Cease Silence

I just saw a CBS poll asking whether it was okay for Billy Crystal to do blackface.

thecurvature:

80% of respondents said yes, because “it was a joke.” (Only 10% said it was not okay.)

Of course, when is blackface NOT supposed to be a “joke”? Didn’t white people INVENT it because they thought it was really fucking funny? Isn’t that the whole THING that blackface is, one big joke about Blackness?

I thought this was a thing of assholes thinking that this wasn’t REALLY blackface because the makeup wasn’t crude and he didn’t have big giant lips painted on his face, and therefore it was all good for white people to slap on dark makeup and pretend to be Black —

But apparently it’s EVEN WORSE THAN THAT.

It’s not even “well as long as it’s not so obviously racist that he’s chomping on a watermelon.”

But “as long as it’s a joke.” It can’t be racist so long as the person doing it thought it was funny.

Well.

(via liquornspice)