Because they have.... Dreadlocks? The Jamaican flag? Rasta beanies that were (rightly or wrongly) popularized by Bob Marley and are commonly used as crochet patterns?
I believe coldpasta is asking whether this costume qualifies as "Blackface."
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Blackface is to do with when people (typically whites) would dress up Into derogatory and inaccurate caricatures meant to represent black people in old timey-theatre esque shows. Typical traits of this were black shitty looking make up, and exaggerated red painted on their lips. Sometimes clothing and frizzy hair were also brought in, and often the way they were portrayed was as dumb and "lesser-than," and it was mostly used for comedic relief for the audience at the expense of the race they were making fun of.
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It's actually not entirely unlike when people used to do the stereotypical buck-tooth, straw hat, pull-back-on-your-eyes-to-make-them-squinty way people would sometimes portray Asians (which is for some reason not called AsianFace to my knowledge).
In the last few years, however, there has been a surge where literally anytime anyone who isn't born black darkens their skin for any reason it is marked as black face (except Ariana Grande, for some reason).
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Sometimes these claims are accurate. Sometimes they are blown way out of proportion (or simply inaccurate as merely dressing up as someone with dark skin is not actually "Blackface" in the original sense).
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It's also lead to issues where there have been darker skinned individuals dressing up in WhiteFace, but the same level of outrage is never applied. And I realize pointing that out will immediately earn me another stamp on my "Nazi" card, but in the effort of providing as much information as possible...
I knew what blackface meant, but I was confused as to why he was bringing it up here. Was he saying it's not typically proper for a white person to dress in an outfit seen for black people, or was he (hopefully not) implying that the costume was incomplete without?
I'm asking all this bc I was considering cosplaying baron samedi someday (no blackface of course), but if that's seen as offensive for the sake of me being white alone then I may have to shift that idea elsewhere
.
Blackface is to do with when people (typically whites) would dress up Into derogatory and inaccurate caricatures meant to represent black people in old timey-theatre esque shows. Typical traits of this were black shitty looking make up, and exaggerated red painted on their lips. Sometimes clothing and frizzy hair were also brought in, and often the way they were portrayed was as dumb and "lesser-than," and it was mostly used for comedic relief for the audience at the expense of the race they were making fun of.
.
It's actually not entirely unlike when people used to do the stereotypical buck-tooth, straw hat, pull-back-on-your-eyes-to-make-them-squinty way people would sometimes portray Asians (which is for some reason not called AsianFace to my knowledge).
.
Sometimes these claims are accurate. Sometimes they are blown way out of proportion (or simply inaccurate as merely dressing up as someone with dark skin is not actually "Blackface" in the original sense).
.
It's also lead to issues where there have been darker skinned individuals dressing up in WhiteFace, but the same level of outrage is never applied. And I realize pointing that out will immediately earn me another stamp on my "Nazi" card, but in the effort of providing as much information as possible...
I'm asking all this bc I was considering cosplaying baron samedi someday (no blackface of course), but if that's seen as offensive for the sake of me being white alone then I may have to shift that idea elsewhere