fpvs:
I’ll preface this post with the statement that I am a white middle-class Australian living in Melbourne, Victoria and I went to a mostly white high school (albeit with a significant Jewish contingent that meant Jewish holidays equated to very little classwork so that absent students didn’t have to catch up). I grew up in a home with no noticeable bigotry (in regard to race, religion, sexuality or intellect).
I saw the posts from Colton and Holland with the immediate thought of, “Oh, no. Shit’s about to hit the fan.” I understand Americans get upset when folk use make-up to alter their skin tone to appear as someone from another race, but I don’t quite get why.
I understand there is bigotry towards PoC (people of colour). I know that there was slavery of black people in America’s history (and there remains slavery of people elsewhere in the world). I know that in Hollywood’s past they used white people in make-up to portray caricatures of PoC.
What I don’t understand is why it is so very offensive for a white person to dress up as someone they admire of a different race and to alter their skin tone? How is it different to a woman wearing Egyptian eye make-up to emulate an Egyptian goddess? Or people to fake-tan themselves into orange freaks?
From my point of view it’s all about presenting yourself as someone aren’t, but someone you admire. How is it deemed so offensive? Will it still be deemed as offensive if/when we reach a point of true equality?
ETA: Oh. Wow. And he deleted the above tweets. So he didn’t just want us all to hate him so that the pain of Jackson’s departure from Teen Wolf wasn’t as bad.
Holland’s tweet is still up.
It’s offensive because my skin is not a fucking costume. Yet, my skin has been seen as a fucking costume since a white dude blacked up in The Birth of A Nation threatened to rape a white woman, and chased her off a cliff.
Just repeat: A PERSON OF COLOR’S SKIN AND CULTURE IS NOT A COSTUME.
(via lowlifetheory)
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