roro80 wrote: Hey, neat! I'm glad my reasoning made sense to you, and I hope you understand my “call it out, call it out as loud as I can!” appraoch to many things that come up at TMV — racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. If we all just act polite and act like things that people say don't have real, negative effects on ourselves or those we love or maybe just those we know of, it's very easy to get the impression that things like this don't hurt anyone. Like you said, for some it cuts to the bone, for others, not so much.

Good for you roro! I like how both your mind and your manners work. Disagreement and disrespect do not need to go hand in hand. We can all learn by your and T-Steels example… thanks.

“I think my overall point is there are degrees to racism.”

I think we're in agreement on this, definitely, and it would be far out of line to equate this craptastic lapse in judgment with anything including, say, violence. I would imagine you've witnessed, however, that even when an egregious act of racially motivated violence occurs (or, say, the old minstrel shows), there are always white people willing to stand up and say “That's not racist, you look for racism in everything”. Or, you know, “They were trying to be funny, obviously. This was not a big deal.”

Looking at your example of your own past and present, would it have been possible to change your own point of view if everyone had insisted that there was nothing offensive or hurtful about it, and that everyone who was offended or hurt by your words and actions were just being overly sensitive or humorless?

Wow… I didn't even look at it like that. Talk about smacking oneself in the head! No I guess not, roro. No they wouldn't have been humorless in my past words. Not in the slightest.

But I don't think everyone is going to give these Australian doctors a pass. I'm not giving them one either. I'm just not as sharp with my rebuke. BUT, like I mentioned before, I'm not going to condemn those that sharply rebuke them. I think my overall point is there are degrees to racism. And I don't think all situations should be judge the same way. But I do realize that with situations like this, it sometimes cuts to the bone and people don't always respond in degrees. The reaction is swift and sure.

I did not mean to imply that at all, and I apologize if that's how it came off.

Maybe my point can be illustrated better through an example. If a 4-year-old uses the n-word, any reasonable person can expect that they don't understand the history of that word or why it is so hurtful and offensive. So you give that kid a smack on the rear and explain to them in terms they can understand that it is not a word that he or she is allowed to use, and that it will cause hurt and offense if they do. Maybe this lesson needs to be repeated a few times in the following years and with increasing sophistication for the kid to actually get it. If a 20-year-old person uses the same term, it can be pretty well assumed that that person is either *willfully* ignorant or is using the term with the expectation that it will offend and hurt, almost certainly the latter, but if the former, that willful ignorance could be considered egregious to the point of warranting anger nonetheless. In the present case, it's at least reasonably plausible that the doctors performing the skit could be more analogous to the 4-year-old using the n-word, and the public outrage more like the smack on the bottom and stern talking-to about the fact that it is offensive to many people and should not be repeated. I don't have any problem with looking at that way, and specifically not implying a willful ignorance or malicious intent in the act. But just as I would say it is irresponsible for the parents of the 4-year-old to just giggle and think it's funny when kids say racist things they don't understand, I would also find it pretty irresponsible if there weren't anyone pointing out to these performers (and the producers who approved this act) that it does cause offense, and it does hurt, even if they didn't intend to do so. None of this means to imply that any specific person “should” feel offended or hurt if they don't.

Looking at your example of your own past and present, would it have been possible to change your own point of view if everyone had insisted that there was nothing offensive or hurtful about it, and that everyone who was offended or hurt by your words and actions were just being overly sensitive or humorless?

See roro80, I'm done with having a immediate reaction to a situation like this. I have to look at this in its entirety. Yes, the black face was in very poor taste. But I just can't muster calling those men racists. I just can't.

Harry Connick Jr. has every right to feel the way he feels. As do you and Patrick and others. But I have first hand account of the minstrel shows of yesteryear. This wasn't it. So I'm not going to equate it or address it as such. I will keep it at “stupid level” and keep on truckin'.

Not to mention how much of a failure the “apology” was. They saw that Harry Connick Jr was offended, and so they apologized to *him*.

I really don't want to say what I'm going to say because some folks run with it since I'm a black guy but I'm going to put it out there: I wasn't offended. Am I saying that others won't be, NO NO NO! And I understand why they would find this offensive. But the black face antics of those white performers in minstrel shows from the early 1830s to 1950s or so were, in my opinion, TRULY offensive and disgusting.

The old minstrel shows portrayed all black people as lazy, ultra-superstitious, buffoonish, ignorant, etc. It was truly nasty many times and as my grandparents have told me, it was like being punched in the gut. What these six Australian doctors did not approach what those white minstrel show actors did. In my eyes, the only thing they shared with those past minstrel show actors was the black face paint (they didn't even go far with the sickening big red lips paint and bugged out eyes that permeated the past minstrel shows).

Let me frame it like this, if these Australian doctors took off the black face paint and wore Jackson Five masks, this wouldn't make YouTube and there would not be controversy. But if those past minstrel show actors kept their “white faces”, it would STILL be deeply offensive and hurtful because of the subject matter (they lampooned regular black folks that were struggling in intensely hurtful times, physically and mentally).

So Pat (and others), please don't take what I just said as something to diminish how you feel about this. I'm just weighing this with what it's being compared to, the minstrel shows of yesteryear. And I just can't make any more connections other than the black face paint.