Let me paint you, a troubling picture.

What is the problem with dressing up as a different race?  For example, this post from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education explains an incident at SD State University;

A student at South Dakota State University dressed in blackface and a wig to impersonate Colin Kaepernick, the NFL player who started the national anthem protests. The student had a sign around his neck saying, “Will stand for money.”








Why can't the student pretend to be black as a joke? 

 For years, Americans labelled as "black" were not allowed to act with white performers on stage.  Instead, whites pretended to be black by wearing makeup.  This action has become known as "black face."  The white portrayals of blacks during this time became a caricature of stereotypes that were designed to make fun of people perceived as black rather than act like them.  So, when a person dresses up in black face now, it harkens back to these stereotypes and denigration of people labelled as black, also called "people of color."  It is not that different than dressing up as any other stereotypical costume designed to make fun of a race, ethnicity, nationality or religious group.  However, an important piece of this is that people of color are a minority group.  They have been denigrated and persecuted and continue to be marginalized to this day.  That is why this is not just stereotyping but being racist.

The website black-face.com has a thorough explanation of the history of blackface.



Sociological understanding of Black Face

Here is an example from Socimages of children's cartoons using blackface.

The Root is an online news site that addressed black face here.

From the Root article, sociologist Joel Feagin explains the problem with black face and how it is connected to white privilege,

"...most important to the white racial frame is that it centers whiteness as a default. That it portrays whiteness as inherently virtuous.
“It’s a pro-white subframe,” Feagin explains.
And it’s often the hardest one for white people to dismantle.
“In it, we whites are trained into seeing ourselves as virtuous. We have the most virtuous history. We have the most advanced civilization,” Feagin adds. “We speak the best-quality English. We have the best beauty images, especially for women. All of those things ... civilization, history, values, religion, virtues, work ethic.”
The inability to see the ways in which American society has actively and historically been pro-white is part of a “white arrogance,” he says—the same arrogance that inhibits whites and nonblack people from seeing the harm of blackface.
When white people are called out for racist behavior, they don’t hear that they’ve hurt a person of color. What they hear is that they’re not virtuous, Feagin says." 

It is interesting that Feagin says that whites "hear" that they are not virtuous.  I think it is more than that.  I think that whites "feel" that they are not virtuous.  This is really important because feelings are what prevent Americans from hearing each other and empathizing with each other.  Acknowledging white privilege is not meant to make whites feel depraved or deplorable.  Instead, we need to commend whites who are able to empathize with groups that have been or continue to be marginalized.  And the whites who do empathize should feel virtuous for doing so.  


What about Miss Saigon at SHS?

Didn't SHS run a production of Miss Saigon where they painted the faces of Asian characters yellow?   I spoke with Ms. Rawitz the theater director of the SHS production and not only did she explain that this never happened, she explained that makeup artists are very sensitive to these kinds of issues.  They go out of their way to not be offensive in this manner.  Much like the broadway production of Hamilton, actors might wear wigs but are left to play the characters the way they look.  If a character wore makeup himself, then a character might wear makeup similarly such as eye shadow or lipstick. But they do not try to change their skin tone or biology.

Here are two pictures and a video from the performance for reference:

A larger issue?

However, after researching the play a bit, there is quite a bit of controversy around some of the themes in it.  Check out the ny times:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/theater/the-battle-of-miss-saigon-yellowface-art-and-opportunity.html?referer=

And the daily beast: 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/sexism-race-and-the-mess-of-miss-saigon-on-broadway

American theater review:

http://www.americantheatre.org/2017/04/13/i-am-miss-saigon-and-i-hate-it/

And this blog, written by David Mura is particularly poignant in its criticism of the play.

https://blog.davidmura.com/2013/09/11/the-problem-with-miss-saigon-or-how-many-stereotypes-can-you-cram-into-one-broadway-musical/

Mura's criticisms include a number of particular sociological concepts and also, one very important general concept.  Mura explains the idea of privilege which is that if you are not one of the minority groups affected, it is easy to both not see the racism and not care about it.

So perhaps this musical struck a nerve with some people not because of how SHS portrayed it, but because of the musical itself.  


The Takeaway

Don't miss the overall point of the lesson that spurred this discussion.  The overall point is that explicit racism does exist.  Regardless of how you feel about Miss Saigon, there are so many recent examples of racism and prejudice.