Different views on "blackface"

Uijeongbu High school is a school located in South Korea known for funny graduation photos. This year's one became very controversial. A group of students dressed up as 'dancing pallbearers' also known as the 'coffin dance meme'. It is a Ghanaian group of pallbearers known for dances and the way they celebrate their funeral culture. A video of them got spread all over the internet and became a big meme in the internet culture, which is probably why the students decide to dress up as them for the graduation photos. The only problem was that they painted their faces way darker than their skin to look "Black". The pictures of the students went viral, and the Black community got angry at them, including Sam Okyere, a Ghanaian television personality who active in South Korea. Okyere said that he is offended by the students' action, and people in South Korea should be more culturally aware on his Instagram. However, lots of Korean netizens disagreed. They did not see any problems with the blackface because black people's skin is dark, and the students just wanted a perfect parody. Some netizens also said that they could not be the one to judge what is racism and what is not since they are not the part of the black community and they should be apologetic. The students apologised that they had no intention to mock the black people and that they are very sorry. According to an interview (https://news.v.daum.net/v/20200808000628095) they thought about either if they should paint their face before they took the photo. They said they were worried that they might come up as reverse discrimination by not painting their face darker. When people dress up as White people/character, and they paint their skin lighter, there is no problem. They also mentioned that they were not aware of the blackface 'black face' until they went viral. The school messaged Benjamin Aidoo, who is the leader of dancing pallbearers to apologise and he responded that they are not offended, and they congratulate their graduation. The netizens backfired to Okyere by saying that he overreacted and he apologised to the students and the Korean community for using the students' photo without their consent and aggressive word choices on his previous post.

 

In the western view, this incident might seem very confusing. They have learnt that blackface is an offensive thing and should not be done. However, it is actually not common knowledge in Asian countries, including South Korea. Blackface originated in American theatre culture around the 1830s. It created bad stereotypes of Black People and made to mock them. Asian countries are not aware of this history because it did not directly affect them and had no correlations to them. Since the globalisation people started to get more culturally aware, but still there are a lot of steps. Like what the students said, lots of people do not find blackface offensive. Their point of view is that it is reverse racism by finding painted skin offensive is basically saying that the darker skin is bad. They just want to dress up as accurate as possible. 

 

However, even if the intention was not offensive, it is still offensive. Black people have suffered from the use of blackface and the consequences it has brought, such as facing more racial stereotypes. In this case, the dancers did not really show if they got hurt from the students' behaviour, but a lot of people from the black community got offended and got hurt.

 

I personally understand both sides, but I am more biased in the black community. I am Asian, and I have experienced unintended racisms. I still got hurt from them even if they say they did not mean to hurt me. People should think from the other side and try to understand each other more.