Wholesome childhood memory - Lemmy.World
lemmy.world

People in comments of this post pointed out coloring your face black is racist.

May I ask you Americans why is coloring your face considered racist?

Coming from Europe, I personally do not see anything wrong with trying to color (in any color) your face to match any other race.

I believe is should be normal to color our faces in any color. Is it also racist if black person would color their face in other skin tones? Why? Also interesting thought: What about tanning yourself?

Or is it for some reason not ok to acknowledge people have different skin tones? Of course you do not do it out of disrespect, racism, etc. But out of acknowledging character you are trying to represent looks different than you.

I also noticed people pretend to not see differences in skin tones. What is up with that? I thought racism meant to hate or disrespect people of different races. But why is coloring your face considered disrespectful?

Maybe this image itself has racist background I do not understand, but I would like to know answers to my questions in general, since American culture has quit influence on quite a large chunk of our globe.

    • 123nope567@lemmy.world
      0·
      6 months ago

      I wouldn’t say that’s an american thing, plenty of politicians in Europe had blackface scandals in the last couple of decades and every year, the topic also comes up around Christmas (NL) and Three Kings Parades (ES).

      Edit less snarky and corrected some info

      • hostops@sh.itjust.worksOP
        0·
        6 months ago

        I used word “personally”. I just added European for a context. I know a lot of Europeans know a lot of stuff. I myself just do not know a lot of stuff.

        (And yes I know I could probably express myself better. I have never been good with English.)

        I knew it is considered racist - and would be considered racist also in Europe. I just did not know why. I believed reason for it being racist came from american history. This is why I asked Americans.

        • Guntrigger@sopuli.xyz
          0·
          6 months ago

          I have encountered this “American social issues transplanted” hand waving a lot in Europe. For example, I know a lot of Swedes who say this about a bunch of casually racist stuff (proclaiming Sweden to be very anti-racist). Meanwhile up north you see a lot of Classic American cars which are often casually emblazoned with Confederate flags and even displayed in proximity to Nazi memorabilia. Down south you have a rising right-wing party support fuelled by fear of immigrants from Africa/Middle East (eg. The non-white ones).

          I understand you’re trying to educate yourself and that’s great, don’t take this as dunking on you more, as I feel like you’re in the smart minority by trying to learn and reason. It just really bugs me when I hear people say it’s a US problem. A lot of Europe is holding a lot of racist views (and in a lot of cases, horrific colonial history) and then turn around to say things like “why are my football players kneeling, BLM is an American issue”.