VA Gov Northam blackface photo

by the way, I looked at the "relatively short article" you provided and was not all that impressed with it--more because of its brevity than its content. And I'm not sure it follows through and fully delivers on your statement that is shows "why many people of African descent find it offensive." Perhaps you think that article is more informative and persuasive than it actually is?

 

No, I think it provides a brief history of black face. It’s a historical article (using that word loosely) not a persuasive one. There are more detailed articles and books that you can search for if you like. There are even some documentaries.

 

I did read it. I just disagree that here in 2019 most blackface is offensive. The majority of my block growing up knew nothing about ministrels. It's wholly unimportant, too antiquated. You can't compare the normal blackface nowadays to that of the days of ministrels in regards to entertainment. That is like comparing modern Rock and Roll from the 50's to modern Rock.

Colored face performance, no matter the color portrayed in which no malice or racial hatred is intended IS entertaining. It's been proven before. To deny that is to deny Robert Downey Jr was entertaining in Tropic Thunder. I wasn't watching Tropic Thunder thinking about how offended I was because a white guy was doing blackface. I'm sure white people who watch Dave Chappelle skits aren't getting all offended over his whiteface.

I never felt offended when Jimmy Kimmel did blackface


I like comedy. They didn't perform that blackface to offend anyone, They did it to make all races laugh together. You're just too uptight and anti-funny dude.

If someone wanted to blackface in a malicious manner to mock and be racist.. thats when it becomes offensive & inappropriate. A good example of that is Northam's photos. He must step down and resign. There is no funny because there is no context = offensive.

 

“By distorting the features and culture of African Americans—including their looks, language, dance, deportment, and character—white Americans were able to codify whiteness across class and geopolitical lines as its antithesis.”

This pretty much sums up why black face is offensive to many. Said another way the author, who is uncredited
, is saying that minstrel shows (aka blackface) was designed to show how “stupid” and “backwards” black people are. These shows were immensely popular in the 1800s to early 1900s (not quite sure of the end date). The idea of the show was to indirectly say, “ you may be a poor white farmer, tradesman or immigrant but at least you aren’t a n****r. Look how they act! That’s not even human! “

 

You are entitled to your own sense of comedy. As far as minstrel shows being “wholly unimportant” or “too antiquated”, that’s your opinion (I disagree but you are entitled to your opinion). I don’t find stereotypical based humor funny in general, be it men acting like women or heterosexuals acting like homosexuals. It comes off as kinda lazy to me, but that’s just my opinion. I never watched Tropic Thunder and I honestly feel Dave Chappelle is overrated. As far as his “whiteface” routine goes, I thought it was incredibly stupid and unentertaining but I honestly didn’t expect from his as he’s nevef been that funny (my opinion once again).

I’ve heard I actually have a decent sense of humor lol. To be honest, I find self depreciating humor the most entertaining.

 

When I say you are anti-funny, I'm saying that in the context in which you're telling others you're offended when all they tried to do was be funny. Everyone has differencing opinions on whats funny, however all comedy should be supported. Anyone trying to be funny should be allowed to make fun of anything they think can be funny AS LONG as it's clear that there is no ill intention. The moment they stereotype & mock with malicious intent or are blatantly racist- that is wrong.

I love roasts. Some roast jokes go to the extreme limits, but it can still be funny because in the end it's about the intention of the joke.

To not be anti-funny I recommend: 1. Do you think they were trying to be funny? If Yes, don't get offended, If No go to question 2. Were they doing this to be malicious and hurtful? Are they trying to insult? If Yes, be offended.

That's why most blackface doesn't bother me in 2019.

 

How am I stopping them from performing blackface?

