"Blackface" Discussion

FlawlessThaw said:
I was actually confused before - I thought you were talking about this https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/17/madrid-ends-blacking-up-post-christmas-tradition not Spanish Holy Week.

But here it shows that the city of Madrid back in 2015 (Griezmann was in Madrid in 2015, no?) ended the process of having someone blacken up at the Three Kings Parade as they quite rightly realised it was racist. So Griezmann can't solely lay blame on not being from the US.

But I agree that I don't think Griezmann is a racist, just an idiot.
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Edit: Pheck me, I'm way to slow to respond. 2 pages went while i was playing Xenoblade. :lol:

I'm sure there is tons of stuff Norway has changed policies on that I haven't kept updated with for some reason.
The idea that just because he played football in Madrid he'd know about such a change or the history behind it is jumping the gun.
Naturally, it does mean it's not impossible that he'd be aware of it, but likely or unlikely is hard to determine from that alone.

Found this statement from Griezmann in Norwegian medias:
"– Jeg innrømmer at det var klønete gjort av meg. Dersom jeg såret noen, så beklager jeg, sa han før han slettet tweeten om Globetrotters, og det opprinnelige bildet."

Roughly translated to "I admit that what i did wasn't thought through. Sorry if I hurt anyone." and that he deleted the picture.
 
4bars said:
Well easy to integrate because of the the imposed language and culture. Still there are racist like anywhere else.

Like peruvian nazis

perunazi-jpg.283516


:lol::lol::lol:
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The feck is this? :lol:
 
Ødegaard said:
Edit: Pheck me, I'm way to slow to respond. 2 pages went while i was playing Xenoblade. :lol:

I'm sure there is tons of stuff Norway has changed policies on that I haven't kept updated with for some reason.
The idea that just because he played football in Madrid he'd know about such a change or the history behind it is jumping the gun.
Naturally, it does mean it's not impossible that he'd be aware of it, but likely or unlikely is hard to determine from that alone.

Found this statement from Griezmann in Norwegian medias:
"– Jeg innrømmer at det var klønete gjort av meg. Dersom jeg såret noen, så beklager jeg, sa han før han slettet tweeten om Globetrotters, og det opprinnelige bildet."

Roughly translated to "I admit that what i did wasn't thought through. Sorry if I hurt anyone." and that he deleted the picture.
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I think it is fair to expect him to have a basic understanding what he did was wrong. This wasn't a policy issue, this acting like a right twat. However response to the act and general demeanor suggest at best he is just guilty of ignorance so overall its not a big deal.

I only pointed that Madrid thing out because the poster had said he had to be from the US to think blackface was not acceptable which clearly isn't true.
 
People having a go at the guys who got the pitchforks out but without getting them out then Griezmann wouldn't have learnt his lesson. If everyone had shut up & tried to convince the guy it doesn't have any racial undertones as some people seem to believe - then surely he would simply have kept on doing it?

As @BlakeUtd said being overly politically correct is a way of society cleansing itself.
 
The more I think about this the more parallels you can draw with white people wanting to reclaim their right to say the word nigger. Even if you don't see anything inherently wrong with it, that isn't the point. You shouldn't want to use it. You might think blacking up is just a bit of fun, but if you're any kind of normal person you shouldn't want to do it because of the baggage that comes with it.
 
I didn't know blackface was a term until today. Griezman clearly didn't mean the negative connotations that come with the term. He was presumably as ignorant of the term as me.
That said, I'd never consider blacking myself up and going on a night out. Let alone doing it as a professional athlete and posting it on social media for the world to see. He was asking for a shit storm.
 
carvajal said:
It is good that you admit it. By the way, how is life in the new republic :lol:
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Oh definitely it was racism, not anymore as we learnt and as well they are part of our society and "they" it does not exist anymore

Would be nice to recognize that there is catalanophobia in spain too

And no worries, is coming, slowly :p
 
FlawlessThaw said:
I think it is fair to expect him to have a basic understanding what he did was wrong. This wasn't a policy issue, this acting like a right twat. However response to the act and general demeanor suggest at best he is just guilty of ignorance so overall its not a big deal.

