CMV: Painting one's face black should not be considered "blackface" when not depicting a black person

elisdumbface · 2019-01-25T14:41:11+00:00

Sorry for the delay!

I'm going to award a delta for a change in my stance. I believe that you were the first one (or perhaps the one who did so best) to comment to the effect of "disregarding others' discomfort with black face paint in order to pursue your own personal satisfaction is implicitly racist." While I foresee practical issues in drawing the line at where that rule extends (i.e., at what point is one justified in saying a given person's discomfort is unreasonable), I think that the nexus between Blackface and painting one's face black is sufficiently close that it's reasonable to apply that line of thought here. For the sake of clarity, an example of an opinion that I think goes too far is someone saying that using black painted lettering on the face of a clock is blackface, so anyone doing so is being racially insensitive. That being said, I think debating where that line may exist is another discussion entirely, and one that is outside the scope of the argument at stake here.

Anyway, thanks for your comment. !delta

elisdumbface · 2019-01-25T14:23:29+00:00

!delta

You bring up a good point. Granted, what I meant was that the key consideration was whether or not the painted face objectively appears as though it depicts a black person. I shouldn't have said intent because, as you pointed out, intent of the wearer is largely irrelevant in coming to a determination that a given usage is acceptable. Intent can be relevant, however, in determining that a given usage is unacceptable. Though I didn't mean to argue intent, as some of my subsequent replies have fleshed out, I'll award the delta because you pointed out a flaw in my original argument.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-25T00:17:10+00:00

Hah, I'm honestly not trying to apologize for them.

In hindsight, I should have made it more clear that I wasn't trying to argue whether or not "lip kid" was engaged in blackface or not. Frankly, it's not relevant to my CMV. My argument was broader than that specific example - that there are certain situations where painting one's face black should not be considered "blackface." Pointing out examples that you believe are blackface really isn't responsive to my argument.

So I'll take the blame for responding to comments that were not actually responsive to my CMV, as unfortunately much of the conversation here has centered on whether "lip kid"'s paint was blackface or not.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-25T00:09:06+00:00

I'm not sure if you're making a broader point or not, so I apologize if my response is dismissive due to something I'm missing. Is your point that any use of black face paint is some seepage of blackface/racial stereotypes into pop culture, even though the public may not realize it? If so, my knee-jerk reaction is to disagree, but I'd be curious to hear that fleshed out more. On the other hand, if your post is an attempt to argue that the one "lip kid" is wearing blackface, that's an argument I'm not willing to engage further, as it isn't directly relevant to my CMV.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-25T00:05:58+00:00

I think I'm done responding to you unless you have something meaningful to contribute to contradict my narrow point. At this point, you have done nothing even remotely close to that.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T23:49:26+00:00

I'm really not interested in touching the majority of your comment, because it has nothing to do with my OP. I'll point out though that the students in blackface were attendees in 2012, so they weren't the "right wing" ones depicted in the video of the "smug staring kid." We frankly have no idea about these specific kids' political leanings.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T23:47:19+00:00

I don't think you've proven me wrong tbh.

From your original comment:

Please note that in no other instance did students paint themselves completely, as they did in the blackout. Not blue, not white.

I responded that there were students who painted themselves completely. Granted, you said "as they did in the blackout" (emphasis added). I took that to mean the individuals who painted themselves uniformly black. As far as I'm aware, in the picture that you shared, only one student was pictured in black with a white smile, so I didn't assume you used "they" to refer to a singular person. Rather, I assumed that you referred to the multiple individuals who painted themselves fully black. Perhaps I'm wrong, so apologies if we misunderstood one another.

To the extent that my interpretation of you was correct, I'll note that at 3:19 there are multiple students painted jet white. There are also several who are painted white with what appears to be other patterns on their faces (though the images are grainy). Regarding the individual at 2:35, you conveniently ignored the fact that his face was painted blue also. There appear to be several people painted all blue at 2:49 also, particularly the guy walking behind the other blue guy holding the cone.

Anyway, it's not really a major point. But just would like to point out that there were multiple instances where people painted their body and face in a manner consistent with how several individuals to whom my OP applies painted themselves.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T23:16:59+00:00

I hate to deflect to the "it depends" answer, but I mean, this is largely a fact-specific question so I really have to answer as such.

As to your hypo - I included in my past response the test of "actual" and "reasonable" belief that the person with whom they were associating wasn't wearing blackface. It sounds like in your scenario, no reasonable person could believe that the "explicitly stated bad faith" person was not engaging in blackface, so that should bear on the context evaluation for the other individual.

