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[Mauricio_Magus]

Isn't context important too? I wouldn't do it and I don't advise anyone to blackface, but that's one fine cosplay and I doubt it was done to make fun of anyone.

I'm giving her a pass.

 

[MrBadger]

The way I see it, she's not stereotyping black people with her cosplay, she's trying to make herself look like one specific character, who happens to be black. In no way is that racist.

 

[Pand]

Painting your skin to look like a character (of any race) isn't inherently racist, only contextually so. It's perfectly natural for Americans to find the image offensive, but I imagine the responses would be very different in other parts of the world.

What I don't get are the "just don't do it because we said so" responses. Some black people in this thread say they're not offended by it, your opinion isn't universal and discussion should always be encouraged.

 

[Malyse]

The intend of racisms is to confer the believe that a race is inferior to another. How does this persons cosplay of a character do that?

You can't see the inherent problem with treating race as a costume?

 

[Frog-fu]

So she should take the L and apologize for being a terrible make-up artist.

I wouldn't say terrible, I think she did it a pretty good job, but it's going to be either or, then sure, brand her a terrible artist. I doubt she'll have any love for her hobby.

 

[Cuphead]

that's like...the red button issue. she could be Michionne without blackening up her skin. But only certain people understand this. Everyone else is like "why u mad lol?" Its like the entire identity is caught up in the dark skin tone of the character, and that's crazy, but SO MANY PEOPLE are going "well she's black, obviously she has to wear blackface otherwise it's weird".

I'm just like...are your minds so set in stone?

If she's not trying to offend/hurt anyone she should be allowed to put whatever she wants on her skin.

 

[RandyBobandy]

This isn't racist either since he's clearly dressing as Kanye West.

 

[isoquant]

You can't see the inherent problem with treating race as a costume?

What is the inherent problem? (If that is indeed what she was doing by dressing up as her favourite character from a TV show).

 

[flkraven]

You can't see the inherent problem with treating race as a costume?

How is she treating race as a costume? Her costume is of a specific character, not a race. In the same way as if I dressed up as captain jack sparrow and you said 'you can't see the inherent problem with treating a beard as a costume'

 

[Alligatorjandro]

If she's not trying to offend/hurt anyone she should be allowed to put whatever she wants on her skin.

You don't have to try to offend someone for it to be offensive. People should understand you can be racist and offensive without intending to.

 

[Tymerend]

I don't understand the arguments about the intention being what makes something racist. If I go around saying the N word without the intention of being racist, I'm PRETTY certain it's still racist. Beyond that, people can't read minds to figure out if someone's intention is pure or not.

It's the same reason people are trying to purge the word 'gay' from their vocabulary as a general insult. Most of the time, the intention is not to offend homosexuals, but it's still considered pretty demeaning regardless of the original intention. Blackface has been a racist gesture for a long time, so really, it's racist regardless of the intention.

 

[tkscz]

And what if I said that shit was questionable too?

Ignoring the fact that whiteface doesn't have nearly the same history behind it as blackface or even yellowface, of course.

Y'all keep bringing up Chappelle and the Wayans Bros like that's supposed to undo some shit.

And what does the history of it have to do with this? The history of it was to make a joke, the history of it was to make us feel bad, the history of it was to make us look like caricatures of ourselves, promoting stereotypes and finding ways to keep us off the movie screens and stages. What she is doing isn't anywhere near that. I feel what she is doing is respectful, and the fact that she wants to go so far as to change her skin to be more like her favorite character doesn't sound racist to me in the least. She's doing it with respect to the person she cosplaying. This isn't one of those offensive costumes we see, which further supports stereotypes, this is actual tribute.

 

[Malyse]

If she's not trying to offend/hurt anyone she should be allowed to put whatever she wants on her skin.

Again, just because you didn't mean to hurt someone doesn't make it okay. If you accidentally step on my foot, you don't get to not apologize because you didn't intend it.

 

[Frank Jaeger]

Fuck me if I ever understand any of these paradigms!

 

[jasonng]

I really hope some people are able to answer my question(s) above. I want to hear the feelings from people whose opinion varies, but this conversation is just spiraling into nothingness. The best argument I'm seeing is 'this looks racist', without any real explanation, or 'this is blackface' without any context into how this is blackface.

On 1 side we have people dismissing this as blackface, giving links to definitions of blackface and why it is offensive, or people just saying 'offensive','don't do it', etc. These do nothing. They don't help those better understand why this is offensive, and they only make people on the other side feel validated in their opinion.

