On blackening one's skin in music videos

trigger warning: discussion of white supremacy, slavery, race, sexual assault

I changed the title of this post from "Blackfacing isn't cool or edgy. It's just racist." as I began to realize that the title was hurting people's feelings a lot and distracting from the rest of the entry. Hopefully the change in title will be more sensitive to peoples needs.

Original Entry: I found myself listening to Aesthetic Perfection today. In fact, he's been one of the most played artists in my playlist lately. So, decided to take a look at youtube to see if Daniel Graves had any new videos up. I was disappointed to see the video for "Inhuman":



I let out a sigh of sadness as yet another newer aggro artist I listened to regularly jumped on the bandwagon of making an obviously oppressive video. Or at least, obvious to me and probably to most people of color as well.

If it's not apparent to you the problem with this video, take a look at the still. Graves is in blackface.
The stock characters of blackface minstrelsy have played a significant role in disseminating racist images, attitudes and perceptions worldwide. Every immigrant group was stereotyped on the music hall stage during the 19th Century, but the history of prejudice, hostility, and ignorance towards black people has insured a unique longevity to the stereotypes. White America's conceptions of Black entertainers were shaped by minstrelsy's mocking caricatures and for over one hundred years the belief that Blacks were racially and socially inferior was fostered by legions of both white and black performers in blackface. (source)


Now, I want to give graves the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps due to his white privilege he has never had to think about how painting his skin to be dark and showing aggressiveness to a white woman on screen would be reminiscent of a historically malevolent past of white supremacist violence against black people, specifically black men in this instance. White people, like myself, have the privilege of ignoring racism whenever they want as white supremacy teaches them to do so.

There is room for artistic expression without blackfacing, however. And blackfacing does more than insult a few people like myself. It perpetuates a long history of white supremacist advertising geared towards making black men look like aggressive savages who exist to attack and harm white, innocent, women.

There are many stereotypes created by blackfacing and by historical white supremacy. One of the more malicious was that of the aggressive rapist black man. This stereotype was used for the purposes of everything from keeping slavery in place, to promote military enlistment, to frighten the public into fearing and dispising African Americans, and so on. The following is a past army enlistment ad. It is real. Take a look at it and try not to shudder.

Images like this were everywhere. Images like this are still everywhere. When white men like Daniel Graves paint themselves black and create videos in which they are pursuing white women in a manner that is seemingly ambiguous at best and violent at worst, they are re invoking these images for many people. At the very best, it is triggering. At the worst, it is a furtherance of the preposterous idea that dark skinned men are violent and aggressive towards white women.

Am I saying that Graves painting his skin black is the same as the above ad or the original blackface? No. I am sure Graves did not make the video to intentionally promote racism. I can see how it would be seen simply as "contrast" or something without historical context. But intent is not magic and history exists and as the age old saying goes, if we do not remember it, we are doomed to repeat it.

Unlearning racism is liberating for white people. We live in racist societies where white supremacy is infused into us from day one. I am not expert on anti-racism, but I do the best I can. Graves can learn about this history, acknowledge in sensitivities, and come back from it. So far, the things I have seen in music have given me little hope for such things. But hopefully he will see a future in thinking about racism and misogyny before participating in the creation of a video like this.

Why couldn't they have painted them both white? It would have looked far creepier. Or perhaps if they wanted the light dark contrast, they could have used clothing. Yet there is also a criticism that perhaps could be made asking why is it that white is always portrayed as "good, pure, innocent" and black is always "bad, dark, aggressive, malevolent"? Wouldn't it be an experiment in film for once to have the bad guy be a big WHITE figure? Instead of a dark, black figure.

Afterall, goths like our dark stuff. Let's just stick to dark clothes and not blackface. It's just not cool.

Here's another perspective on blackfacing, the different ways it is used, and the defensiveness that results from those who do it.
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Comments are closed on this entry due to a slew of homophobic and racist shit in the replies. I apologize to any future readers interested in conversation. Most of the hanging chad type straight white fratboy equivalents with goggles posting below can be thanked for that.

Afterthoughts: Graves posted briefly on youtube saying it is racist to see something racist in his video, then deleted it. Thanks to a commenter who has posted here, I found out about Daniel's facebook post saying I called him a racist and a misogynist. (I never called you a racist, Daniel, I said your video was racist and had racist themes- one can make racist mistakes without being a racist, we all have made mistakes and in a culture riddled with white supremacy, it would be impossible not to make mistakes- you chose the personal identity of "racist", not me.) All of these commenters are fanboys from his page where he posted the link, but did not join the discussion. Sad thing is, I really like his music a lot. This song has been in my head much of the day. But from now on, it's probably gonna leave a sour taste in my mouth.

Maybe if everyone just had a conversation about this, I could have been persuaded that I was wrong. I could still be persuaded that I am wrong. I can totally see how the artistic arguments might override the negative history of blackface, but I am still not convinced since there is no irony or confrontation of the darkening of one's skin itself in the video or in its description. A lot of the discussion is clouded by oppressive slurs, angry mansplaining, and names tossed at me by people really pissed about something they claim not to care about. Graves the "not racist, not misogynist" had no problem with this stuff or with his blindly following fan dudes tossing oppressive insults at someone. Isn't doing nothing often just as bad? But I digress, Graves got what he wanted. A slew of people telling him he can do no wrong, because he is their celebrity. Unfortunately, I don't bow to anyone, no matter how much I enjoy their sounds.

Also, art without the freedom to talk about it and criticize is not really art is it? It's kinda more of a "look at me, don't question me, don't think about anything other than what I am thinking" type of thing? I mean I guess that's art but... oh forget it.

This really does suck though because this whole conversation kinda ruined AP's music for me a little bit. I guess I'll take a break and come back to it later. Maybe.

UPDATES:
Revisiting the Comment Dogpile & Brief Notes on Colorblindness