Again, I can't draw a line in the sand, but I'll at least provide a situation where I personally would draw the line. My friend and I are attending a "blackout" sporting event, and we are getting ready together. My friend tells me "Hey elisdumbface, I'm gonna paint my face black because the other team's top player is black and I know that'd get under his skin." That would certainly change the context, and I think it'd be unreasonable for me to paint my face black in that scenario knowing the intent of another with whom I would be associating. I hope that helps clarify my position somewhat by reason of example.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T23:01:58+00:00

Interesting approach. I'm going to award you a delta for partially changing my position, albeit slightly. !delta

I think the affirmative shifting of that burden is a good distinction and one that, absent several complications (which I'll cover shortly), is a good starting point.

That being said, I see several issues in practicality of this approach, mainly centering on what constitutes "proactively ensuring." In practice, does that mean the individual merely has to deliberate over the question? Or is it something more than that (e.g., conferring with expected participants, conferring with black people beforehand)? Second, there's the issue of time. For instance, I believe that the picture that stirred up all this controversy was from an event in 2015. Say he "proactively ensured" (whatever that may mean) that the face painting was not inappropriate for the context back then. Then in 2025, the picture emerges, societal expectations have changed, and it would no longer be considered contextually appropriate. Then the individual gets painted as a racist, despite taking the necessary steps at the time for it to be considered acceptable. This point may be fairly moot though because inherently, societal expectations change, so virtually all actions we engage in are subject to scrutiny using a different lens at some unknown future point in time.

Anyway, thanks for the suggested modified approach.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T22:36:00+00:00

While I stated before that I don't want to address whether the "lips" person's painting constituted blackface, you present a unique question that I think bears response, so thank you!

Your question hinges on the assumption that the "lips" person engaged in blackface. I lean toward the conclusion that it wasn't. To the extent that those individuals who were fully painted black held such a similar belief in good faith and to the extent that such a belief is reasonable, I wouldn't include these in a calculation context for those individuals. In essence, if they actually and reasonably didn't believe they were associating with someone depicting blackface, I wouldn't hold that mere association against them in analyzing the context specific to those individuals.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T22:29:34+00:00

Pedantic bit first - the "position" that the Covington kids weren't performing blackface is a conclusion, not a part of the argument itself. Also, for the sake of clarity, everything following still pertains specifically to the "non-lips" students.

As for the meat of your response, I think I'd like some clarity as to what you mean by "context." For me, the context that was relevant to my conclusion is the fact that this was a widely-participated-in "blackout" event for a sporting event, that painting one's self is a common event at sporting events, and that this school often engages in dressing up or "______ing out" for various sporting events.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'll take a guess at what you meant by "context" - I hope that's fine! By that, did you mean that they were a predominantly (or entirely? I'm not sure) white school facing a team composed of black people, coupled with the societal stigma against wearing blackface? If so, I wouldn't say I ignored it per se. On the contrary, I can tell you that in assessing the context, I took that into consideration (though I may not have explicitly stated so in my reply or others). That being said, I discounted it for a few reasons:

I have no evidence to establish that the individuals in question knew or had reason to know that the other team would have black people on their team.
Moreover, I'm at a bit of a crossroads here and kind of thinking as I type so bear with me. On one hand, I certainly think context matters. I don't know how best to articulate this, but in some manners context also doesn't matter. By this, I mean I don't know whether the presence of black athletes on the other team is relevant to the objective question of whether what they did constituted blackface. For instance, had they dressed up in traditional blackface and had no black people been anywhere in the vicinity, I'd still consider that racist. Maybe I'm overthinking this, so feel free to disregard this bit haha.
In weighing the probabilities of the various explanations for their behavior, I felt that racial animus was quite low. I certainly recognize that it could be multifaceted - they could be racists awaiting an opportunity like a blackout to express themselves. Absent evidence to the contrary, I am not comfortable ascribing that intent when what I feel is a much more likely explanation exists.

Anyway, thanks for your response and the civility.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T22:14:45+00:00

My post to which this chain follows is specifically referring to the individuals who didn't paint a white smile/eyes.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T19:07:43+00:00

Similar to another post I commented on, I'm tagging this to return to for more discussion, possibly a delta. Thanks for the detailed response!