On the other side we have people rebutting with claims about white descrimination, whiteface in pop culture, alien cosplay comparisons, and people dismissing this as the 'PC' police or oversensitivity. This moves the argument no where, and simply forces the other side to act reactionary and defensive.

Please, someone, tell me why this is offensive? And how far does this extend?

edit: wish I wasn't near the bottom of the page :/

I want to know this as well. My best guess is that it's because blackface has such a hurtful history that anything that resembles it comes off as a reminder. Without question people want to move past it.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

How is she treating race as a costume? Her costume is of a specific character, not a race. In the same way as if I dressed up as captain jack sparrow and you said 'you can't see the inherent problem with treating a beard as a costume'

Bad analogies are more offensive than this woman's costume ever had a chance of being lol

 

[Kinvara]

No it doesn't.

A race isn't a costume- just because she did it a little better than most doesn't make it any less problematic. (It still looks pretty inaccurate and bad.)

For a long time, I felt I couldn't get into cosplay because of my skin color because there were so few characters that I knew of that had darker skin. Eventually, I accepted that I can dress up as anyone who I want to be but the stigma is still there.

A white cosplayer darkening up their skin feels like a slap in the face to all the difficulties black cosplayers have to face in regards to racism.

She gets to slap on some bronzer and is applauded as "accurately" depicting this character.

While black cosplayers get comments like "XXX character isn't black. Why are you cosplaying them?" and "This is pretty good even though they're black".

Quoting this for the next page.

 

[Malyse]

How is she treating race as a costume? Her costume is of a specific character, not a race. In the same way as if I dressed up as captain jack sparrow and you said 'you can't see the inherent problem with treating a beard as a costume'

What is the inherent problem? (If that is indeed what she was doing by dressing up as her favourite character from a TV show).

Its still blaceface 😮
http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=135118504

 

[TatteredHat]

I always thought that intent was a big part of what made blackface "blackface", this particular case doesn't seem bad at all.

I'm not from the US though, so I'm probably not as sensitive to the black/white race issue that's played out there.

 

[frankie_baby]

Its part of a physical appearance, no different to changing a hair colour or anything, big deal

 

[Summer Haze]

There's absolutely nothing inherently racist about it.
Had there been intent, sure. But there wasn't.
It doesn't matter whether someone feels offended because of their emotional reaction to a historical fact. It is an emotional and not a rational reaction.
You are projecting the predestined impact of "blackface" well beyond the intent and execution of the act itself. You are twisting it around.

The more sensitivity we create, the more misguided everything becomes and it's a slippery slope from there.
This situation is a perfect example of this.
An act which was intended as a tribute, a celebration of a character, has produced magnitudes of hate.
To me, this huge ammount of hate outweights the offensivness that some people perceived.

Take a step back and see what's happening.
Is this really something that should rally the internet and generate all this hate?

It seems to me that everyone took this "blackface" and fucking ran with it.
Now all the world should somehow feel this guilt. Oh the guilt. The black guilt. You know what? That's bullshit.
I'm sorry, there's no inherent guilt. None.
There's no guilt to be attached to the white people, or to the black people, or to yellow people. The only guilt can be applied to an individual. The "white people" didn't enslave the "black people". There's no "white people".

I'm sick and tired of these endless discussions.
I can understand Americans have a lot of baggage from the past and emotional attachments, but there's a time to leave those behind and start looking at the individual.
You have a perfect chance to stop the rhetoric of "white vs black". Your society is so wonderfully mixed. What you need now is a philosophical and moral guidance of the individual.

Stop this ridiculus moral relativism. It's causing nothing but trouble and divisions.
Stop arguing about fringe cases or even making them (such as this case).
A normal human being will easily tell what's right and what's wrong, what's moral and what's not. But you're throwing those out the window with the relativism. Don't you see how counterproductive it is?

I am white.
Does it matter?
What if I were black and said those things? Would you judge them differently?
Would it make a difference if I told you that I come from a nation with no slave or imperialism history? It really shouldn't.

Is it racist that I mimic a black person because I admire them? No.
Is it racists if a black person mimiced me, because s/he liked me? Absolutely not.

But an action is not an absolute. It is what we make it to be, what value we prescribe to it.
What if we all said, eating with your left hand is racist because a mass murdered ate with his left hand and it's reminding all of us about it, maybe its even glorifying it in some cases? We would then in reality make people feel that to be a fact. It would indeed become racist.
But why would we do such a thing?

