Friday, August 24, 2007

Blackfacing Still Around??


Wow. I can't believe that UNICEF actually went along with this advertisement campaign. I guess I could see someone thinking it was a clever idea if they were really oblivious to the deeper implications of such depictions and unaware of the racist history of "blackfacing," but really, there's no excuse for it.

I think that critics are right when they state that many in the US and Europe can't get away from a narrow, blunted view of Africa. Unfortunately, even good intentions suffer from these problems. I can only speak as an American, but living in a racialized society with a history of prejudice creates a regretful reality where such "mistakes" (we hope) perpetuate ignorance.

2 comments:

Gliderbison said...
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Gliderbison said...

This was really interesting--Whitman College was in the national spotlight when the entire campus had an emergency "symposium on race relations" after two kids showed up to a Survivor themed frat party in blackface. The faculty, for the first time in the school's history, voted to cancel class for the entire day for the event. I think that there are many people of our generation who have no clue what blackface was about, or what dressing in blackface implies, which is both unfortunate and cause for concern. If you want to read the article, go here: http://whitmanpioneer.wordpress.com/2006/10/26/%E2%80%98blackface%E2%80%99-incident-ignites-campus/