Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
If we consider what this teacher did to be blackface, then we can no longer say that "blackface is racist" and may only say that "blackface is sometimes racist", so one should question if pushing for such an expanded definition is actually helpful or harmful to the goal of combatting racism.
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Anything that pushes to more nuanced discussion of racism is helpful. How about we use logic and judge each case for what it is.
The idea that every act needs to be thrown into a "is racist" or "isn't racist" bucket is not helpful.
All indications are she made a mistake unknowingly that what she was doing was widely considered offensive and could be taken as blackface.
She likely didn't even know what blackface was or any historic context of it.
What she did was wrong but from a place of ignorance, not racism. She apologized, learned some history and that should be enough.
Tomorrow she'll think differently about this and probably by more sensitive to racial issues in general, and that's a good thing.
This is how we move forward.