{"id":25300,"date":"2019-10-06T15:45:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T22:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=25300"},"modified":"2019-10-06T15:46:42","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T22:46:42","slug":"25300","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=25300","title":{"rendered":"Cartoon: Back Then, No One Knew Blackface Is Offensive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If you like these cartoons, please help me make more by supporting my Patreon<\/a>! I make a living mostly off of a bunch of fans pledging just $1 or $2.<\/p>\n

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The Frederick Douglass quote in this cartoon is a paraphrase; I changed his words to better fit the tone of the cartoon. The exact quote is<\/u><\/a> “… the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow-citizens.”<\/p>\n

The immediate catalyst for this cartoon was Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau apologizing after a 2001 photo<\/a> of him at a party in blackface recently came to light. But it’s not specifically about Trudeau (which is why I went with 2002 instead of 2001 in the cartoon). Even today, blackface controversies come up with depressing frequency. Earlier this year<\/a>, \u00a0Virginia’s governor and <\/em>Virginia’s attorney general both <\/em>had blackface scandals.<\/p>\n

And every time, apologists for the old blackface photos say the same thing: You can’t judge the past by today’s standards.<\/p>\n

This is an old canard, and it comes up whenever any <\/em>past instance of bigotry is discussed. And sometimes it’s fair; exactly what word was used to describe trans people really was <\/em>different thirty years ago, for example.<\/p>\n

But just as often, it’s ridiculously ahistoric nonsense. And it certainly is nonsense with blackface. When I was a teen, in the 1980s, we all knew that blackface was racist. Even us white kids, although we didn’t fully appreciate the reasons <\/em>blackface is racist, understood that most Black people found blackface offensive.<\/p>\n

That is, in fact, the reason to wear blackface – because we do know it’s racist and taboo, That’s why wearing blackface feels transgressive to some.<\/p>\n

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The biggest challenge, drawing this strip, was Frederick Douglass, who had an interesting face – wide but with extremely distinct cheekbones. And trying to get across the particular way he had white streaks in his hair was fun.<\/p>\n

Looking at panel 3, it’s clear that all my conceptions of distinctly “1980s” fashions are just clothes that Madonna wore sometime that decade.<\/p>\n

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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON<\/strong><\/p>\n

This comic has four panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel under the bottom of the strip.<\/p>\n

PANEL 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two men, one Black and one white, are standing on a sidewalk talking. The Black man has an angry expression and is making big arm gestures; the white man looks very uninterested and is raising a hand in a “calm down” gesture.<\/p>\n

LARGE CAPTION: TODAY<\/strong><\/p>\n

BLACK MAN: They found an old photo of him wearing blackface?!? What the hell was he thinking?<\/p>\n

WHITE MAN: You can’t judge 2002 by today’s standards. People back then didn’t know blackface was wrong.<\/p>\n

PANEL 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two women are seated at a round tale in a cafe, with coffee cups in front of them. One woman is Black, the other is white. The Black woman looks very annoyed; the white woman is grinning, making light of things.<\/p>\n

LARGE CAPTION: 2002<\/strong><\/p>\n

WHITE WOMAN: Sure, we realize blackface is racist. But no one could have know that back in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

PANEL 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two women, one Black and one white, are walking together in a hilly park. They are both dressed in stereotypical 1980s fashion: Big hair falling in front of their eyes, boxy jackets, etc.. The Black woman is scowling while the white woman speaks calmly, making the “explaining hands” gesture.<\/p>\n

LARGE CAPTION: The 1980s.<\/strong><\/p>\n

WHITE WOMAN: We know that blackface is offensive, but that’s brand now! No one had any idea until recently.<\/p>\n

PANEL 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the foreground, a Black man with a thick beard and impressive hair is orating, looking stern, while gesturing towards a man in the background. The man in the background is dressed like an actor from a minstrel show, and is wearing blackface.<\/p>\n

A caption shaped like an arrow tells us the Black man is Frederick Douglass. A small caption next to Douglass says “paraphrased, but yes, he really said this!”<\/p>\n

LARGE CAPTION: 1848<\/strong><\/p>\n

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Look at this filthy scum! He’s stealing our complexion, just so he can pander to the corrupt tastes of other white people! What the hell is he thinking?<\/p>\n

Small kicker panel below the bottom of the strip.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The two women from panel two appear again; the white woman is talking eagerly, leaning forward a bit, while the Black woman rolls her eyes.<\/p>\n

WHITE WOMAN: My white friends and I all agree that Blacks are too sensitive about blackface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you like these cartoons, please help me make more by supporting my Patreon! I make a living mostly off of a bunch of fans pledging just $1 or $2. The Frederick Douglass quote in this cartoon is a paraphrase; … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartooning-comics","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25303,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25300\/revisions\/25303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}