WFTV.com – News – Teacher Resigns After Appearing In Blackface At Basketball Game
In my continuing effort to not liberally jerk my knee during analysis of today’s events, I bring up this story from Florida.
MACON, Ga. — A high school teacher who wore blackface at a student-faculty basketball game has resigned, saying “it was poor judgment and will never happen again.”
Photographs from the Central High School game on March 25 show Dougherty wearing an exaggerated, Afro-style wig with brownish makeup covering his face and arms.
What I’m wondering is when does a racial costume cross the line into “blackface” and become offensive? And was it so offensive that the guy had to resign?
It speaks to my longtime frustration with some of my liberal friends who are just dripping with white guilt. What’s the difference between racist and racial? I think too many times the political correctness police fail to differentiate the two. Can a white person not make any observations of a racial nature without being accused of racism?
To be fair, I didn’t see the teacher’s costume. But was it “blackface”? Blackface to me is a very specific look — absurdly-black face paint with big white circles around the lips and eyes and some ridiculous red lipstick painted outside the lipline to make the lips look huge, a la Al Jolson’s “Mammy”. It derives from the use of burned cork on the face by old-time vaudeville performers (thanks to Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled” for the historic reference). Or was it just a very stereotypical big-‘fro jive turkey look?
The costume probably was offensive. But is it merely offensive because it was a white person impersonating a black person? Was the dark make-up Billy Crystal used for his Sammy Davis, Jr. impersonation on the mid-80’s Saturday Night Live considered “blackface”? And does even “blackface” have to always be considered offensive? I thought the hand-wringing over Ted Danson’s “blackface” incident a few years ago was a bit overwrought, too. His African-American girlfriend at the time, Whoopi Goldberg, thought Danson’s costume was hilarious.
I also wonder this from a personal perspective. I have always been a huge fan of the rap group Public Enemy. One Halloween I decided I wanted to dress up as Flavor Flav. I got the huge clock to wear around my neck, a red track suit, funky glasses, gold teeth, and a wild hat. And of course, I made up my skin to the very dark African-American hue to match Flav’s. Was that “blackface”? I wasn’t trying to make any comment on racist stereotypes; I just wanted to look like my favorite rapper.
Well, I’ll tell you what it was… it was a really interesting lesson about the prejudice and redneckery of my hometown Idaho brethren. At the end of the day after all of the racist comments and veiled threats, I was both very glad to be able to take a shower and very sad for the people who couldn’t.
