ON OCT. 30, a black student showed up at a Halloween party with his face painted white. Hewas wearing khaki pants, a sweater tied around his shoulders and a pink polo shirt with its collar popped up. In a set of digital photographs, he flashes a grin and a thumbs-up to the camera, his costume unambiguously portraying a stereotypical white guy. For anyone who has been around long enough, these pictures inevitably conjure memories of two years ago, when our community erupted in outrage over a blackface incident at a fraternity's Halloween party. In that incident, two white students dressed up as Venus and Serena Williams, and a third dressed as "Uncle Sambo," with all of them painting their faces black.
In response, the Black Fraternal Council whipped up a wave of anger and condemnation that came crashing down upon the heads of the heretical students who had dared to paint their faces black. Aaron Laushway, associate dean of students and director of fraternity and sorority life was quoted in The Cavalier Daily sharply denouncing the instances of blackface as "despicable displays of ignorance, intolerance and jocular folly." Vice President for Student Affairs, Patricia Lampkin, said in a public statement that "such mockery is not acceptable," and that it is "hurtful and demeaning to members of our community." The Cavalier Daily managing board vehemently decried the "disgusting display" of racism as well as the "blatant cultural insensitivity and ignorance" that the party-goers had demonstrated. Even University President John T. Casteen III sent a rare mass e-mail to the entire student body, voicing his solemn disapproval of the blackface incident.
But this year, don't expect to hear any such vigorous condemnations come echoing down from the highest levels of the administration, the Black Fraternal Council or the managing board. Instead, the blackface and whiteface incidents will be treated with an unabashed double standard, which some members of our community will desperately try to prop up by invoking their argumentative panacea that is our nation's racist history.
It is true that in the past, blackface minstrelsy was used as a way of degrading and humiliating blacks in the American South and other parts of the country. As such, it seems plausible to argue that blackface has been infused with a special brand of wrongness that whiteface lacks. Therefore, the argument goes, it's alright to treat whiteface differently than blackface.
But on closer examination, this argument closely resembles many of its defenders: It goes to great lengths to make itself appear both intellectually sophisticated and admirably anchored in historical fact, but beneath its thin veneer of pretension, it is hopelessly backward and utterly confused.
When blackface is repugnant, it's not because of some contingent historical connection that it has to minstrelsy. After all, blackface minstrel shows were just as wrong the first time they were put on as they were after a hundred years of history had built up behind them. Minstrelsy was inherently repugnant from the very beginning because it employed blackface for the ugly racist purpose of demeaning and degrading an entire group of people on the basis of their race, thus denying their individual worth and dignity. In minstrel shows, blackface was a powerful tool of racism, which unfairly branded all blacks with grotesque and buffoonish stereotypes. We don't need history to tell us that this type of behavior is despicable and repugnant on its own merits.
Once we realize that instances of blackface are wrong not because of history but instead because of their specific racist functions, there remains little basis for treating whiteface differently. If someone paints his face white to mock, stereotype, offend and degrade white people, then this is just as repugnant as an analogous blackface incident. The wrongness comes from the racist nature of the act itself, not from the history of any particular race. It is intrinsically and timelessly wrong to mock and dehumanize individuals of any other racial or ethnic group.
Having said that, however, I don't think the whiteface or the blackface incidents in question need to cause such great offense and consternation in our community. It is far from clear whether these incidents actually involved any real racial mockery or degradation, and they almost certainly weren't motivated by malicious intent. Granted, such costumes are probably in poor taste, but it seems nonetheless that a lot of people around here could benefit greatly from a cooler temper and a healthier sense of humor. Halloween, like college, is a time to enjoy yourself, and this requires that you don't take yourself or your peers too seriously. I look forward to the day when people can see an edgy costume or hear an off-color joke without immediately flying off the handle and condemning the insidiously racist makeup of the society around them. And while I do think we're well on our way to realizing that promising tomorrow, upholding racial double standards today sure isn't helping the cause.
Anthony Dick's column appears Mondays on The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at adick@cavalierdaily.com.
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