Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
I think you're right in most cases where people say something is good if one person does it and bad when another person does it. Especially if they only think something is good or bad based on whether or not they like a person. I was referring to cases like the JT blackface where everyone agreed it was bad but opinions differed on how bad it was with people like me not being as worried since they didn't believe it indicated that he was racist while others pretending to be outraged out of political expediency. A case like that is context sensitive since it isn't as much about the actual act as it is what it says about the person committing it. There is a long history of racist people conducting minstrel shows by donning costumes w/ blackface to mock and denigrate black people. It unfortunately still occasionally happens and is still a sore point. So when someone does it nowadays, it can mean one of four things (from least worst to worst).
1) They were unaware of that history and just wanted to make a convincing costume that looked like a POC character (ignorance)
2) They were aware of the history but didn't care about it or how their actions would be perceived (racial insensitivity)
3) They were aware of that history and intentionally wanted to do it to be provocative and edgy (more severe racial insensitivity)
4) They were racist and wanted to continue the tradition of mocking Black people. (Racism).
The context is necessary to inform which interpretation is most suitable with people's reactions being increasingly worse the further down the list one goes.
.
|
Being an extremely close contemporary of Justin Trudeau (we're very close in age) and like him having grown up mostly in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto triangle with a foot in both francophone and anglophone Canada, I've always said I can't believe that an explanation for the blackface incidents (at least three of them) was innocent ignorance.
There isn't anyone like Justin and I who wouldn't have known and that rules out (1) for me. (In one photo he also has a banana stuck down the front of his pants. He needed a place to store fruit while keeping his hands free?)
In his case it's likely a (2) or a (3). Unlikely to be (4) though.