 

I guess I'm curious like is it more offensive that someone does blackface today or is it more offensive if a black person goes out of their way to act how a stereotypical "black" person might act for the sake of comedy. Like that Chappelle skit is a perfect example the white face was a zero in terms of level of being offensive to me but the way he portrays how blacks would act if they got rich would seem to be much higher on the offensiveness scale. I mean it's all funny to me because I like absurd, ridiculous stuff. It takes a lot to actually offend me, but it just seems the skit itself should be viewed as far more offensive to blacks for portraying them as people who don't know how to act if they get anything than whites simply because of a black guy wearing white make up and acting like a stiff white guy.

I dunno if that expresses what I'm trying to say very well but do you kind of get what I'm getting at? I think the point @Realjad makes about people getting offended about certain things because they are told to be offended certainly carries some weight with racial discussions in America at times. I thought Patrice O'Neal video was spot on too. He was funny as hell and didn't bullshit. I don't know outrage just seems to be so easy to find now.

Anyhow, the governor is clearly an idiot lol.

 

There is zero reason why a black person in white face would be offensive to white people. There is no history of black people doing that as part of a system that prevented black people from having equal opportunities, oppressing them, denying them their rights, treating them as less than others in society.

I can't imagine anything about a black person in white face is offensive.

 

I’ve always found Dave Chappelle corny, so I’m probably not the best person to ask.

 

This discussion seems to have gotten a bit off the rails here, so let me pose a Northam hypothetical.

Let's say we take him at his current word: it wasn't him in the picture; he had never seen the yearbook before last night; he won a San Antonio dance contest dressed as Michael Jackson in some partial version of blackface. And let's assume the weird admission apology last night didn't happen - so all we had was the explanation today. Does he still need to resign? (I know this is not reality, and his truthfulness is in question, but I want to see how far we go with need-to-resign scenarios)

 

There's a big difference between dressing up like a basketball player, or a rapper, or an actor ... and just dressing up blackface just to do blackface WHILE posing for a picture with a klan member. That's very dark humor, not light humor like Kimmel.

Like i said, the only excuse for this is comedy, but considering the context and who he is it's a very bad look.

 

There's so much dumb in this thread. Ignorance of blackface is no excuse. Whiteface isn't a thing. The difference in "ruining" Republicans vs Democrats with respect to blackface is really the difference in their records. A Republican most likely supports confederate statues, racist voter ID policies, racist gerrymandering, the abolition of the Voting Rights Act, etc. which gives more credence to them being racists. The comparison is a false equivalence, one of the favored tools of Republicans.

As for Northam, growing up in the heart of the Confederacy probably subjected him to the ambivalence or even acceptance of blackface and the Klan. Looking at Northam's record, I don't find anything remotely racist about it. However, if he is in fact in that photo, there's no excuse for posing as a Klansman or with a Klansman or in blackface. Just no excuse at all. He should resign and once again show that everyone is more accountable for their behavior than the racist, lying buffoon in chief.

And LOL about Republicans who never ask Steve King to resign when he makes his usual racist comments but coming out of the woodwork on Northam.

 

It takes Democrat governor getting caught for some (whites to assume) to now rationalize how blackface is "not offensive".

Partisanship trumps all. Worse than sports fans.

 

Interesting viewpoint, given that one person here has said blackface isn't offensive, and he's neither white (I believe?), nor a Democrat.

 

A couple of comments on your post above.

1) The blackface is a bad look for the Governor and even back in the 1980's it would have raised eyebrows. But it would not have caused anyone to demand his social or career destruction. That is a more recent byproduct of the Democrat left's incredibly vile, aggressively uncivil, and hysterically intolerant "Political correctness" and "Identity politics" regime. It is the latter that everybody has due cause to be truly outraged and disdainful of, certainly much moreso than the Governor's ill advised celebration of racism at this party during his time in medical school.

2) The difference between "ruining" Republicans and Democrats for the Democrat left and their partners in the mass media is openly obvious to anyone who follows these matters who is not a true ignoramus or an irretrievable hate-filled partisan hack of the worst kind. The treatment of Republicans such as Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, and Brett Kavanaugh by the Democrat left, just to name a few, as led relentlessly and with the highest possible level of publicity by the left leaning mass media, has taken us beyond the realm of the despicable to a level that I do not know if there is even a word for yet. With the much more toned down examples of this episode and Senator Al Franken, we have not seen these sorts of campaigns against Democrats, and in fact, quite the opposite.

