What a strange thread.
I am a believer that taking offense has become a way for some people to seize power and authority.
I don't think anyone is trying to stop people from taking offense or from expressing the offense they've taken, but no one is required to take that offense seriously which seems to be the game's new rules and the ones the people I refer to above rely upon.
I would suggest that most (but by no means all) of the people participating in this thread have sufficient sensitivity to appreciate that a person's expressed offense should at times (and perhaps at most times) be taken seriously and either an apology or a change in behavior is warranted. This, of course, doesn't mean that announcing "I'm offended!" is all it should take.
People can feel offended for no good reason or for such a bizarre reason that no one can be found guilty for not respecting their feeling.
Although snood tried to stack the cards with the addition of watermelon and chicken and Ebonics, I don't think it's unreasonable to have a problem with a white person using blackface. We all know the history of blackface and its degrading associations.
I do, however, question whether the girl in the photo knows and appreciates the history. If she doesn't, it's hard to describe her wearing the particular costume as offensive. Again, anyone can take offense to anything but we are not all obliged to respect that offense if the source had no malintent.
The character she is portraying is one we see black women themselves portray in the movies and TV (never mind real-life examples), and they are not doing so to make a point about stereotypes. The young women that can be seen surrounding rappers in music videos are not trying to make an ironic statement. If black women can portray this character without offending their race, I don't know why white women can't.
The whites in minstrel shows didn't use blackface alone (as Olivier did in his portrayal of Othello) they exaggerated facial expressions with wide opened eyes and large grinning mouths. Typically they made up their mouths to suggest large red lips and wore nappy wigs. All of this was intended to portray a black character that, in fact, didn't exist except in white mockery.
I would not like to see my daughter in this costume attending a party, but I can't say she never would and I know she is less of a racist than I am simply being part of a different generation.
Unlike me she didn't grow up in a time and place where it was accepted that blacks were quite different from whites, and obviously not just in terms of skin color. While "sensitive" liberal families like mine only used "negro," "colored" was the more prevalent term in my NY metro neighborhood and "nigger" was by no mean unheard of. As very young kid we used the word in reciting "eeny meeny" without even knowing what we were saying. In NY at that time, Negroes lived in segregated neighborhoods and so even though we lived in a far less than affluent white neighborhood, there were no black families within miles. By the time I left NY in 1985, it was pretty much the same exact way in terms of segregation.
Some in my generation learned that there was nothing intrinsically different between whites and black, but it's hard to overcome the conditioning of youth and to change the sense of difference that was the normal way of life for so long.
Fortunately my kids grew up in a different time and a different place (Charlotte NC) where our next store neighbors in a fairly affluent neighborhood were a black family who we became good friends with. Not only were the neighborhoods integrated so were the schools and words like Negro and colored were no longer considered for usage and every kid on the block knew that the N-Word was terrible to use.
By the time they reached HS black kids from the poorer parts of the city were being bused to their school. These kids were a lot different, but not because they were black but because they were poorer, a lot tougher, and a lot more raw. My kids and their friends (white and black alike) made "fun" of the kids they called Ghetto or Gangsters like they made "fun" of the nerds and Goths, and it wouldn't have shocked me seeing one of them dressing up for a Halloween party as a Ghetto Chic or Gangbanger anymore than it would have shocked me to see them dress up like nerds or Goths (I think they also called them emos. I’m not sure if there is a difference between the two)
So while I would have cringed seeing my daughter dress up as a Ghetto Chic, I'm sure it would not have been the equivalent of a performer in a minstrel show and fairly sure that none of the bigotry I saw and participated in as a kid would have been associated with it.
Nevertheless, that's easy for me to say and no doubt snood has a legitimate reason to be more sensitive to blackface on whites. It just may be unjustified in this case is all.
As for the other costumes found objectionable, give me a break. Even the Arab with a bomb is a character we can find in real life and anyone wearing that costume wouldn't have been suggesting that all Arabs are terrorists.
If a black kid shaved his head, wore hobnailed boots and suspenders, and put on whiteface and painted a red swastika on his forehead, I might find it striking, but I certainly wouldn't be offended, and if I declared I was and demanded the kid change, I would hope he, politely, told me to buzz off.