Human skin has different colors. Human eyes have different colors.
Human hair has different colors.
Let's decide once and for all to treat every person, every human being as equal.
Then it doesn't matter if I change my hair color. It won't matter if I change my eye color.
It won't matter if I change my skin color.
I'm still a human being and I deserve respect and I have the duty to respect my fellow human being.

All things said and done, we should deny every negative thought and action towards a fellow human being. Deny any and all status of inferiority\superiority between men and women. Strive for mutual understanding, cooperation and mutual exsistence.

This is the foundation of what we should do.
Now it's up to everyone to change the reality in that light.
This doesn't mean that all racism will simply be gone over night, or that black teenagers will be less likely to be shot on sight.
This means that we start to remake the world around us one by one, day by day.

Getting hung up on fringe relativism cases is really REALLY not the way to a better future.

Excellent post. Completely agree.

 

[flkraven]

Its still blaceface ��
http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=135118504

That is the same link that everyone keeps linking to, and no where in there does it describe how this is blackface.

 

[Alx]

You seriously think you have to intend to be racist? 😓

Yes.
rac·ism noun \ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm also -ˌshi-\

: poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race

: the belief that some races of people are better than others

It is racist if you're sending the message that some races are better than others, or that they deserve different privileges. There is no such message in portraying someone from a different race, not in that case anyway.

You misunderstand the post you quoted. Yeah it was an accident, yeah you didn't intend to cause me pain, but hell yeah you still owe me an apology because you still caused me harm.

Well it would be obvious in a real life situation, when you're meeting people with an idea of what hurts their feelings. For example it would have been a very bad idea to do that cosplay in the US (when in Rome,...). But this is the internet, it is not linked to a single culture, and you will always offend someone anyway. It may not have been a bright idea to broadcast that picture for all the Americans to see and complain about, but in that case you can't say anything on the internet any more. I'm sure there are people who would complain that she's not decently dressed as well and feel offended, but she doesn't owe those people an apology either.

 

[isoquant]

Its still blaceface 😮
http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=135118504

From your own quotation:

Used to de-humanize, belittle and make fun of those that are “Less than”

Originally done by white people for white people

Originally done by white people in white only establishments

Originally a degrading visual joke (Ha! Ha! Look at me, I’m one of THEM! Yuck!)

By design, was to not only laugh at but show what niggers were REALLY like
http://www.blackculturalstudies.org/...blackface.html

Caused (and continues to cause) pain to Black people

Made black people into caricatures (not human, a symbol to belittle)

Can you please tell me, specifically what is offensive or insulting about this costume?

Is this "Used to de-humanize, belittle and make fun of those that are “Less than”'? How?

Is this a "a degrading visual joke (Ha! Ha! Look at me, I’m one of THEM! Yuck!)"? How?

 

[Malyse]

That is the same link that everyone keeps linking to, and no where in there does it describe how this is blackface.

😒

Do you fundamentally lack an understanding of what blackface is? Because no one in the thread thinks this is not blackface.

 

[J10]

I always thought that intent was a big part of what made blackface "blackface", this particular case doesn't seem bad at all.

I'm not from the US though, so I'm probably not as sensitive to the black/white race issue that's played out there.

It's bothersome for reasons beyond personal intent.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

I don't understand the arguments about the intention being what makes something racist. If I go around saying the N word without the intention of being racist, I'm PRETTY certain it's still racist. Beyond that, people can't read minds to figure out if someone's intention is pure or not.

It's the same reason people are trying to purge the word 'gay' from their vocabulary as a general insult. Most of the time, the intention is not to offend homosexuals, but it's still considered pretty demeaning regardless of the original intention. Blackface has been a racist gesture for a long time, so really, it's racist regardless of the intention.

Because there is no alternative positive meaning to the N word. Any and all contexts it's used in are racist.

Whereas someone could theoretically go to a comic book convention dressed as a black character and only do it because they have the utmost respect for a character that happens to be black. So there are situations where someone dressing up as a black person is in no way meant to belittle or disparage black people, and in fact they could be doing it because they love the character.

 

[chaobreaker]

It's racist but I would give her a pass if she honestly didn't know that blackface is offensive as fuck.

Guys, you don't have to change your skin colour to look like your favourite fictional character. Just look at the majority of black cosplayers. They don't have much to work on compared to everyone else but they make the best of what they have without slapping flour in their face.

 

[Cuphead]

Again, just because you didn't mean to hurt someone doesn't make it okay. If you accidentally step on my foot, you don't get to not apologize because you didn't intend it.

Is this hurting people though?
Is anything about her makeup very exaggerated or offensive?

