Blackface Incidents
Fabrício Guerra
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
7 May 2019
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
7 May 2019
Blackface Incidents
In the past few years, there have been several major incidents involving racial discrimination. Some big ones include cases of police brutality and racism, the president remaining neutral on subjects such as Charlottesville, the removal of Confederate statues, and other issues. However, most recently has been the scandal surrounding three government officials of Virginia, which include the governor, the attorney general, and top senator. All three of those officials, who are white, have admitted to using blackface in some form in the last 35 years. The governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, admitted to using blackface and wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood in a yearbook photo from 1984, the attorney general, Mark Herring, used blackface to dress up as an African American actor that he admired, and the top senator, Thomas Norment, was an editor of a yearbook that contained racist remarks and slurs.
To understand why these political figures wearing make-up is stirring such as big storm, you have to understand the reason why blackface is considered so offensive in the first place. Blackface is the name of a style of make-up given to actors to look African-American. However, the roles that these actors wearing blackface took part in were extremely racist and were based on solely stereotypes, and that's why its considered so offensive. It's also not just been Virginian politicians, but there are also others such as Florida Secretary of State, Micheal Ertel, who mocked survivors of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Along with him there is also Liam Neeson, who admitted to going out and hunting a certain black individual with a bludgeon over an accusation of sexual assault. These events really make you question certain people you look up too.
My personal opinion about these incidents is about the same as any other reasonable person, and that is that blackface is plain, blatant racism. If only blackface make-up was used for reasonable actor roles and not stereotypical ones. However, although I do think that blackface is racist, I do have some exceptions. A lot of this issue has been faced with the equal anger and frustration for all of the people involved, and for the cases involving Mark Herring is one I'm slightly skeptical about, since he was simply admiring an actor he liked and simply wasn't aware that it was racist (unless he knew it was, that would be a whole different story).
To understand why these political figures wearing make-up is stirring such as big storm, you have to understand the reason why blackface is considered so offensive in the first place. Blackface is the name of a style of make-up given to actors to look African-American. However, the roles that these actors wearing blackface took part in were extremely racist and were based on solely stereotypes, and that's why its considered so offensive. It's also not just been Virginian politicians, but there are also others such as Florida Secretary of State, Micheal Ertel, who mocked survivors of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Along with him there is also Liam Neeson, who admitted to going out and hunting a certain black individual with a bludgeon over an accusation of sexual assault. These events really make you question certain people you look up too.
My personal opinion about these incidents is about the same as any other reasonable person, and that is that blackface is plain, blatant racism. If only blackface make-up was used for reasonable actor roles and not stereotypical ones. However, although I do think that blackface is racist, I do have some exceptions. A lot of this issue has been faced with the equal anger and frustration for all of the people involved, and for the cases involving Mark Herring is one I'm slightly skeptical about, since he was simply admiring an actor he liked and simply wasn't aware that it was racist (unless he knew it was, that would be a whole different story).
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