Do you think this makeup artist making a white girl black is racist?

[Mystical]

Okay. First of all, I'm aware that this is a mods worst nightmare thread, and I am sorry for that. It shouldn't be and I do hope that those on this forum can keep themselves composed and on topic enough for me to get the answers I seek without this being a racist platform.

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When you go out into public, you see men and women who color their hair/wear eye color change contacts, sport tattoos, some people fIle their teeth to look like sharks or get dental implants to fix their crooked teeth--even chin implants, nose jobs, butt implants, breast implants, etc. And these are considered social norms. In India finding an actor in Bollywood whose nose hasn't been altered surgically, is a task! 

So why not skin color? Why is it taboo to change that-- for vanity or artistic reasons? We are all human, after all. Why is that the only part of us we can't alter?? I know what's running through your mind right now. Countless misrepresentations of African Americans by racist Hollywood and the like, faces overpainted with what looks like coal paint. I know "black face" is a horrific representation of a time period in which an entire race was being suppressed and killed under "Jim Crow" laws.

But..

Fuck Jim Crow rules. They're gone. They're dead. The only place they live is in the hearts of hateful individuals who have no say in anything, anymore. Why allow their power grab to continue to live on??

Is there a point where we could separate "altering someones skin color for benign reasons" --apart from the wrongs of history--and blur the line of race enough to eradicate that line altogether??? We are already doing it in practice. We have so many interracial families and children.. I would imagine that the confusion of whether "I am X or Y" might be less, if it was socially norm to transition skin color back and forth visually, based on style and personal choice? Imagine the difference fluid race could make in the eyes of so many adopted, or interracial children? Or how about the kids whose parents spew hatred at home, yet tolerance and acceptance is the norm outside?

When I was in my late teens I was messing around with home tan lotions and sprays. I thought it was just amazing how I could alter the color of my prominently ghost white peach skin into societies preferred "tan". It was nice not being my pale self for once. And to this day, women (and Donald Trump) tan themselves on a regular basis! If I had the money for it, I might've tried buying dark makeup just to see how I looked with dark skin. Can you believe that? For young women, vanity and experimentation with their beauty is a thing. Obviously I grew up in the suburbs in a small dominantly white town. But I was never taught hate or racism. Tolerance and love are what stuck. I realize for many, this issue is inescapable and one and the same with their lives. For instance there are currently more black men in prison, than there were that were enslaved before the Civil War. Depending upon what race you are born, your life is pretty much laid out for you. 
How do you get this to stop though? Laws have changed, there's been desegregation in schools, requisite quota of minorities being hired or educated.. yet still the racism goes on. And then there's art. Art can and has changed the world before. Good or bad, art rises above the issues and reveals it's subject and content, bare.

So why is this makeup artist under so much fire, for simply painting a white girl with some color? There's going to be a poll up top, and I'd appreciate your opinions. 

Do you think this makeup artist and model were able to break out of social norms and make a beautiful representation of humanity in many colors in the form of art-- or do you just see racist "black face" like all the rest of it's critics?  http://nyp.st/2rcEM5l

[Aroura]

The make up work is really stunning.

Personally, I think if a person enjoys another culture so much they want to experience it that way, they should be able to. If I want to join a biker group, or a local trekkies club, no one asks if my parents were bikers or trekkies, or insists I must be born that way or else it's cultural appropriation.

I think some people really need to understand why some things are offensive. It is usually if they are harmful, or negative. Dressing up in cheap native costume and running around yelling about scalping people and smokum peace pipe is an ugly, offensive, harmful behavior. Dressing up as a native person to perform a fairly accurate, educational school play, or because you learned you are 1/32 nd native and/or want to join a native group to experience that culture should not only be allowed but embraced.

Racism is still so common, and segregation and worse stiil so recent and even current, that people are overly sensitive about it, they tend to err on the side of caution. No pun intended, but it isn't a black and white issue. Nor is it an issue with easy answers.

Let her celebrate another heratige, s long as its celebration and not denigration, I say more power to her.

[Whateverist]

I don't feel any sense of outrage about it. Whatever the reason for doing it, she seems to have skills. My biggest complaint is the way she ducks the challenge of the hair. Putting on an Aunt Jemima doo rag seems like a cheap dodge. I wonder how effective I'd find the transformation without it.

[vorlon13]

and a topic that raises other befuddling corollaries such as gays who prefer friends to be 'straight' acting

(friend of mine sent me a DVD on the topic . . . hmmmm)

and then I note, no matter how un-PC it might be to want gay friends who are 'straight acting' hanging around with an actually 'straight' guy with the eventually successful intent of scoring regardless isn't un-PC . . .

yet . . .


as for the topic, another corollary, black people who use cosmetics/products to de-emphasize supposedly 'black' characteristics . . .

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

No, of course there's nothing racist about this. People need to fucking relax.

Boru

[ignoramus]

Is this the fuck thread?
I'd fuck the black chic, not the white chic!

Does that make me a white trashist?

[Mystical]

Is this the fuck thread?

No.

I'd fuck the black chic, not the white chic!

Does that make me a white trashist?

Well, considering you're a perpetually munching Guinea pig or gerbil or something.. I surmise that regardless of the object of your attraction.. you're just a horny varmint! x]

I thought she looks prettier with the makeup too. But then I realized everyone looks better with makeup on!

[paulpablo]

She looks like a white girl who's been on a sun bed or applied fake tan.

And she's just getting out of the shower so she's wrapped a towel around her head.

I think the marketing is the art form.  If you manage to get enough idiots outraged that's free publicity.

[Whateverist]

Is this the fuck thread?

No.

I'd fuck the black chic, not the white chic!

Does that make me a white trashist?

Well, considering you're a perpetually munching Guinea pig or gerbil or something.. I surmise that regardless of the object of your attraction.. you're just a horny varmint! x]

I thought she looks prettier with the makeup too. But then I realized everyone looks better with makeup on!

Trust me, I wouldn't.  And neither would I prefer the make up to the unvarnished reality of the lady in the raw.  Beside kissing lipstick is like sucking on a crayon.  To quote Vorlon, ewwww.

[brewer]

I'm with PP. If she said I have a great tan substitute we would have never heard about this.

Would anyone have their knickers in a twist if she was in a sombrero or kimono?