Is blackface always offensive?

[Belacqua]

In a thread supposedly concerned with offending people, I find it extremely hypocritical that some people consider it fine to be as offensive, judgemental and arrogant as they like, as long as it’s directed towards someone who the in-group consider to hold a "wrong" opinion.

I'm told that if you don't post personal insults you're a doormat.

[Rev. Rye]

In a thread supposedly concerned with offending people, I find it extremely hypocritical that some people consider it fine to be as offensive, judgemental and arrogant as they like, as long as it’s directed towards someone who the in-group consider to hold a "wrong" opinion.

Really disappointing. I’ve noticed this going on in other threads too. Just insult people so that the wrong opinions either go away or submit to attacks from groupthink. The insults don’t count because they are righteous. I was recently driven away from another forum in exactly the same way.

I’m not going to bother to elaborate on what I actually meant, as people seem quite happy to just make up stories about me and put me in neat little boxes.

Honestly, groupthink aside, I honestly think there's one fundamental thing about human nature that I've observed throughout my life, something I like to call The Dexter Hypothesis.

Human beings are flawed. We have desires that we know are bad and we want to find an outlet for it where the consequences can either be mitigated or turned into a positive. One particularly extreme example is Dexter Morgan. He's a serial killer, driven by urges to kill from his early childhood, and, by the end of the series, the Dexter Wiki calculates a body count of 135 people, a body count confirmed to be dwarfed by exactly one Flesh World serial killer. Even just counting the 51 people he kills on screen, that's still more than Gary Ridgeway, the most prolific serial killer in American history. How does he maintain his sympathy long enough to keep the show on for eight seasons? Simple: he only kills (for the most part) people who are guilty of some crime (preferably murderers), following The Code of Harry (a code his father made up to keep his murderous desires in check).

But we're not all serial killers with the resources to prey on other predators. And most of us probably wouldn't want to be. But we do have lesser desires that we know our neighbours wouldn't look kindly on, and it can be as simple as looking for an excuse to act like an asshole. But, given the right reinforcement from the people around us, we can find the sort of loopholes that give us permission to the awful behaviours we've always wanted to do, acting like a right bastard and potentially even being celebrated for it. Have less than ideal thoughts about minorities, and if you can find yourself a group of people who share those views, you can find yourself succumbing to temptation. You believe all people are created equal, but are willing to make an exception, and meet more people willing to make the same exceptions, the same thing happens.





To Illustrate this point, here's a true story: Imagine a man, old enough to have several grandchildren, many of which (as well as his wife and some of his sons) live with him. He loves to crochet, and watch Wallace and Gromit cartoons. In addition, at the moment, he has a friend and his family staying over. Now imagine that, in the middle of the night one night, police break into his home and start shooting people. No charges given, no warning that they may have to resort to deadly force that was met with rifle fire, no nothing. The old man, one of his sons, and that friend (as well as the friend's wife and brother) are all dead. The old man was shot in the face while unarmed and still wearing his nightgown.

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Now, here's the twist: This incident did happen, and you almost certainly have heard about it. That old man was Osama bin Laden. Literally the only thing I outright changed from the historical record (as opposed to simply omitting) was that the police were actually Navy SEALs (yes, even the crochet thing). You almost certainly changed your initial reaction to the story, didn't you? It's not hard to see why you changed your mind about it; the motherfucker was responsible for 9/11 and even before that, he was on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted list for terror attacks. Because the victim in this case was a monster responsible for the deaths of more people than most natural disasters, we hear about this and just shrug it off. Who cares about what happens to him?

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The line between the sociopath and the common man is a lot thinner than we'd like to think.

TL;DR: Deep down, a lot of us want to be bastards, and we want to keep looking for loopholes to validate our own bastardry.

[Belacqua]

Deep down, a lot of us want to be bastards, and we want to keep looking for loopholes to validate our own bastardry.

Yep. Absolutely.

[Amarok]

In a thread supposedly concerned with offending people, I find it extremely hypocritical that some people consider it fine to be as offensive, judgemental and arrogant as they like, as long as it’s directed towards someone who the in-group consider to hold a "wrong" opinion

Not all opinions are to be treated with equal respect or tolerance otherwise both those terms lose all meaning

[LadyForCamus]

I think the weaponisation of "being offended" has been poisonous to our cultures. We’re descending into a joyless, thought-policed, snowflakey society. This has a lot to do with the kind of SJW/feminist shit that is apparently being taught in schools and universities now.

You’ve changed a lot, Rob.

[The Grand Nudger]

Chances are that my own bastardly cynicism was at play when i hit the hide box and didn't bat an eyelid, lol.  I expect that sort of thing to happen when the military is involved, and more and more I expect it from the police.  It isn't the person that they're doing it to that concerns me...it's which group is doing it.

