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Nigel Farage thinks blackening of faces is ok. What do you think?

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It depends on what the 'blackening' is trying to depict and suggest. I would say it's only an issue when it's done mockingly towards a certain person, group or race in general.

As much as I dislike Farage, this article is clearly aimed at implying he doesn't care about offending other races and foreigners.

Reply 21

Hopefulcici

The Morris Dancing isn't really offensive. Being black myself, I'm not offended. It looks more like coal miners than black people. However this is racist

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/10/31/blackface-lynching-in-effigy-and-the-unbearable-awfulness-of-halloween/

For numerous reasons they are deliberately dressing like the 'stereotypical black person'.

If you look, you can clearly see the difference of intentions

I won't comment on Nigel Farage. I don't like him or UKIP so obviously my opinion would be bias :rolleyes:

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Reply 22

ontrack7

Original post by Greenlaner

Why do you find it offensive? It's a very old folk tradition in parts of England, that doesn't even have anything to do with race.

I find it offensive cause it brings back to mind blackface performances in america in the era of the 1920's which basically portrayed blacks as simple minded, even animal like, and just made fun of blacks in general. Now that I am aware its part of the tradition it makes explains what they did but I still find it offensive. The fact is blackface was used to stereotype blacks and it clearly stopped being performed or it at least became less popular cause it was perpetuating offensive stereotypes of black people. Although their intention of the morris dancers is not to cause offence it does in my opinion, by not show cultural sensitivity to the the fact blackface or blackening of the face was used to negatively portray black people.

Reply 23

ontrack7

Original post by Blinka

Should you avoid paining your hands green in case it's offensive to Kermit the Frog, or have we all just become a bunch of muppets discussing how offensive it can be to paint certain colours.

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For me its offensive cause it was practice in the past used to negatively portray black people. Colouring yourself in green, red or any other colour as far as am aware was/is not a method used to push a negative certain stereotype of certain types of people.

Reply 24

the bear

Original post by DaeronTarygaen

Here's a picture of the African tribe in White face. :biggrin:

I think we'll have to dig in the history of them wearing black facepaint, if it was done way before blackface became popular it's probably just a coincidence.

i find it deeply offensive for these people to mock my skin color in this way. i feel entitled to compensation.

Reply 25

ontrack7

Original post by Reluire

I also do think intention plays a big part in certain acts. But I think some people can easily do certain things that are offensive and claim they 'didn't know its racist, offensive' as an excuse or just to carry out the racist act and try get away with it without being held responsible.

But I think there are clearly some acts that no matter what intention is behind it, it will cause offense. For example lets say wearing a nazi symbol and I think most people would agree. The blackening of the faces I can see from the responses many people don't think it is. In my opinion it is because people have been more educated and made aware of the atrocities of WW2.

People may be aware of black face but they don't have much information on it. But it is the negative stereotypes that were perpetuated by blackface and of course other things that led to led to racism that led lynchings, segregation and just mistreatment of blacks. Being black myself does of of course makes me feel it's racist, cause it was an act used to mock people like me.

Reply 26

squeakysquirrel

Original post by ontrack7

I saw a story i few days ago that nigel farage said its perfectly o for white people to black up their faces. He says its ok as political correctness has gone to far. I have put a link of an article with more details of what he said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/nigel-farage-theres-nothing-wrong-with-white-people-blacking-up-9823608.html

The article mentions David Cameroon was pictured with Morris dancers with blacked up faces, which I think is also offensive and I can't believe the UK prime minister would do such a thing. However I don't know if he has made any comment on it so I'll just leave it at that.

But the fact Nigel Farage thinks blackening of the face is ok, in my opinion is so wrong. To be honest I don't know much about UKIP but from what I have observed they are of course anti-Europe and xenophobic. While before people could argue that nigel farage and Ukip were racist or not, it is comments by Farage like this that make me believe he is truly racist and that this is indisputable in my opinion.

