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DiscussionBlackface
I am a black american woman and I expressed annoyance to the constant mentions and comparisons of drag and/or transgenderism to blackface on Ovarit yesterday but the comment thread was removed so I thought I'd make a post.
I've been here quite a while and I did not ever really comment on the mentions of blackface but I feel like I shouldn't have to hold my tongue on something so frequently brought up like blackface, especially as a black american woman. Racism is not often discussed here, unless it's some TRA showing their ass, but it's not something deeply discussed about how it affects women of color. But something that is brought up a lot race-wise is blackface, often to prove a point. Imagine being a black member here and just constantly seeing mentions of it. And based on demographics probably by non-black members. I'm not saying there aren't black women who don't think drag and blackface are equivalent. I don't think they are equivalent but whether they are equivalent or not is not really may point. Frankly it makes me uncomfortable how often I see it. I don't like when TRAs use black people's oppression to prove points, and I find it no different when it's done here.
Plenty of users here understand how wrong it is when TRAs say how something is "no different than segregation"...so why say something is no different than blackface? The oppression of black people is not some measurement tool that everyone needs to use for comparison.
Drag and transgenderism can be critiqued on their own without the need to compare it to something else. In fact I think comparing them to blackface does more harm than good.
Black woman speaking.
I wouldn’t have a problem with TRAs making analogies to black oppression if the analogies were actually sound. I hold to the school of thought that an argument should be deemed good or bad based on its substance, not on the identity of the person making it. All too often TRAs use specious comparisons to lull uncritical thinkers into accepting nonsense as truth, and that is what I take issue with.
With all due respect, I think the similarities between blackface and womanface are too close to ignore. I’m all for people disagreeing with this opinion, but not on emotional grounds. Emotionalism is why we’re in the mess we are in now, and it needlessly impairs our ability to make points that could very well change someone’s thinking.
Beautifully put.
And I see OP's point, about the frequency with which blackface is compared especially in light of the relatively fewer posts that center other topics that may affect or be particular to black women.
I frequently bring up the blackface comparison in part bc people somehow think more clearly about aspects of racism than they do about sexism, but I'll try to make these comparisons less casually and only when I think its especially apt/important.
I agree with you about the need to rely on well-reasoned arguments above emotion/identity; some people are so fearful of offending others these days that they fall prey to groupthink and we all lose out.