Hot take: We are obsessed as a culture with blackface, and we maybe shouldn't be.
Like many other things in this world, blackface can be terrible when it's used as a weapon.
But we as a culture have rebelled against the minstrel shows of old and people like Al Jolson to the point where even something vaguely resembling blackface must be erased from existence.
Case in point: an absolute psychedelic masterpiece of a TV show imported from England called The Mighty Boosh. The show follows the adventures of jazz enthusiast Howard Moon, glam party boy Vince Noir, and their friend Naboo, who is a shaman from another world. (His fellow shamans know how to party, and bring it hard. But that's beside the point.)
Netflix chose to remove this absolute banger of a show because of what they claimed was the use of blackface in a few episodes. Specifically, their issue is with the character Howling Jimmy Jefferson, the spirit of jazz:
Right. Because that's supposed to be a representation of a living black man. A red-eyed demon whose bones are showing. What's next? Am I going to be the subject of scrutiny because this is my profile picture?
Kind of sounds to me like Netflix are the ones who are a little bit rасіst.
But what do I know?
But we as a culture have rebelled against the minstrel shows of old and people like Al Jolson to the point where even something vaguely resembling blackface must be erased from existence.
Case in point: an absolute psychedelic masterpiece of a TV show imported from England called The Mighty Boosh. The show follows the adventures of jazz enthusiast Howard Moon, glam party boy Vince Noir, and their friend Naboo, who is a shaman from another world. (His fellow shamans know how to party, and bring it hard. But that's beside the point.)
Netflix chose to remove this absolute banger of a show because of what they claimed was the use of blackface in a few episodes. Specifically, their issue is with the character Howling Jimmy Jefferson, the spirit of jazz:
Right. Because that's supposed to be a representation of a living black man. A red-eyed demon whose bones are showing. What's next? Am I going to be the subject of scrutiny because this is my profile picture?
Kind of sounds to me like Netflix are the ones who are a little bit rасіst.
But what do I know?