University of Toronto's Blackface Controversy

[Deleted member]

Finally, a fresh debate that I'm really interested in. Sorry for the lack of activity. I'm back, boys.

Okay, where to start?

Here's a primer of what happened at UofT 2 weeks ago at a Halloween party. Keep in mind, UofT is divided into separate colleges that cover all of downtown Toronto. Three of the colleges, University College, St Michael's College, and Victoria College (my college!) threw a huge 3-college Halloween party.

Apparently, it was a great time. It was at a nightclub in downtown Toronto and everyone came in costumes.

The next day, one of the organizers sent out a Facebook message to all who attended, thanking them for coming out. As a postscript, the person awarded a group of people with the "best costume" award.

The costume was this:

4 white dudes and a black dude playing the Jamaican Bobsled team from Cool Runnings.

Well, naturally, UofT's Black Student Association took offense, and demanded a written apology from the student councils of all three colleges (I should mention here that it was a St Michael's student who gave out the last-minute award, which was not planned. The deliberation consisted of sifting through a Facebook album.) The BSA found the costume to be incredibly offensive and found it to be outright Blackface.

The news is everywhere.

Google "blackface uoft" and have fun.

For the record, the BSA is full of ****, and the costume isn't racist in the slightest.

Is it blackface? Is it harmless? Is political correctness running rampant?

 

[CRASHiC]

well, first off, it IS black face. Its white people painting their faces black to portray black characters. That is the definition of Blackface. You can't deny that it is.

Now, weather or not this is harmless, I can't say. I do not know how offended I would become if I saw such a thing and were a black man. Though, as for this incident, it does appear to be harmless because it was not their attention to mock black people per say, but to imitate a movie. There was no racial hate directed at anyone in their intention, both for the content of the characters they were playing (that being Cool Runnings) and the fact that a black man was part of their group.

However, I don't think you can take this as a sign that political correctness running rampant. There has been a sudden surge in pop culture of blackface, brought to attention by the recent French model scandal. If political correctness was rampant, these incidents wouldn't be happening so frequently. I am reminded of the last time Blackface was popular, I believe it was the 20s, when one writer noted that to be black was to be in Vogue, that being that black people were 'in fashion' and had national attention on them. With the first black president of a world power and the death of a pop music icon who was black, we have international attention on black people more than in the past, so as with the two separate Blackface model shoots, black people are in style and thus blackface is appearing more and more in pop culture.

The difference between the 20s and then? Black people have a political voice and are not willing to take what they consider signs of racism, or a retreat to a time of rampant racism and segregation. This is the equivalent of hanging a Noose and a confederate flag in your yard. It is considered a symbol of racism, though I don't believe this incident was intended to be, though was still an accidental mistake on the boys parts.

 

[KrazyGlue]

As long as they weren't acting stupid with the obvious intention of making fun of black people (Jim Crow-esque style), then this isn't racist in the slightest. I'm tired of people jumping at random things like this and denouncing them as racist. If anything, the BSA should apologize to these students for ruining their public image.