I only pointed that Madrid thing out because the poster had said he had to be from the US to think blackface was not acceptable which clearly isn't true.
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In the aftermath, yes. Which is why we can let it go when he deletes it and apologizes once he understands it.
Your reasoning for commenting wasn't one I had issues with, only how I read it as "you're from the place, so you should be expected to know a relative minor change in a public event". Naturally my reading could be wrong, but felt like commenting on it all the same... Until i realized i was 2 hours late to the party. :P
 
Putting aside the blackface historical context, dressing up as a black skinned person of any role or profession from present or past times is still a fallacious concept. If you don't have anyone specific in mind who you want to impersonate (assuming you'd like to honour them) then it leads you down the path of evoking stereotypes, which unfortunately seems to end at a purely racist territory.
 
Vashu said:
Putting aside the blackface historical context, dressing up as a black skinned person of any role or profession from present or past times is still a fallacious concept. If you don't have anyone specific in mind who you want to impersonate (assuming you'd like to honour them) then it leads you down the path of evoking stereotypes, which unfortunately seems to end at a purely racist territory.
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Even if I want to impersonate a Bushiman from Botswana? Damn, no custom for me to the next party. I know, I am being facetious :p
 
Home&Away said:
People having a go at the guys who got the pitchforks out but without getting them out then Griezmann wouldn't have learnt his lesson. If everyone had shut up & tried to convince the guy it doesn't have any racial undertones as some people seem to believe - then surely he would simply have kept on doing it?

As @BlakeUtd said being overly politically correct is a way of society cleansing itself.
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Is he some kind of serial blackfacer now?

But seriously, whatever the positive intentions of the reaction, they're not sufficient to excuse the lack of proportion. Or as I commented initially, whenever you next commit any kind of mistake in any field, would you prefer to be berated or advised?

On political correctness as an overriding concern more generally, this is not really the sort of case that concerns me (a footballer), but it has consequences in academia, where claims of offense to minorities have been used in attempts to discredit researchers and "win" the argument without ever actually engaging in debate.
 
Jaybomb said:
Most of the people getting offended by this aren’t even black. That’s the funny part.

If I was to go to a fancy dress party as Mr. T, naturally I’d have to be black to look like him.

Not everything has an offensive undertone. The costume was funny. Everyone needs to lighten up and get a sense of humour.
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Can we please stop talking about people being offended? I don't think many people were offended in this particular instance, they are just pointing out that it's a dumb thing to do.

In a perfect world, it would probably be fine if you donned blackface to portray a black person. The world isn't perfect, though, and blackface has a ton of historical baggage, all of it negative. How is this hard to grasp? For a lot of people, shit like this isn't funny. It's not about a sense of humor, it's about having some fecking empathy.

I know the Somali guy I work with faces a lot of racism. A lot of it is everyday shit that he doesn't take seriously, because he realizes that most just don't know any better, but he'd still prefer to not have to put up with it. But if people are going to react with hostility when it's pointed out to them that something they did was offensive, that shit will never go away. If people would just be able to apologize and move on, instead of doubling down and insisting it's actually the people offended who are the real racists for suggesting whites can't black up or whatever, things would be a lot better.
 
Halftrack said:
Can we please stop talking about people being offended? I don't think many people were offended in this particular instance, they are just pointing out that it's a dumb thing to do.

In a perfect world, it would probably be fine if you donned blackface to portray a black person. The world isn't perfect, though, and blackface has a ton of historical baggage, all of it negative. How is this hard to grasp? For a lot of people, shit like this isn't funny. It's not about a sense of humor, it's about having some fecking empathy.
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And I repeat, It has NONE baggage in Europe, only in US and the anglosphere for influence. Stop believing that your culture is the center of the world
 
4bars said:
Even if I want to impersonate a Bushiman from Botswana? Damn, no custom for me to the next party. I know, I am being facetious :p
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Rescue yourself with a sumo costume, though abstain from using any yellow make-up. :nervous:
 
MTF said:
Is he some kind of serial blackfacer now?

But seriously, whatever the positive intentions of the reaction, they're not sufficient to excuse the lack of proportion. Or as I commented initially, whenever you next commit any kind of mistake in any field, would you prefer to be berated or advised?

On political correctness as an overriding concern more generally, this is not really the sort of case that concerns me (a footballer), but it has consequences in academia, where claims of offense to minorities have been used in attempts to discredit researchers and "win" the argument without ever actually engaging in debate.
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Probably not but if he got away with it this time then what was stopping him coming in to his next party doing the same thing. Definitely higher than it is now. Political correctness has helped Griezmann not the opposite.
 
4bars said:
And I repeat, It has NONE baggage in Europe, only in US and the anglosphere for influence. Stop believing that your culture is the center of the world
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I didn't know American culture was the dominant one in Arctic Norway. Consider me enlightened.
 
King_Eric said:
Not to defend any notion that black people were not present in Spain before the 1970s, but regarding the term 'Moor', it's not necessarily as clear-cut as how you imply though, since the term is not clearly defined and has changed considerably throughout history. The 'original' Moors (as in the muslim population of the Al-Andalus empire) could have been different than those called 'Moor' in the times of the slave trade. The original Moors are generally considered to be composed of Berber and Arabian people. Genetic analysis of the Berber people shows that at some point in time, there must have been quite some variation in skin colour in these people, ranging from fair skinned (even blond and red-haired) to really dark skinned. The Berber were considered to span an area from the Mediterranian to Mali and Niger, so that would make sense. Whether this was also still the case in Medieval times, I don't know. The whole of Northern Africa (which is considered to have been populated originally by much darker skinned people than nowadays, as far as I know) had been integrated in the Roman Empire for centuries before and by Arabs later, which might have changed the demographics of the Berber people by then.

The Moors depicted in the paintings above could have come from anywhere, as in those days muslims from any region of the world (India, Philippines, Africa, etc.) were also called Moors.

So, in short, it's definately possible that there was a big variation in skin colour in Spain between the 9th and 14th century. But it's also possible that the population looked more homogenously like the current inhabitants of North-Africa. I'm not sure if there are any historical sources on that.



That's the definition of species-level actually. 'Race' is a socio-cultural invention that has little or nothing to do with biology. Dogs from different races can perfectly breed with each other for example.

The reason why the 'race' term applied on humans is ridiculous, especially the classical 3/4/5 races distinction, is because there is no biological basis to make this clear distinction. There is no genetic basis for it, and there is also no anatomical basis for it. The human population is not divided in black, white and yellow people. There's a whole spectrum inbetween those shades of skin colour. The discussion about Moors and North Africans proves it. In fact, there is often more genetic diversity to be found within what used to be called a race, than between these different races.

Ethnicities might indeed be a better term, although that one also often implies cultural aspects. I think if you do want to classify, talking about geographical origin or genetic ancestry might be a better way. That probably makes more sense in a biological/genetic context and are terms used nowadays in anthropology I believe.
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Good post :)
 
MTF said:
I find the last part humorous in this context. The pitchforks brigade seems to lack the humility of realizing that they aren't all knowing either, and could potentially cause offense unintentionally one day. At which point I assume they'd prefer if people had a more generous interpretation of their acts than the one they presently display.
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Quoting you just for context, not a direct reply. I've seen the issue of "Blackface" discussed here a few years ago, and the only thing I thought by then was "I had no idea this was offensive, I could very well have done it myself" and I'm by no means an ignorant. I'm a cultured, knowledgeable and sensible person. Some things just escape you.

