White women keep getting into trouble around blackface

2015 at Yale (nytimes):

The debate over Halloween costumes began late last month when the university’s Intercultural Affairs Committee sent an email to the student body asking students to avoid wearing “culturally unaware and insensitive” costumes that could offend minority students. It specifically advised them to steer clear of outfits that included elements like feathered headdresses, turbans or blackface.

In response, Erika Christakis, a faculty member and an administrator at a student residence, wrote an email to students living in her residence hall on behalf of those she described as “frustrated” by the official advice on Halloween costumes. Students should be able to wear whatever they want, she wrote, even if they end up offending people.

(Christakis was eventually forced to resign)

2018 at NBC (nytimes):

The decision to air a rerun of “Megyn Kelly Today” came two days after the host suggested, during an on-air round-table discussion, that it was appropriate for white people to dress in blackface as part of their Halloween costumes.

Ms. Kelly apologized in an email to her NBC colleagues hours after making those remarks. On Wednesday, she delivered an on-air apology in the opening minute of her 9 a.m. show — “I’m Megyn Kelly, and I want to begin with two words: I’m sorry.”

But her demonstrations of contrition did little, it seemed, to improve her standing with her colleagues or superiors at the network. At a midday meeting of NBC News staff members on Wednesday, Andrew Lack, the chairman of the news division, did not mention her apologies and said, “There is no other way to put this, but I condemn those remarks.”

Now that DNA testing has proven Elizabeth Warren’s heritage as a Native American, would Yale consider relaxing its prohibition against “feathered headdresses”? What’s wrong with a student celebrating the achievements of Elizabeth Warren via a costume?

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10 thoughts on “White women keep getting into trouble around blackface

  1. Now that DNA testing has proven Elizabeth Warren’s heritage as a Native American, would Yale consider relaxing its prohibition against “feathered headdresses”? What’s wrong with a student celebrating the achievements of Elizabeth Warren via a costume?

    That’s an odd question. By this logic, any student who wanted to wear such a headdress could claim to be celebrating the achievements of other American Indians. In other words, the DNA test changes nothing.

  2. But of course, the DNA test changes nothing: it just tells the people who is full of **it, without explaining why.

  3. Sam:
    What does Obama know of a blackface? 😉 Is he a nephew of Tom Rice?
    Racist, racist, racist Sam, BOOOO!

  4. > What’s wrong with a student celebrating the achievements of Elizabeth Warren via a costume?

    What’s wrong is that such celebration can’t be distinguished from inferior people (whites) making impious parodies of their superiors (non-whites).

    It’s astonishing that the culprits in those two cases were insufficiently aware of the concept. Both were in institutions devoted to upholding the faith with uncompromising zeal yet these two Beckys suggested that blasphemy could be acceptable!

    It’s too late for them but as a public service for others who might be similarly confused, I offer clarified versions of some of the statements.

    “…the university’s Inquisition Committee sent an email to the student body forbidding students showing any insolence that could offend persons of higher status.”

    “Students should be able to wear whatever they want, she wrote, even if they end up blaspheming.”

    “…the host suggested, during an on-air round-table discussion, that it was appropriate for white people to parody their superiors as part of their Halloween costumes.”

    “There is no other way to put this, but I condemn that witch.”

  5. Can’t say I ever say ever saw Kelly or the show in question but it looks as if her employer is trying to weasel out of her contract by raising the black face issue, probably certain types of conduct are grounds for dismissal without pay, rather than what i have read is a disappointing performance. Her remarks didn’t seem particularly brilliant but they did not strike me as racist either. Hope she hangs tough and gets the money due her under her contract.

  6. My impression was that Megyn said it was OK to wear blackface when she was a girl, which is way back.

    By the same logic, someone could mention that many blacks were lynched in the 1870s, and then be accused of promoting violence against blacks.

  7. Viking: I don’t think she expressed a personal opinion at all. I think she said that it seemed to be okay, from others’ point of view, to wear a blackface (or whiteface) Halloween costume when she was a child. She implied that it was definitely #NotOkay today, but again from a society-wide point of view, not her own. So her crime seems primarily to consist of using the term “blackface”. There is no evidence of how she personally felt about it as a child or how she feels about it today.

  8. What Kelly and Christakis actually said was very mild, but that is not the point. Humpty Dumpty explained it:
    When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
    “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
    “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”

    America, once upon a time, had a hierarchy that was like a totem pole, with white men sitting at the very top of the pole, and then below them, white women, minorities, etc.

    In the new Diverse America that is being born (literally) this totem pole is toppled and a new one is being erected. Generally speaking it is just the old pole flipped upside down but the situation is still somewhat fluid and this is what is causing problems – the groups that used to sit lower down on the pole are all jostling for a spot as close to the top as possible.

    The societal totem pole is an important social device because in adjudicating interactions between different people and groups, we don’t start fresh every time but rather rely on our relative position on the pole to pre-determine winners and losers. It’s impossible to have a truly egalitarian society in which every time you interact with a stranger you have to fully renegotiate your societal roles ad initio – there are not enough hours in the day to do this.

    In establishing the New Order it is important to make power plays just as dogs fight each other for their position as leader of the pack. The outcome of the power play indicates who should sit higher on the pole. What is going on now, with Kelly (and with all the “Beckies” who are being chastised for calling the cops on blacks) is that white women are being put in their place – in the new order they rank BELOW blacks who are the senior members of the Democrat coalition because of their history of oppression, which outranks the “oppression” of rich white females like Kelly. Of course, in any interaction between say Kelly and a white male (Roger Ailes), Kelly still sits higher, but vis-a-vis blacks she sit lower and by overstepping her boundaries she was like a Japanese peasant blocking the path of a samurai – the samurai was justified in cutting off her head because she failed to show proper deference to her societal betters.

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