Julianne Hough and her friends had a great idea for Halloween. They decided to engage in a time honored practice, having group themed costumes. Personally, I am a fan of group themed costumes. So, Ms. Hough and her friends decided to dress as the cast of the hit Netflix show Orange is the New Black.
Sounds great doesn’t it? And it was, until Ms. Hough apparently thought people might not understand she was the character “Crazy Eyes,” a black inmate who is clearly mentally unstable, simply by the way she did her hair, crossed her eyes, and wore a nametag. Nope, she needed to add some dark bronzer so people would be sure to know she was imitating a black person. This is commonly known as wearing blackface.
It didn’t take long after the pictures hit twitter for plenty of people, especially “black twitter,” to let her know EXACTLY how they felt about it, too. ?Like @brokeymcpoverty who tweeted:
it’s still blackface even if you use bronzer. its still blackface even if you use MAC or Dior instead of charred cork.?@juliannehough
In an?article earlier this week, I detailed how college campuses are using awareness campaigns called “We’re a Culture Not a Costume” to try to avoid this exact type of thing. Blackface has a history, a deeply painful racist history. It is linked to oppression and the legal racial segregation system we once had in this county. Many of the common racial stereotypes about black people being lazy, criminal minded, overly sexual, and dirty can be directly linked back to minstrel shows and minstrelsy in American culture from Vaudeville, cartoons and even popular early radio and TV shows. So blackface matters.
Watch here to see an example of this offensive type of entertainment if you’ve never seen it before:?WARNING-OFFENSIVE.
There are going to be many who will say that Ms. Hough did not mean it in a racist way so people should give her a break. She is a good person. People are inevitably going to come to her defense and say she’s not a racist. That may be true. However, what she did was racist. That doesn’t make her a bad person, but it does mean she did something she should have known not to do.
In 2008 Jay Smooth did a Youtube video?entitled How to Tell someone They Sound Racist. The whole point of his video is that when discussing racist behavior in today’s society, for the most part we aren’t talking about rabid racists. Many people think that because they are “good people” they are incapable of racist behavior, that only bad, evil people engage in racism and bigotry. As Jay points out:
I don’t care who you are I care what you did.
This isn’t about who Julianne Hough is. She may be a wonderful person with a diverse group of friends who has never uttered a racial slur. The fact is, she did something that is racially insensitive and indeed racist. She has apologized, and?that’s great. Hopefully, she and those watching understand why what she did was a big deal. At the end of the day orange may be the new black but black face is still the same old black face and racism is still racism regardless of intent.
Watch this incredibly educational video for when you inevitably have to tell someone they sounded racist:
