Not disagreeing with you just pointing out Larry Bird was a Boston Celtic.
"Blackface" Discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I know, but I’m sure he had a brief appearance as a Harlem Globetrotter?
Edit - just looked it up, it was part of the Dream Team, their uniforms just looked similar
It’s funny you talk about historical context because you seem oblivious to it. Countries such as Portugal have a very violent history of colonialism with black people, if you can’t understand how a Portuguese with a blackface may be insulting in that context you lack any historical perspective. It doesn’t matter if your fellow Portuguese don’t care about it, any objective viewer and especially those whose history has been influenced by the colonial powers and Western rule have every right to call you out as being ignorant.
I don't see how anyone in Europe can take the line of it not being an issue or that they weren't aware of it. Even if there have been relatively few black people in your country, the problem of racism is constantly in the news, a high profile case being Black Lives Matter. Much of Europe was heavily involved the the Atlantic slave trade and we know from many sources that the lives of the slaves and their descendants was and has been miserable. Even if a person is genuinely taken aback by the reaction, it only takes a little imagination to comprehend that someone might find it deeply offensive and that the "baggage" that matters is what black people are carrying, not white people.
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To make the costume better and more realistic. There are hand gestures that are very rude in certain parts of the world that are common in America, that doesn't mean you should stop doing them in the US. Only if you go to those places you need to be careful. If I went to America I wouldn't wear blackface because of its history there, but in Portugal I don't see what the problem would be.
Because there isn't any history of black people in Portugal being mocked by white people with blackface. Why would they be offended at me dressing like LeBron?
Somebody should probably threadmark whatever went on here and and a reasonable explanation as to why it is considered wrong.
33 page thread in two days. I thought something serious had happened for a minute.
33 page thread in two days. I thought something serious had happened for a minute.
So despite being aware of its offensive nature, to black people not just in America - you decide that your feelings on wanting to black up is more important?
You putting on black face wouldn’t make your outfit more realistic, funnily enough, LeBron isn’t LeBron because he’s black, but because he’s LeBron.
If you can’t respect that, then we have nothing further to talk about.
It's a stupid argument anyway that shouldn't need addressing, but here we are. Ignore the history of blackface... and... guess what... it's still problematic and racist.
Ah. This is why the number of pages doubled after I went into an bender fueled sleep.
I'm fully aware of racism in my country, its historical context and the forms it has taken place throughout the years. My grandfather came here from Angola.
I'm just talking about the historical context of blackface specifically. As long as it isn't being used in a derogatory way or spreading racial stereotypes then I don't see what the problem is. I can see why it would still be a problem in the US or in places where blackface has a different historical background, but not here.
Precisely, there’s something seriously sinister in only seeing people of colour by the colour of their skin, and not their individual human traits.
This idea that a costume would be more ‘realistic’ if you change your skin colour, is almost an admission that being a person isn’t enough. You have to emphasise their skin colour.
Thankfully the way History is being taught is changing, with more focus on Social history and issues facing real people. I was taught a mix of traditional history...King...queens...battle of....blah blah and later more social history. This should help address peoples knowledge, but there is still a reluctance to talk about Colonial history of the European Nations to a greater or lesser extent. It still has resonances today far beyond those times.
I'll give you an example. I know of a recruitment agency that have an ongoing task to find Medical graduates / doctors and nurses etc that can speak French but specifically ask that they do not come from France / French colonies, as they would not be accepted by French speaking locals where the organisation works.
Now that is technically discriminatory and I'm sure that must feel unfair to countless French people who would be happy to help out in these countries no matter what their own background.
Now i'm not making that point as some sort of "well we were not as bad as the French" or having a league table of colonial cruelty, but all European Nations have had a complex relationship in this area and not all have made much progress in owning up about it.
Where are they supposed to come from and where are they supposed to work?
They want French speakers, not from France to work in old French colonies (predominently Africa and SE Asia).
Thanks, that's what I thought. It's the "french(from metropole) are stealing our jobs" sentiment that some have, it's a problem in French Guyana too.
There seems to be a misunderstanding with some of our European posters. They believe that there is no historical context to the use of blackface in their countries seemingly because it has gone unchallenged and without major controversy for decades. However, they're ignoring the terrible history of colonialism with black people that their countries have.
Additionally, the media or locals in their country not calling it racist doesn't mean it isn't racist. It means they don't care enough to call it what it is.
Portugal might not have had something like The Black and White Minstrel Show but it certainly has a long history of using blackface for comedic performances, with certain mainstream programming using it to mock and impersonate black celebrities.
If you want to dress as Lebron James, you can do so without blacking up. All you would need is a LeBron James jersey. You are not making a costume more realistic by rubbing yourself with brown paint or shoe polish. LeBron James is a basketball player, and you would want to dress up as him because he is a famous basketball player. At no point would his skin colour need to be emphasised in any impersonation of him.
My perspective on it is this:
If a black person were to see someone white dress up in blackface and feel a sense of pride and reaffirmation of their value as a person because of it, then there may be an argument for allowing the practice. I would be very surprised to find more than a handful of instances where this is the case, if any at all. As such, regardless of any historical context in a particular country, it's a practice that at best reduces people to little more than the colour of their skin, and its very worst deliberately and maliciously degrades and dehumanises them.
The argument for blackface has largely centered around the idea that it somehow makes a costume more realistic. Firstly, I'd question the need for such realism in a fancy dress costume. Secondly, I'd question why you think realism seemingly begins and ends at the colour of a person's skin.
Your example has been LeBron James. He is over 2m tall. He as an armspan of 2.14m. His shoe size is 15. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say you fall well short of all of those physical traits, but unlike the colour of his skin, would do very little, if anything, to incorporate them into your costume.
A barely 1m tall white child with long blonde hair could dress as LeBron James simply by wearing a Cavaliers Jersey with "James" and "23" on it and people would understand that they were dressed as LeBron James.
Additionally, the media or locals in their country not calling it racist doesn't mean it isn't racist. It means they don't care enough to call it what it is.
Portugal might not have had something like The Black and White Minstrel Show but it certainly has a long history of using blackface for comedic performances, with certain mainstream programming using it to mock and impersonate black celebrities.
If you want to dress as Lebron James, you can do so without blacking up. All you would need is a LeBron James jersey. You are not making a costume more realistic by rubbing yourself with brown paint or shoe polish. LeBron James is a basketball player, and you would want to dress up as him because he is a famous basketball player. At no point would his skin colour need to be emphasised in any impersonation of him.
My perspective on it is this:
If a black person were to see someone white dress up in blackface and feel a sense of pride and reaffirmation of their value as a person because of it, then there may be an argument for allowing the practice. I would be very surprised to find more than a handful of instances where this is the case, if any at all. As such, regardless of any historical context in a particular country, it's a practice that at best reduces people to little more than the colour of their skin, and its very worst deliberately and maliciously degrades and dehumanises them.
The argument for blackface has largely centered around the idea that it somehow makes a costume more realistic. Firstly, I'd question the need for such realism in a fancy dress costume. Secondly, I'd question why you think realism seemingly begins and ends at the colour of a person's skin.
Your example has been LeBron James. He is over 2m tall. He as an armspan of 2.14m. His shoe size is 15. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say you fall well short of all of those physical traits, but unlike the colour of his skin, would do very little, if anything, to incorporate them into your costume.
A barely 1m tall white child with long blonde hair could dress as LeBron James simply by wearing a Cavaliers Jersey with "James" and "23" on it and people would understand that they were dressed as LeBron James.
True, it's not a question of creating a league table. The International Slavery Museum in Liverpool was set up in 1994 but maybe the history of slavery and colonialism is not very thoroughly dealt with in schools or even at university, I don't know.
For example, regards Spain, some people refer to the arrival and colonisation of the Americas as the "Encounter". I can see some sense in this, that there was a two way traffic in some ways. But to call it merely an encounter is mind-boggling.
Not offending anyone is definitely more important than making a costume look more realistic but there's no reason why I would be offending anyone by using blackface in Portugal in a non derogatory way.
Of course he isn't who he is because he's black. That doesn't mean being black isn't part of his physical characteristics and it's obvious it would make the costume more realistic. If there's a movie made about him in a few years they wont have a white actor playing the main role. Just like they won't have a skinny guy do it either.
What if you went extremely with details for a costume?
Is blackface a specific thing that was used to "blacken up"? could people use something else?
Say a white guy wanted to cosplay Squall Leonhart from FF8 (just imagine Squall being black, as i mentioned on pm my brain is getting laggy as hell from drugs so i need to take someone i know the details in my head from), he gets everything, his ring, the griever pendant, his clothing, cuts his hair properly and even has the goddamn scar that Seifer gives him over the nose. Guy gets a gunblade model made etc etc.
Would it be okay to some degree for him to then go for something to make his skin come closer to the imagined black Squall?
I understand it would absolutely not be needed, but for the sake of going full-character like a lot of cosplayers enjoy as it helps them immerse themselves in the characters, would you still think of it as offensive?
Also at this point I'm obviously just checking for where the line would go, I'm not trying to say where I'd say the line goes as I'm not remotely in a position to make that call.
You’re assuming you won’t be offending anyone, however judging by Portugal’s history with colonialism - you can’t say that as a fact.
You probably just haven’t exposed yourself to more perspectives.
He’s also 6’8 250lbs of pure muscle and got a 7 foot something wing span.
You can’t emulate those features, so why are you insistent on his skin colour?
Can you not take a step back and think about this critically?