3) As far as the 'false equivalence' segment in bold above, you are here casting racial aspersions like someone who is obsessed with the topic and who not concerned with who you cast it at, or whether the attributions have merit or not. Par for the course. This is the same behavior we witness from the Democrat left social media lynch mob style attacks, as led by the leftist mass media, on a routine basis. These actions are no more morally defensible than an actual lynch mob, that rages with howls of lust and fury, where due process is not a consideration and justice is whatever they want it to be, and whoever gets hurt or killed, that is too bad for them. In other words, this kind of conduct is just plain evil.

4) As far as Steve King, he was stripped of all his committee assignments and his comments were condemned in the House by a vote of something like 434-1. In all likelihood, he will be fired by his district at the next elections, if he does not announce that he will not run again first. which I suspect he will.

5) You guys have jumped the shark with these never ending, zero tolerance demands that people resign from their jobs or their elected positions for effectively defying the Democrat left's "Political correctness" speech and conduct codes, with three especially egregious examples being former Senator Al Franken, Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich and Governor Norstrom here in this incident. It is too much.

6) Thank you for posting the tweet by House Majority Leader McCarthy (R-CA). I am curious about his explanation of this, because if it is McCarthy's intention to call for Norstrom's resignation because of this incident alone, then I disagree. However, as you can see for yourself, he also noted Norstrom's support for the Virginia infanticide law, which again leaves me at a loss for words. Even with these two bombshells combined, I am not seeing the justification for asking him "to resign". To the extent that McCarthy is aligning himself and embracing the premise of the Democrat left's "Political correctness" agenda, it would be my preference to see Representative McCarthy (R-CA) resign before Governor Norstrom (D-VA) ever does.

7) I have not seen a list, but I hope and expect that Representative McCarthy is the only person of note on the Republican to call for Governor Norstorm's resignation. To the extent anyone, including yourself, is suggesting that this is the standard or agreed position of people associated with the Republican right, that is just not the case.

So enough with all the over the top calls for everyone to resign, especially when they are elected representatives of the people. These people are limited by their terms of office, and some people like Governor Norstrom by term limits as well. If Norstorm thinks it is appropriate to resign as a matter of honor, or because he does not believe it is in the best interest of his state for him to finish his term, then he can certainly resign - if he wants to. But he should not be forced out of office by a bunch of hysterical, overwrought political bullies.

 

It should also be something for Governor Norstrom to decide in this instance as well and not some hysterical "Political correctness" orchestrated social lynch mob. You are right, McCarthy's inconsistency here does a real disservice to himself and to the position that he holds.

It is "whataboutism," but "whataboutism" has always been a bullshit assertion, so who cares. Everyone is responsible for their own attitudes and their own actions. That includes Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy, Hillary Clinton and in fact everyone. They are not excused from that just because someone tosses out the phrase "whataboutism". And that has been the case all along, even though people on your side seem to be oblivious to that fact.

 

You're on a completely different topic than the one we were discussing. You're on the topic of what the thread is about. I think you and me are in agreement.

I was saying what Northam did was WRONG, and what Jimmy Kimmel did, what Dave Chappelle did, what Robert Downey Jr did was not wrong because they did it in good faith/humor. Thats what the discussion was over.. me saying not all blackface is wrong and Amaru saying all blackface is wrong.

 

I appreciate why you guys are going back and forth about right and wrong and historical context. And I understand the need to determine who's to blame.

Ultimately, the only thing that matters is how African American constituents in Virginia feel about it here and now.

If it puts a layer of distrust between those people and their state, it is a problem, even if you want to say Northam is completely blameless. Not sure exactly how you figure that out but what's best for the state and the people that comprise it should be more important than if we are inconveniencing Northam and his career plans.