When I was a child, in my island with 160000 people there must have been at most 10 black or mixed families and everyone knew who they were. And I'm talking about late 80s or early 90s (things are much different for the better nowadays). Even in continental Portugal blacks were very few until the end of the dictatorship and decolonisation which happened only in 1974, only one year earlier than Spain (hence I find it perfectly believable that there weren't many blacks in Spain either, as was previously discussed). For many of us, there was simply no exposure.

In my early trips to Canada and USA, before my English was as good as it is today, I could have very well offended a black person by calling them nigger, because the similar word in Portuguese ("negro") is actually the proper way to refer to a black person in our language, and the direct translation from black ("preto") is extremely derogatory and offensive. I probably only realised the level of offence the word "nigger" could cause when I joined redcafe, nearing my 30s. It simply there wasn't a context where I could have learnt it before.

So yeah, if I had committed one of those mistakes I would like people to have a generous interpretation of the act, as it would be extremely unfair otherwise.
 
Halftrack said:
I didn't know American culture was the dominant one in Arctic Norway. Consider me enlightened.
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I didn't know Norway was the majority of europe nor that you were the majority of norway. In my several international football groups, no one knew the term, specially in countries like Spain, France, Italy that english language is not well learnt till the youngest generations.

I know that my few friends is not a sample big enough, but I can tell you that 90% in Spain don't know the term and significance, basically because decent english speakers are scarce, like in france, italy and other countries in europe.
 
4bars said:
And I repeat, It has NONE baggage in Europe, only in US and the anglosphere for influence. Stop believing that your culture is the center of the world
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Jesus man read the thread. It has significant recent baggage in the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.
 
Arruda said:
Quoting you just for context, not a direct reply. I've seen the issue of "Blackface" discussed here a few years ago, and the only thing I thought by then was "I had no idea this was offensive, I could very well have done it myself" and I'm by no means an ignorant. I'm a cultured, knowledgeable and sensible person. Some things just escape you.

When I was a child, in my island with 160000 people there must have been at most 10 black or mixed families and everyone knew who they were. And I'm talking about late 80s or early 90s (things are much different for the better nowadays). Even in continental Portugal blacks were very few until the end of the dictatorship and decolonisation which happened only in 1974, only one year earlier than Spain (hence I find it perfectly believable that there weren't many blacks in Spain either, as was previously discussed). For many of us, there was simply no exposure.

In my early trips to Canada and USA, before my English was as good as it is today, I could have very well offended a black person by calling them nigger, because the similar word in Portuguese ("negro") is actually the proper way to refer to a black person in our language, and the direct translation from black ("preto") is extremely derogatory and offensive. I probably only realised the level of offence the word "nigger" could cause when I joined redcafe, nearing my 30s. It simply there wasn't a context where I could have learnt it before.

So yeah, if I had committed one of those mistakes I would like people to have a generous interpretation of the act, as it would be extremely unfair otherwise.
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Curious, when I was living in Brazil, preto was completely normal though I think it was for the colour of the hair. And yes, negro is as well a normal word in Spain
 
diarm said:
Jesus man read the thread. It has significant recent baggage in the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.
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No, it has not in Spain, it was not depicted as racism, because blackfacing was done when it was black people in US society and depicting black people characters in a derrogatory way.

"Backfacing" in Spain (and I think in Netherlands) there was no black people when that tradition started (so not possible for black people to represent it) and it was not in a derogatory way, not definitely in Spain when the black king has as many importance than the other ones. Just a representation of the Baaaaaable So 0 racist baggage
 
I don't think the "not knowing the history" argument is valid.

For instance I am a fan of Chinese wuxia shows, Jin Yong novels and kung fu culture. But if I decided to dress up as famous wuxia hero Qiao Feng, I don't have to know any history of "Asianface" to know that painting my eyes to look slanted is moronic, offensive and irrelevant to portraying the actual character accurately.
 