 

[ReturnOfTheRAT]

From your own quotation:



Can you please tell me, specifically what is offensive or insulting about this costume?

Is this "Used to de-humanize, belittle and make fun of those that are “Less than”'? How?

Is this a "a degrading visual joke (Ha! Ha! Look at me, I’m one of THEM! Yuck!)"? How?

In this situation he cannot.

 

[IsntChrisL]

I don't think it's racist to put on makeup to look like a member of another race unless you're doing so to offend.

More specifically, you shouldn't do it if you're not trying to offend, yet still trying to be funny (because in all likelihood your dumbass self is being offensive). Overall, I think it looks bad on any race that tries it. But deciding that skin color is the tipping point is stupid.

 

[jasonng]

😒

Do you fundamentally lack an understanding of what blackface is? Because no one in the thread thinks this is not blackface.

There are a lot of posters here who don't think this particular instance is blackface, myself included.

 

[Malyse]

From your own quotation:



Can you please tell me, specifically what is offensive or insulting about this costume?

Is this "Used to de-humanize, belittle and make fun of those that are “Less than”'? How?

Is this a "a degrading visual joke (Ha! Ha! Look at me, I’m one of THEM! Yuck!)"? How?

Please read all the links and then ask.

 

[flkraven]

��

Do you fundamentally lack an understanding of what blackface is? Because no one in the thread thinks this is not blackface.

I do understand what blackface is though...

 

[mrklaw]

negative reactions are always easier than positive ones, and the internet gives you the ability to build up negative momentum quicker than you can blink. Sad really.

You'd think people would be happy that someone wants to cosplay a strong black character, but oh no, we can't have that.

 

[Nev]

There's absolutely nothing inherently racist about it.
Had there been intent, sure. But there wasn't.
It doesn't matter whether someone feels offended because of their emotional reaction to a historical fact. It is an emotional and not a rational reaction.
You are projecting the predestined impact of "blackface" well beyond the intent and execution of the act itself. You are twisting it around.

The more sensitivity we create, the more misguided everything becomes and it's a slippery slope from there.
This situation is a perfect example of this.
An act which was intended as a tribute, a celebration of a character, has produced magnitudes of hate.
To me, this huge ammount of hate outweights the offensivness that some people perceived.

Take a step back and see what's happening.
Is this really something that should rally the internet and generate all this hate?

It seems to me that everyone took this "blackface" and fucking ran with it.
Now all the world should somehow feel this guilt. Oh the guilt. The black guilt. You know what? That's bullshit.
I'm sorry, there's no inherent guilt. None.
There's no guilt to be attached to the white people, or to the black people, or to yellow people. The only guilt can be applied to an individual. The "white people" didn't enslave the "black people". There's no "white people".

I'm sick and tired of these endless discussions.
I can understand Americans have a lot of baggage from the past and emotional attachments, but there's a time to leave those behind and start looking at the individual.
You have a perfect chance to stop the rhetoric of "white vs black". Your society is so wonderfully mixed. What you need now is a philosophical and moral guidance of the individual.

Stop this ridiculus moral relativism. It's causing nothing but trouble and divisions.
Stop arguing about fringe cases or even making them (such as this case).
A normal human being will easily tell what's right and what's wrong, what's moral and what's not. But you're throwing those out the window with the relativism. Don't you see how counterproductive it is?

I am white.
Does it matter?
What if I were black and said those things? Would you judge them differently?
Would it make a difference if I told you that I come from a nation with no slave or imperialism history? It really shouldn't.

Is it racist that I mimic a black person because I admire them? No.
Is it racists if a black person mimiced me, because s/he liked me? Absolutely not.

But an action is not an absolute. It is what we make it to be, what value we prescribe to it.
What if we all said, eating with your left hand is racist because a mass murdered ate with his left hand and it's reminding all of us about it, maybe its even glorifying it in some cases? We would then in reality make people feel that to be a fact. It would indeed become racist.
But why would we do such a thing?

Human skin has different colors. Human eyes have different colors.
Human hair has different colors.
Let's decide once and for all to treat every person, every human being as equal.
Then it doesn't matter if I change my hair color. It won't matter if I change my eye color.
It won't matter if I change my skin color.
I'm still a human being and I deserve respect and I have the duty to respect my fellow human being.

All things said and done, we should deny every negative thought and action towards a fellow human being. Deny any and all status of inferiority\superiority between men and women. Strive for mutual understanding, cooperation and mutual exsistence.

This is the foundation of what we should do.
Now it's up to everyone to change the reality in that light.
This doesn't mean that all racism will simply be gone over night, or that black teenagers will be less likely to be shot on sight.
This means that we start to remake the world around us one by one, day by day.