You’re reducing one of the greatest basketball players who is a physical specimen in every sense of the word, and only deducing that his skin colour is the only thing that would be missing from your ‘costume’
Can you not see how reductive and dehuminising that is?
On top of black people telling you - don’t paint your skin as if it’s a costume.
Fictional characters definitely don’t need any kind of paint, since they don’t exist and aren’t real people - you can interpret them how you want.
Sure, game developers and such have fixed outfits for them, but from my understanding - cosplay is about the outfit but also the portrayal of the character?
I see a lot of people on my twitter feed particularly around comic con time, who are black or brown and dress up as white characters, without changing their skin colour and pull the look off effortlessly.
Painting your skin is completely unnecessary.
I mentioned it earlier, but if you really want to portray a specific character and you do it in a respectful and serious way then I don't have a problem with it. The problem is with the generic, stereotypical caricature that is meant to have a laugh out of people skin color.
Well put.
I owe you a drink, for how real this post is.
Thanks for the feedback.
Seems like a bit of a grey-area. I'm not a cosplayer myself (although if i go bald I'll do a Professor X one day
), but I do enjoy watching pictures/videos of great cosplays where people have gone to great lengths to look like their favorite characters and act the part as well. 
Just google "Black Cosplay" and you will see a great variety - everything from Blade, Falcon and Black Panther through to Mario, Manga,Overwatch and Rogue, dark phoenix.Thanks for the feedback.
Seems like a bit of a grey-area. I'm not a cosplayer myself (although if i go bald I'll do a Professor X one day
It would be silly to pretend someone's colour isn't a very large part of their appearance. It's arguably the first thing you notice about someone, but just don't do it. If I wanted to go to a fancy dress party as Hitler, the kaki uniform, toothbrush moustache and swastika armband are key aspects, but that's beside the point. It's purely because doing so is distasteful that you shouldn't.
Genuine question: did it seem like i found it weird if a black person would cosplay a white one? If so it wasn't my intention, I was merely using cosplay as an example as to where I thought the line may be drawn for some.
Must say though, the black-Dante (DmC) cosplay that came up looked cooler than the reboot-dante. :P
It's stupid and ignorant on his part but he's a footballer tbf and most are thick. Wouldn't say it's racist since he didn't know. Shocking that he posted it without checking though.
As for people who can't see why it's offensive - really?? Painting your face black to dress up as a black person? Pretty racist.
As for people who can't see why it's offensive - really?? Painting your face black to dress up as a black person? Pretty racist.
I'm sure it's just my head being weird... But contradiction?
Racist if you know about it, action is accidentally racist because of ignorance but he himself isn't a racist. Just dumb.
Ahh, now I'm with you.
I would't know for sure - cosplay is pure Fantasy so anything goes i suppose. Superman could be black- I could dress as Blade - although i'm no Wesley Snipes when it comes to fitness / Karate moves that's for sure.
People tend to cosplay because they find wearing the costume empowering or it is total freedom from their normal life so be a strong Black role model will attract some but others could prefer to dress up as Moth-ra and fly around the room in a fantasy word.
Who gives a feck? It's history, it's there for us to learn from it. Was Europe the only continent involved in the slave trade? Africans were selling themselves to others, such were the times. Should every generation after that suffer because of their ancestors? You think Africans in Africa didn't kill and enslave each other? Do you have any idea what the Arabs did to their African slaves?
Why should our generation care about what our ancestors did years ago when everyone else did the same shit, including Africans
You could say that about any costume ever though, you can never say you won't be offending anyone as a fact since you can never know the perspective of every person around you. If it's like you're saying and the reason blackface isn't considered a problem here is because the people that have a problem with it might not have the confidence to say it, then how should I know I'm offending someone if they don't say it? What I know is the black friends I have would find it hilarious and have no problem with it and I know that before yesterday I had never even heard of it being a problem in th emedia or elsewhere.
The point is they have no reason to be offended as long as I'm not mocking, stereotyping, making any sort of derogatory gesture or aluding to one since blackface doesn't have the same historical context here as it does in America.
I would try to emulate those features too as much as possible, although those are a lot tougher to emulate.
I wasn't reducing him to his skin colour at all. It just happens to be the part of his physical characteristics that I'm talking about. A costume is a physical emulation of how a person looks, of course skin colour is a part of that. Obviously not the only part or even close to it. Things like height, strength, facial expressions, facial hair, etc. are physical characteristics that I'd try to replicate in the costume too.
Do you have any knowledge of the African slave trade, and it’s differences with other slave trades or are you somehow just trying to use that as a reason to justify why we shouldn’t reflect on history?
Even though the repercussions are still being felt by black people?
Okay this, along with your insistence about your black friends renders this discussion pointless.
You don’t have to continue quoting me anymore.
Think I'll leave the thread for now, my head really isn't good for much anymore.
It's been enlightening though on a lot of things, so thanks folks.
It's been enlightening though on a lot of things, so thanks folks.