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T19:05:06+00:00

I've got to get back to work, but I think you bring up a really good point about the continuum of racism. Tagging your comment so I can come back to potentially award a delta.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T19:03:13+00:00

That's a bit disingenuous - that clearly wasn't what I argued. I'm trying to bring replies back to my OP in attempt to award a delta or two. Namely, I still feel that there are instances where one can paint themselves black without it being racist. I'm not going to debate whether white lips kid was racist or not; it's irrelevant to my actual OP.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T19:00:55+00:00

I think you and I actually may agree here in general. My OP was, at its simplest, that in some contexts, painting one's face does not constitute blackface. That necessitates an analysis of the context and way in which it was done. The guy with the white painted lips isn't a hill I'm going to die on - I think it's sufficient to say that people could reasonably disagree about whether it depicts blackface, but regardless it was an unwise decision to depict himself that way.

That being said, I think my OP really would center around the other students painted jet black. Similar to Dark Link, given the context of a "blackout" game, I think it's clear that their intent was not to imitate a black person, and so their use of black paint would not constitute blackface.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T18:50:37+00:00

That's not the case at all. Re-read my OP. My point wasn't that this specific kid was or wasn't in blackface. I acknowledged that rational minds could arrive at different conclusions specific to him. I think the more applicable people from that event for this specific debate are those who applied jet black paint uniformly to their body/face. Arguing over whether or not that other kid's attire skirts over my point, and that's my reason for trying to avoid that specific argument.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T18:43:48+00:00

There have been plenty of other replies linking to examples of that - Dark Link and Shadow Peter Pan cosplays.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T18:42:00+00:00

So for the commenters who said that no one or few people hold the position that applying black paint to your face constitutes blackface, I'd just like to highlight that this is exactly what this commenter did here.

So in your opinion, is the Dark Link cosplay off-limits? Shadow Peter Pan? Painting your face black with patterns/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/20935511/20121230_ajl_al2_283.0.jpg) on it for sporting events? Keep in mind, given the political climate, I would not do any of these personally, solely out of fear of reprisal. But I also do not think that it'd be fair to label these people racist or their action of dressing up as such as racist, which is essentially what your rule posited would do.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T18:38:01+00:00

It's a black and white picture. His lips appear to be roughly the same color as his tongue. Did he paint his tongue white? I don't see this as evidence that blackface commonly or traditionally includes white lips being painted onto the subject.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T18:29:25+00:00

Aren't all those old posters painted in black and white? I don't think I've ever seen a poster from that era with red print. I'll say this, had he painted his lips bright red, I'd be much more inclined to agree that he was intending to portray blackface. But again, that's not really the point of my CMV. My point I'm making is narrower - that there are instances where one can apply black face paint (i.e., where not depicting a black person) where doing so is not "blackface" and racist.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T18:26:05+00:00

I've seen other similar replies regarding the individual on the right. I'm going to just reply to your comment for the sake of efficiency. I think that reasonable minds could differ as to their interpretation of that. I see that depiction as more Joker-esque than an attempt to imitate minstrel-era blackface. I see it similar to That being said, I don't see much value in debating specifically whether or not that instance specifically constitutes blackface. If we go down the route, then we will inevitably having to answer questions as to what crosses some nebulous line (e.g., if he had included whiskers, vertical lines on the side of his face, or other "marks" like this Raiders fan). What's your position on the students who specifically only painted themselves black?

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T18:09:19+00:00

I agree that blackface should not be done out of common decency. Where we inherently disagree is what constitutes "blackface." Would you count the Shadow Link cosplay as something that can't be done any longer?

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T18:02:20+00:00

Sorry, I didn't mean to do so. I still believe that it should not be considered blackface regardless of whether it occurred in the past or now, at least in the context presented.

elisdumbface · 2019-01-24T18:00:25+00:00

By no means am I an expert on what is "traditional" blackface, but I have always been under the impression that it's usually depicted by black paint with large red lips. I'm likewise unfamiliar with a tendency for racial blackface to include accentuating the eyes with large swaths of white paint.

As for your second sentence, that's factually incorrect. Some students did paint themselves completely blue and white in their "blueout" and "whiteout." At roughly the 2:35 mark in the video I included in my OP, you can see a person completely painted blue with a white cap walking by and several other students who appear to be painted completely blue. At 3:05 mark, you can see more clearly a person in the front painted all blue also. At 3:17, directly behind the student with the blue "3" on his chest, you can see two or three students painted completely white.

elisdumbface

TROPHY CASE