People in comments of this post pointed out coloring your face black is racist.
May I ask you Americans why is coloring your face considered racist?
Coming from Europe, I personally do not see anything wrong with trying to color (in any color) your face to match any other race.
I believe is should be normal to color our faces in any color. Is it also racist if black person would color their face in other skin tones? Why? Also interesting thought: What about tanning yourself?
Or is it for some reason not ok to acknowledge people have different skin tones? Of course you do not do it out of disrespect, racism, etc. But out of acknowledging character you are trying to represent looks different than you.
I also noticed people pretend to not see differences in skin tones. What is up with that? I thought racism meant to hate or disrespect people of different races. But why is coloring your face considered disrespectful?
Maybe this image itself has racist background I do not understand, but I would like to know answers to my questions in general, since American culture has quit influence on quite a large chunk of our globe.
Let’s start with some facts.
Race is a political concept. It has no scientific basis so it’s not possible to declare any given person as white, black or whatever.
On the other hand, it is abundantly obvious from outward appearances that some individuals genetic heritage is geographically rooted. Those differences were used to create the political narrative of racism that justified the exploitation of Africa, America, etc. Among the many colonial-era atrocities were genocide and slavery.
There’s a lot of guilt and shame around this topic for white people, particularly white Americans. I’m not convinced that black people care more about blackface than white people do. I personally don’t have a problem with blackface or whiteface but I wouldn’t do it. There’s not much to gain and I don’t want to upset people. I felt uncomfortable enough dressing up as woman (I’m a European white guy) because I looked ridiculous, dressing as a black woman might be a bridge too far for me.
This is a good explanation of racism.
But this is not the reason coloring yourself with skin color of another person is considered racist.
As have others explained it is due to racist use of this practice.