RE: Blackface

(This post is in response to Neyci's post which can be found here.

I wanted to respond to Neyci’s post about blackface because it relates to an experience that I just recently had with a classmate of mine. About a week ago, I was in my VIAR 340 class and we were discussing old 1920’s cartoon style and of course blackface came up in the conversation because that was a prominent style back then. While we were discussing blackface with my professor, one of the students in my class who is a white male proceeded to comment that he thinks it’s stupid how blackface was banned and that we should appreciate blackface for what it was back then. I was absolutely gob-smacked and flabbergasted when he said this in class. I had to keep my composure because I instantly got angry, and I had to explain to him calmly why what he just said was so messed up. I wanted to talk about this experience though because we all know that racism still exists and there are people out there, unfortunately, that still has this mindset. However, I do believe that there is a big difference between knowing that racism is still out there and actually coming across someone who has a similar mindset than that. It really put things into perspective for me as far as how long we as a society still have to go. Despite this, however, I am still hopeful that we will get past this in due time.

#David