I feel like he is basically going to bring back open and overt racism. By this I mean in the UK I feel racism is mainly very subtle and most cases hidden as people know its wrong but try to do it subtly to avoid being labelled racist. But now with comments like this from farage, he is basically going make racism seem like its ok and it is a norm.

What's your opinion of farage's comment?

You are political correctness gone too far. Look I don't want to offend anyone - but we are having our national identity eroded. Here are the Bacup Coconut Dancers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10777858/Racist-No-our-black-face-dance-is-a-proud-tradition.html

They wear turbans, kilts clogs and make up - as well as having blacked up faces. They do this in homage to miners - according to you are they offending Sikhs, the Scots, the Dutch and perhaps Essex girls - if so I despair for the future of this country

Reply 27

Crumpet1

As an active Border morris dancer, please allow me to weigh in.

There are many different types of morris/folk dancing in the UK, but the type of morris dancing that people in the south are most familiar with is Cotswold morris (they wear flowers in their hats, white tops and trousers, dance with hankies and have a lot of bells on their legs). However a different type of morris (but equally popular) is called Border morris and it is from the English / Welsh border. They wear pheasant feathers in their hats, rags, dance with sticks and have fewer bells on their legs. The Border morris tradition is to have black faces, and that tradition goes back many hundreds of years - well beyond black and white minstrels and offensive depictions of black people via blacking-up. The black face is therefore not to stereotype or mock black people, be culturally insensitive, or negatively portray anybody. When the tradition was created (probably well before the 1500s) most morris dancers would never have seen a black person in their lives.

In fact the whole Border morris outfit is about (a) disguise; and (b) sticking two fingers up at the landowners. Hundreds of years ago, most people were farm labourers and would only really have one or two sets of clothes. In the winter months, farm work was scarce, but begging was illegal. So groups of people would dance for money - begging, in short - but in order not to be recognised by their clothes they would turn their clothes inside out and black their faces with soot. The pheasant feathers are the sticking two fingers up part - it is saying not only are we begging, but we're poachers too!

These days the rags represent the 'inside out clothes' but the blackening of the face and the pheasant feathers continue. It is actually a remarkably effective disguise, I've met people on the street who I know very well who don't recognise me when I'm dressed up and out dancing.

We do have people who say to us on the street, "isn't that offensive?" They are invariably white, middle-aged, British people with just a little bit too much political correctness for their own good. We always explain to them the true origin of the tradition, and that it pre-dates the "offensive black face" by many hundreds of years. We also had one memorable occasion when a white middle-aged lady insisted that she was still offended, so the dancer she was speaking to turned to the black guy next to her (who had also heard the explanation) and asked whether he was offended. He wasn't - on the contrary he was thoroughly enjoying the performance and he joined in our public dances.

In my experience, the people in my morris dancing side are amongst the warmest, kindest, funniest, dirtiest, sweetest, hardest drinking and most fundamentally decent people I know. There is not a racist bone in their bodies and they would be horrified if the black community indicated offence. But fact is, that has never happened, because in our experience black people either just take it as a weird British tradition without bothering to take offence, or they take the trouble to find out why the tradition exists and once they understand it they also don't take offence. As has been pointed out above, there are black races that have a tradition of whiting-up for traditional reasons (also often to do with dancing), and that is no more intended as offensive as blacking up is in Border morris dancing.

Frankly the most harmful thing that could possibly have happened to the Border morris dancing tradition is Nigel Farage coming out in support. We don't want his support - we don't agree with his politics and we'd rather he stayed out of it.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 28

Greenlaner

Original post by ontrack7

Cultural sensitivity? How about a little "sensitivity" for our culture for once? You are the one implying that one of our ancient traditions should be destroyed just to appease a few hypersensitive individuals who don't even understand what they are getting offended over and refuse to see things in context.

Reply 29

Snagprophet

Look here, at least this implies he hates black people. I wish people would stop wasting time attacking innocent people when there's people like this in the world.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2822313/Race-storm-pub-Ku-Klux-Klan-party.html

Then again, it involved a black person as one of the KKK guys. But at least we know this is racial, whether it's poking fun or is trying to make a statement about expression, it's definitely related to race.