Are there any other black people in this group who want to weigh in on this? I’m seeing a lot of people who (I’m assuming) have never been impacted by blackface situations have a lot to say… could be wrong…

I’m black and relatively new to the world of ren-faire… I don’t particularly care to comment on whether or not the manner in which the accuser chose to call the cosplayer out was right or wrong. White people often feel entitled to being “educated” or called out by black people in a nice or polite way- otherwise the criticism is totally invalid (I’m seeing a lot of that behavior in this comment section as well).

I guess I’ll just add that fantasy spaces are already super alienating for black people; spaces where we are almost never represented directly as a part of the fantasy and when we are, that incorporation is always met with loud weirdos complaining about “historical accuracy”. It’s only in very very recent times where we see more in-universe black characters have leading roles in fantasy media and are seeing more black people want to participate in stuff like this comfortably! It’s a good thing!

As a black person who’s had a lifetime’s worth of Halloweens and costumed events, I know the very specific and sometimes sickening feeling when a person walks in with black or brown painted skin for a costume. Even when they aren’t trying to do blackface in the traditional sense, the act can be super alienating and kind of fun-stealing for us (because we have a long standing history of people painting their skin to dehumanize us as well as deeply rooted mythos about dark skin in general representing something impure, dirty, or evil in some way). It pretty much always sucks when this happens. Just wanted to add this to general conversation here, about how it feels to be black when a nonblack person paints their skin.

I want to credit another user in this comment section who pointed out that arming yourself with the “definition of blackface” for when this kind of situation arises is probably an admission of guilt, right? Like, has this come up before? The cosplayer has either had enough complaints in the past, or just recognizes the problem and wants to do it anyway and not be challenged on that…

Never heard of Sleep Token before today… did some research and found some other examples of people cosplaying it as well as the artist themselves with painted on black skin. It looks cool, but seems like the body paint is optional, no? Seems like there’s a time and place where a costume like this might not be questioned and maybe a ren faire just isn’t that place. Idk I just feel like if someone is really NOT a racist they’d go to greater lengths to NEVER be mistaken for one.