4bars said:
And I repeat, It has NONE baggage in Europe, only in US and the anglosphere for influence. Stop believing that your culture is the center of the world
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Well that's simply not true. I'm not American, but I know exactly what blackface is and why it's offensive. I'm really amazed that some people haven't heard of it.
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
I don't think the "not knowing the history" argument is valid.

For instance I am a fan of Chinese wuxia movies, Jin Yong novels and kung fu culture. But if I decided to dress up as famous wuxia hero Qiao Feng, I don't have to know any history of "Asianface" to know that painting my eyes to look slanted is moronic, most likely be offensive and irrelevant to actually portraying the actual character accurately.
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Fair point, Moronic? well, it depends of how genuinely committed you are.

If I want to be dressed as a gueisha would be racist? or as one of the japanese characters would be racist?

japanese_kumadori_kabuki_ichimurauzaemon_agostinoarts.jpg


I don't think Griezmann was commited so I accept that was moronic, but racist? no
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
I don't think the "not knowing the history" argument is valid.

For instance I am a fan of Chinese wuxia movies, Jin Yong novels and kung fu culture. But if I decided to dress up as famous wuxia hero Qiao Feng, I don't have to know any history of "Asianface" to know that painting my eyes to look slanted is moronic, most likely be offensive and irrelevant to actually portraying the actual character accurately.
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Making your eyes slanted would be different than merely painting your skin. That would be more like the exaggerated red lips of the original blackface acts.
 
Globule said:
Well that's simply not true. I'm not American, but I know exactly what blackface is and why it's offensive. I'm really amazed that some people haven't heard of it.
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Well, I can count more than 5 and I read 5 or 6 pages in this thread, so I guess you are in "Aw"

And I can bet money that I go to any city in Madrid and 9 of a 10 don't have a clue of the term
 
diarm said:
Jesus man read the thread. It has significant recent baggage in the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.
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no so the use doesn't have the baggage in Holland and Spain, hence the fairly sudden discussion about the traditions surrounding it being so confusing to so many in those countries. (again feel like I constantly need to reiterate this so my comments aren't taken the wrong way, I am very much on the anti- black pete side of the discussion)

diarm said:
This thread has been really, really disappointing. Some of the views expressed are ones I thought had been largely left behind but are clearly still very prevalent among normally sensible people.

As for the claim (made several times in this thread) that people in European countries shouldn't have to conform to UK or US ideals because racism is a US or UK problem and not an issue in their countries - it's complete and utter bullshit.
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I don't think (or don't hope anyway) that anyone has tried to imply there's no racism in holland at any point in this thread. There are different forms and interpretations of racism, though. Black Pete in the low lands doesn't carry the same historic connotations blackface has in the US, resulting from its use in derogatory movies/shows, so it didn't have the same derogatory connotations. Now in this case, yes I agree that the portrayal of Piet is not appropriate, but in other cases not adhering to the same exact norms and standards as the US and UK doesn't by definition mean they're more backward in any way. (btw whatever you say, having lived in both Amsterdam and in the UK myself I've seen far more outspoken proper racism in my few years in England than I ever did in my whole life growing up in Amsterdam)
 
Ødegaard said:
In the aftermath, yes. Which is why we can let it go when he deletes it and apologizes once he understands it.
Your reasoning for commenting wasn't one I had issues with, only how I read it as "you're from the place, so you should be expected to know a relative minor change in a public event". Naturally my reading could be wrong, but felt like commenting on it all the same... Until i realized i was 2 hours late to the party. :P
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No big deal, just worth adding some context to what I had said. I wouldn’t consider it a relative minor change though.
 
JPRouve said:
And Jippy not being Hindu and walking in a Jewish neighbourhood will make that argument difficult to sustain. But you are right to point to the different meaning in Hindu culture.
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Its not quite the same symbol. The Nazi symbol always has the red, black and white with circle and orientation at a 45 degree angle. Original swastikas were never at that 45 degree angle

SWAS2.jpg
 
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