, negro kisses and heads are renamed foam kisses.
Was the fact that something made out of chocolate was named racially already racism?
There were also are sweet treats called “Americans” and “ Berliners”. There is “ Chinese cabbage”. Is this per se degrading or is this only degrading if you think racially?
As a child, I read Karl May and played cowboys and indians until I was 12 years old. It didn’t make me a racist. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I don’t have biasses, buy those are more based on the lack of regular experience with people of other races.
Kids play and people like to dress up. What is the harm of dressing up as a fictional figure? In a world without racism, black people dressing up as white, white people as black, or green - nobody would think twice about it
. So, it comes down to
1. The intention ( in the history of black face it was apparently intended to degrade) - does that now mean it always will?
2. The interpretation- in the experience of living with racism, the dress up is experienced as ridiculing.
To actually live in a world without racism, people of all races have to free themselves from both. Dancing around the fear of being misinterpreted as well as interpreting everything as racially motivated is both not a sign of a healthy state of racial relations.
An example:
:
These marshmallow sweets used to be called “ negro kisses” when I was a kid and were very popular on kids birthday parties ( i.e. for eating contests). There are also other bakery items in Germany that were called “negro heads” , “ snails” (look like cinnamon rolls),
“ pig ears” - the latter do not have anything to do with racism. Of course, today, negro kisses and heads are renamed foam kisses.
Was the fact that something made out of chocolate was named racially already racism?
There were also are sweet treats called “Americans” and “ Berliners”. There is “ Chinese cabbage”. Is this per se degrading or is this only degrading if you think racially?
As a child, I read Karl May and played cowboys and indians until I was 12 years old. It didn’t make me a racist. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I don’t have biasses, buy those are more based on the lack of regular experience with people of other races.
Kids play and people like to dress up. What is the harm of dressing up as a fictional figure? In a world without racism, black people dressing up as white, white people as black, or green - nobody would think twice about it
. So, it comes down to
1. The intention ( in the history of black face it was apparently intended to degrade) - does that now mean it always will?
2. The interpretation- in the experience of living with racism, the dress up is experienced as ridiculing.
To actually live in a world without racism, people of all races have to free themselves from both. Dancing around the fear of being misinterpreted as well as interpreting everything as racially motivated is both not a sign of a healthy state of racial relations.