Kind of amused by this because we had almost exactly the same discussion over the word "******ed" in politardia like a month ago, where Americans were on the side of it being a word that shouldn't be used and for pretty much precisely the same reasons. As regards ignoring cultural context, see also Americans spazzing out (see what I did there?) every time a Euro wears blackface.

Are you suggesting blackface isn't a big deal outside of the US?

Lol @ chrisv

We just had this "scandal" here in Estonia. There's a TV show where local celebrities parody other famous artists. A couple of girls did Salt N Pepa and images of them got linked to some website with an American userbase and people went pretty hard at them and started bullying them on social media. The thing is that at the most 10% of people might know about blackface being a thing and even fewer realize the connotation that arrives with it. It's harmless since it isn't enforcing any stereotypes of immigrants but rather the opposite of that - paying tribute to individual artists in the form of parody(they are generally in good taste).

I'm including an image of one of the more extreme examples of what I'm talking about. I think the only people that would have a problem with this might be visiting (black) tourists. Based on my experience, I don't really expect Americans to understand where I'm coming from, so I think it was a good example by Chris.

There's nothing inherently insulting or racist about dressing up as a black guy. If you think there is, it shows how hard it is to think outside your cultural context. We don't, for instance, consider it inherently misogynist or insulting to women for a man to dress up like a woman. This is a great derail btw, a fitting end for the thread imo.

Yes lets end the thread now that pressure has been pointed in your direction. Very privileged move.

Who's we? Who are you speaking for? This should be good lol.

Because like you, we don't consider it respectful to charade yourself around in a false image imitating black greatness.

My country doesn't have these touchy subjects because throughout history we have considered it respectful not to enslave people.

Thats why i asked who is he speaking for. Its still insensitive though. If you need to change your skin color for laughs then your comedy is very cheap and basic.

Especially considering the fact majority of these blackface "actors" do it without black approval. They do it for white laughs in a white setting while simultaneously minimizing black skin to nothing more than a costume. Im black so im speaking from experience. A big portion of people amused by black face whatever are uncomfortable around real black people. Black face gives them a level of comfort.

It doesn't have that much to do with changing your skin color to get cheap laughs but rather with trying to imitate the original artist as well as possible. Kind of like when you do Johnny Cash, you pick up the Southern US accent. When you do Stevie Wonder, you are going to wear sunglasses. Are these offensive?

The alternative to that would be to imitate everything else but leave the skin color unchanged. Which would first leave 90+% of people extremely confused and it will result in drama that will end up with black artists not getting parodied at all, which is actual racism.

The few black people we have, have found this case to be ridiculous and see nothing wrong with it. I think it's very important to distinguish that these are "African-Estonians" and not African-Americans. Not that people have to ask for anyone's approval to try to look like them. The only ones to have a problem with this have still all been Americans, or maybe young local millennials that are heavily influenced by everything American, so maybe this will change in the future, though I really doubt it.

I understand that blackface is very inappropriate in America and why, for what it's worth. Expecting us to change our ways because something horrible happened in other countries far away is frankly just weird.

Hey man, how could I possibly know murder was wrong? I personally don’t have a brutal history of murder so what’s the big deal?

Tell me what have you adopted from Estonian history that is changing your cultural landscape today?

Impersonation is lowbrow entertainment no matter how it's done.

That’s the thing, I don’t keep track of where things are from in order to determine if I should care about it or not. If “spaz” is offensive in some countries, but not the one I live in, I’ll still try to remove it from my vocabulary regardless.

I feel any euros pretending they don’t have a history of blatant black racism should be viewed as suspect as well. Pretty sure a lot of your rags are massively racist even to this day, portraying Asians and Africans as savages and sex-crazed maniacs.

But I guess it’s all cool if you never had slavery. Oh wait, slavery existed until the 1800s in the UK? Whoops.

i usually make choices like that as well. but i like it to be my choice,

I guess "where Estonia is" is the first thing to teach Loki.

A non blind person imitating a blind person (without said persons permission) is disrespectful. A white person imitating a black person is disrespectful.

Its that simple. If a person is truely great at what they do, warranting imitation, then skin color should be irrelevant. That picture posted of a white man imitating bb king, he didnt need to do blackface to show respect. BB King was a great guitarist because he was a great guitarist, not because he was black.

So I can't dress up as Mr.T any more????

It's a case of American talking about "The Euros". People who were slaves or people who took slaves, all the same thing.

Neither did I say that we aren't massively racist. I am just trying to say that this TV show is the last place where said racism displays itself. Trust me that you don't just understand, you would also feel this is acceptable if you were born and raised here(but yes, you would kill yourself, jokes on me).
I think that the difference is that in my perfect world, a world without any racism, people would have no trouble painting our skin to the tone of another person, no one would have any problem with it. In your perfect world, I understand that we are just blind to each others skin tone.

I think it makes sense to have a problem with the whole show or have a problem with nothing in it(since, as I said, it's regarded as in good taste). If someone holds the microphone weird, then it gets included in the act and possibly slightly overdone. It's possible that this is somehow mocking how the original artist holds a microphone. I just don't think 99% of them have a problem with this and are enjoying it.

A case could be made for when specifically African-American people get portrayed, that they might have a problem with it and this is something that I acknowledge.

But there is no reason that everything else goes, yet black skin tone is something sacred that should never get referenced. I see that as they are getting treated just as anyone else, it's inherently not racist. Local black people seem to agree with this, if it helps. This isn't something that has "sparked a discussion in society", we are all lol-ing at Americans who mean well but are kinda ridiculous.

I was taking a guess as to the location of the poster

Over/under what percentage of people in the US knows that a country by the name of Estonia even exists? I'd put the number at 10%.

Reminds me of the story from a dress rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympics when people went crazy for the team from "Georgia".

Yeah. I'm sensitive to the fact that minstrelry is a specifically American hangup and it's not fair to insist that Euros follow our cultural norms about blackface, but at the same time, people trying to impersonate other racial groups using makeup or costumes or mannerisms pretty much never ends well. Like, if this guy has painted himself yellow and squinted his eyes to impersonate an Asian guy, I think it's fair game to tell our Estonian friends that that isn't super cool.