Getting hung up on fringe relativism cases is really REALLY not the way to a better future.

This is all I'd like to say if I were as eloquent. Nailed it.

 

[Jenenser]

��

Do you fundamentally lack an understanding of what blackface is? Because no one in the thread thinks this is not blackface.

thats a lie, several people in this thread stated that this is not blackface.

that said, she changed her skincolor with makeup to gain a physical trait, to look more like a comicbookcharacter. i see no problem in that.
but i am the wrong person to talk with here as i am german and i have no concept of feeling mocked if my "race" would be mimicked. (so i don't even know why i am saying anything.)

poor mods.

 

[zeromcd73]

That cosplay looks fantastic. I don't particular think this is racist. I have friends who cosplay all the time and paint their skin many different colours, and she is only trying to look like a particular character from her favourite show/movie/thing.

 

[kamorra]

Please read all the links and then ask.

Why don't you just answer? Maybe it would help the discussion.

 

[isoquant]

Please read all the links and then ask.

Way to dodge.

 

[Parallax]

negative reactions are always easier than positive ones, and the internet gives you the ability to build up negative momentum quicker than you can blink. Sad really.

You'd think people would be happy that someone wants to cosplay a strong black character, but oh no, we can't have that.

You can do that without the makeup and noone would blink though.

 

[TatteredHat]

It's bothersome for reasons beyond personal intent.

If that's the case then I suppose those reasons would fall beyond the responsibility of this cosplayer, then.

 

[tkscz]

Its still blaceface ��
http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=135118504

When is she being a caricature of a black person? At what point is she going out of her way to offend us? She isn't? Well then, not racist. I get why your offended, we are not costumes for white people to wear. However, she isn't cosplaying as black woman, she is cosplaying her favorite character from a show she loves. She is paying tribute to that specific character and a serious tribute at that. If it were a joke-ish representation like that Kanye West picture from before, then it would be offensive, as that's making fun of said person (not using the phrase person of color). But that's not whats going on here. She is paying a tribute, not making a joke. I just don't see the racism here, ergo, doesn't offend me.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Please read all the links and then ask.

Or you could just answer the question people have been posing to you for the past two pages. They didn't ask for some breakdown on blackface, they asked why you personally felt that this situation is meant to belittle or paints black people as inferior.

 

[Malyse]

There are a lot of posters here who don't think this particular instance is blackface, myself included.

Hyperbole. This is clearly blackface. The question is if its racist.

Is this hurting people though?
Is anything about her makeup very exaggerated or offensive?

Are you kidding me? Why the hell do you think this thread is even a thing if people *don't* have a problem with it?

In this situation he cannot.

You are contributing nothing to the thread.

 

[J10]

If that's the case then I suppose those reasons would fall beyond the responsibility of this cosplayer, then.

Nah. It's still her responsibility. You don't get a pass for not knowing better.

 

[Pand]

You guys must love Dutch Santa Claus "Sinterklaas" and his companion "Zwarte Piet" (Black Pete).

The difference between Zwarte Piet, who is a stereotypical caricaturization of black people and a cosplayer dressing up as a character she likes should be pretty apparent.

 

[Malyse]

Way to dodge.

If you read on, you'll have your answer.

If we upset you, if we hurt you, if oppress you, tough. We will tell you to "get over it". We will tell you it's "just [cosplay]", because we consider everything, even [cosplay], more valuable than your thoughts, than your emotions, than your well-being, and than you.

If you dare to complain, we will remind you of that as loudly and offensively as we can.

 

[AkuMifune]

This is all I'd like to say if I were as eloquent. Great.

Yes, we're way past all of the shit our ancestors did to eachother to make this actually racist in any way. Yes most of us look at people as just "people". Yes I'm in a mixed marriage with mixed kids and who gives a fuck.

But the baggage of the shit white people did to black people; the portrayals, the mockery, the insensitive "comedy", all that baggage still exists. This cosplay isn't racist, but it is ignorant in our culture for a white person to pretend to be a black person. Will it always? I don't know. But especially with all of the casual racism/bigotry going on in our society right now. TODAY we should be a little more sensitive to these issues than, "whatever I exist in my own little world and I don't think there's anything wrong with it." Sorry, you're part of a shitty society. Try a little harder to think about how other people will interpret your actions.

 

[Extra Sauce]

On the subject; Did people/anyone find this racist in Tropic Thunder? Never heard any controversy or blackface comments regarding it.

Satire.