[Amarok]

I think the weaponisation of "being offended" has been poisonous to our cultures. We’re descending into a joyless, thought-policed, snowflakey society. This has a lot to do with the kind of SJW/feminist shit that is apparently being taught in schools and universities now.

Holy hell dude seriously ?

[Athene]

Historical context, OP. If you're interested.
https://www.history.com/news/blackface-h...sm-origins

Excerpts below:

The portrayal of blackface–when people darken their skin with shoe polish, greasepaint or burnt cork and paint on enlarged lips and other exaggerated features, is steeped in centuries of racism. It peaked in popularity during an era in the United States when demands for civil rights by recently emancipated slaves triggered racial hostility. And today, because of blackface’s historic use to denigrate people of African descent, its continued use is still considered racist.

“It’s an assertion of power and control,” says David Leonard , a professor of comparative ethnic studies and American studies at Washington State University. “It allows a society to routinely and historically imagine African Americans as not fully human. It serves to rationalize violence and Jim Crow segregation.”

Blackface minstrel shows soared in popularity, in particular, during the period after the Civil War and into the start of the 20th century, as documented in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture’s official blackface history. The widespread demeaning portrayals of African Americans paralleled a period when southern state legislatures were passing “black codes” to restrict the behavior of former slaves and other African Americans. In fact, the codes were also called “Jim Crow” laws, after the blackface stage character.

As society modernized, so did the ways in which blackface was portrayed. Not only was blackface in theaters, but it moved to the film industry. In the blockbuster movie The Birth of a Nation, blackface characters were seen as unscrupulous and rapists. The stereotypes were so powerful they became a recruiting tool for the Ku Klu Klan. African Americans protested the film’s portrayals and its distorted take on the post-Civil War era, yet it continued to be popular among white audiences.

[LadyForCamus]

I won't deny that it has been used in the past to show blacks in a negative light, but was it always intendet to be so? Could it be that in some cases it wasn't actually insulting?
Let's take Tom and Jerry for instance. They did a lot of blackface jokes, but they were ususally short. It was usually one or more characters (which are animals) getting something black on their face(s) and they get the now infamous black face. I was little when I first saw a character from Tom and Jerry getting a black face, that was Jerry. Keep in mind, I didn't know at that time that blackface was a practice. At first I didn't know what he was supposed to be. I asked dad and he told me Jerry looks like a black. I thought the joke was because he got covered in black his race changed, even though he's a mouse, and his lips turned red after being covered black. I thought the result (looking like a black) was supposed to be funny only in this context, NOT ridiculous in it on itself. Now as an adult looking at these jokes I know they reference blackfaces, but my opinion about them hasn't chanced much. Now I see it as "because they got covered in black they have black faces, even though they're animals and their lips would in reality be black as well instead of red or pink". Are those jokes about race, or about blackfacing itself?
There was the episode "His mouse Friday", where they undoubtfully show actual blacks with blackfaces, however, that's it. Those characters appear only at the end and are used for a joke about wanting to cook the main characters. Tribes of blacks who hunt actually existed and they actually hunted. Sure, they didn't hunt cats and mice, but if the joke is about practices, then it's about culture, not about race. They did look ridiculous, but most cartoon characters do. Did the creators draw them this way, beacuse they see blacks as inferior or because they just wished to do some visual humour, like so many cartoon characters designs are supposed to be? Why isn't anyone complaining about Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam being offensive to midgets? Or Olive Oil to skinny women? 
Another complaint is about the funny, sweet, chocolate mama that is also the owner of Tom. If you think that blackfaces are offensive, don't worry about her, we don't get to see it. The only time it was shown, she looked human. Her lips were red, but probably due to lipstick. She was also the owner of the house, outspoken, strong and had shown a caring side. Of course she had an accent, but there are people in real life who do. They deserve representation as well, and they can be just as funny and serious as other human beings. When I looked at her I saw an interesting, funny and black character, because she was written as such.

Yes.

[paulpablo]

Most things are always offensive.

To answer the question in a more specific, realistic way though, it's not always offensive.

A UK sitcom called Peep Show has used black face in a scene and not only do most people not find it offensive I'm sure I watched a top 100 best moments in comedy thing and this black face scene was voted number 1.

The general idea of the scene is that Jeremy has a new kinky girlfriend who wants to always push boundaries and it escalates to her asking him to wear black face and imagine himself as a black man fucking his own mother, which is funny enough to me to make me LOL even as I'm typing this.





I think it depends on how it's used.  I can't imagine anyone able minded thinking that using black face in an un ironic way, in the context it was used decades ago, wouldn't be offensive to people.  So it's put in that allocation of things that if people do it they must be doing it on purpose just to insult people rather than for entertainment.  But then people will do it to be offensive and say its just being ironic, im sure some people do it attempting to be ironic but it gets judged to be offensive, some people probably got offended by the peep show scene.