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Blackface is never okay

By The Admin on October 14, 2009

Mark Sawyer, CNN

- Harry Connick Jr. almost got it right when he challenged the doctors who mocked the Jacksons in blackface on an Australian version of “the Gong Show.”

The fact is, even Australians know better. It isn’t that they did not know that what they were doing was shocking and offensive; they just thought they could get away with it.

“If they turned up looking like that in the United States,” he said on the “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” television show, “Hey, hey, there’s no more show.”

In a message posted on his Web site, Connick wrote that “in the American culture, the blackface image is steeped in a negative history and considered offensive.” He also wrote, “I do not believe that the performers intended any harm.”

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The Admin

  • Glen

    Hello Mr Sayer,

    RE. Your comments on the CNN site:

    Oh man, you are reading way too much into this… Australians have NO history of slavery, so no social hang-ups about black makeup. Those doctors were poking fun at THEMSELVES for not even being in the same league as the Jacksons… A type of humour that Americans seldom fully understand.. Japanese and some EU countries have very similar humour… At the same time they were paying tribute to a great family group, NOT because they were black, but because they could sing and dance so well… Blackness was the last thing on the list of impersonation qualities that the Australian doctors were considering. The connection with slavery didn't even enter into it.

    Have you visited Australia? I agree we may be 'simple' in the history of American slavery (among other things), but that simpleness has also been a liberating experience for thousands of people who have decided to migrate to Australia…

    Please take off your academic hat and consider,

    Yours sincerely

    Glen Clifford

  • Glen

    Hello Mr Sayer,

    RE. Your comments on the CNN site:

    Oh man, you are reading way too much into this… Australians have NO history of slavery, so no social hang-ups about black makeup. Those doctors were poking fun at THEMSELVES for not even being in the same league as the Jacksons… A type of humour that Americans seldom fully understand.. Japanese and some EU countries have very similar humour… At the same time they were paying tribute to a great family group, NOT because they were black, but because they could sing and dance so well… Blackness was the last thing on the list of impersonation qualities that the Australian doctors were considering. The connection with slavery didn't even enter into it.

    Have you visited Australia? I agree we may be 'simple' in the history of American slavery (among other things), but that simpleness has also been a liberating experience for thousands of people who have decided to migrate to Australia…

    Please take off your academic hat and consider,

    Yours sincerely

    Glen Clifford

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