Posted on 10/08/2009 10:35:33 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
THE most entertaining entertainment story in the world yesterday was an oldie but a goodie: backward and racist Australians had been caught red-handed in a blackface race scandal, live on TV.
The Nine Network on Wednesday night happily put five men in black-face makeup and fake Afros on TV.
The skit was part of Hey, Hey It's Saturday's popular - and, as it turns out, aptly named - Red Faces talent show, and the story went global because the guest judge was Harry Connick Jr, a Louisiana crooner whose father was district attorney in the race-torn city of New Orleans for 27years, and whose band includes a half-dozen talented African Americans, who then had to go on and play.
In the US, a white man with a black-painted face is a minstrel or a "blackface". Minstrels toured the American South in the years before the civil war. The performances were deeply racist. Connick Jr said he could not believe he was seeing the act on TV here.
Snap polls on the internet, including News Limited blogs and Twitter, suggest many people thought the Hey Hey skit - the Jackson Jive - wasn't racist, but a harmless, indeed funny, tribute to the Jackson Five.
One of the performers, Suresh de Silva, told News Limited's The Punch website: "The worst consequence of what we did is that the skit has raised the question of are Australians racist. We're genuinely horrified that our mistake could cause people to think that.
"I'm Sri Lankan-Australian, there's an Indian-Australian, a Greek-Australian, an Irish-Italian-Australian and a Lebanese-Australian. We're all Australian.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
So what if it was racist? Is that against the law or something? People make such a big deal out of this stuff because everyone wants to appear diverse. The truth is alot of blacks hate whites and alot of whites hate blacks. It will never change and doesn’t need to change. This is the real world and people don’t like other people. This isn’t and never will be the everyone loves everyone fest that some want it to be. The sooner people accept that the better off everyone will be. If you don’t get what I’m saying just think about it.
Why is it a white guy in a movie in whiteface as a murdering, frothing at the mouth, over the top, chewing the scenery pychopath isn't offensive but a still picture of a black guy in white face that correctly identifies him as a socialist is offensive?
Because the people who are being offended make a tidy sum on being offended,l and because when The (boogie) Man blocks you at every turn, you don't have to explain why you are a drug dealing, small-time hoodlum ignoring a free education provided by the state and skipping out on your responsibility to your family.
Dude, you’re preaching to the choir.
just...So Bourgeois
Maybe the Wayans brothers would be offensive if there were 400 years of history of whites being made to look like sub-human buffoons in American popular culture.
Can someone explain to me why Fred Armisen(white dude) can paint his face and play obambi on SNL and no one even thinks to call it ‘black face’???
You’re thinking of Ted Danson.
Fred Armisen isn’t white, he’s Asian-American. His mother is Venezuelan and his father is German and Japanese.
No Ted Danson did that at an dinner years ago when he was dating Whoopi Goldberg.
“Maybe the Wayans brothers would be offensive if there were 400 years of history of whites being made to look like sub-human buffoons in American popular culture.”
So, racism is ok if someone in your linage has been a victim? By the way, not a single African-American alive today has been a slave.
So, since blacks have spent years being racist towards Asians, Asians are free to mock blacks anyway they see fit?
Your thinking is flawed.
Criticism over black make-up act (blackface act in Australia challenged by Harry Connick Jr) (BBC News 8 October)
Notice the tan lines from his shirt and watch.
No, however, I think it is less ok if it plays into a pattern of bigotry and discrimination. A cartoon of a scheming Japanese banker with a big nose isn't necessarily racist -- but a cartoon of a scheming Jewish banker with a big nose clearly is.
I've not seen White Chicks, but I don't see America having a long and sordid history of black comedians dressing up a white people as a means of demeaning them.
White people like Michael Moore are total buffoons, but don’t go blaming black people for Michael Moore.
There are liberals stateside who support he endevours but abroad it is clear that he sells antiAmericanism. He's rich, fat, loudmouthed, and dishonest. He's is the perfect "poster boy" for the Ugly American.
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Son lives in Kanazawa
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I hope I am on this list, if not please add me!
Son lives in Kanazawa
Thanks
“What exactly is a “race-torn city”?”
Any city with a democrat administration and a black mayor.
“I’ve not seen White Chicks, but I don’t see America having a long and sordid history of black comedians dressing up a white people as a means of demeaning them.”
When you catagorize based on race, and then base your “humor” on that racial profile, it’s racist by definition. The title of the movie “White Chicks” is also racist.
A movie titled “Japanese Chicks” with some Arab men using fake slanted eyes and dressing as Japanese women would be racist.
Using your logic, a black business that didn’t hire white people wouldn’t be practicing racism because America doesn’t have a long and sordid history of black businesses not hiring whites.
Racism is an absolute, it’s not contextual.
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