Blackface Sparks Controversy at Lehigh

Parents Forum
41

<p>Kathiep…That is because this incident as well as the pre and post election incidents were all self reported by one small group of students. Racial disharmony is not a problem on the campus but again this group of students are looking to make a statement and a name for themselves.</p>

<p>There are activist such as Rev. Sharpton who blew alot of steam but his words were only heard by his specific audience. The kids who are responsible for this stir are on the same path…alot of steam but poorly misguided.</p>

42

<p>S2 is white. His good friend/college roommate is black. They have been friends since freshman year of h.s. I can say without a doubt that S2’s roommate would have laughed his head off at the “offensive” costumes of the Williams sisters. </p>

<p>S1 and his friends all dressed up as Indians (Native Americans) for Halloween their soph. year of college. They wore feather headresses, went shirtless and painted their chests and faces with “war paint”. Was that racist? Another group of their friends dressed as cowboys and they all went out together. It was just Halloween fun.</p>

43

<p>Kathie P. I too live close to Lehigh and it was in the local papers. Originally, I heard about the incident from a Lehigh student. It was also on the Huffington Post website.</p>

<p>[Lehigh</a> University students wear blackface to Halloween party, sparking campus controversy | lehighvalleylive.com](<a href=“http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/bethlehem/index.ssf/2010/11/lehigh_university_students_wea.html]Lehigh”>Lehigh University students wear blackface to Halloween party, sparking campus controversy - lehighvalleylive.com)</p>

44

<p>I still find myself bemused by this case. It appears that it’s not dressing up as a person of another race that’s the problem, or (perhaps) even making fun of that person–it’s specifically darkening the skin. Or is it making fun of the person because of his race? So here are some questions I was thinking of:

  1. Would it still have been offensive if these guys had dressed up as the Williams sisters with fake breasts, wigs, etc., but not darkened skin?
  2. What if somebody had a Shakespeare-based party, and a white guy came as Othello with darkened skin?
  3. What if a white girl dresses as Mulan and uses eye makeup to make her eyes appear more Asian?</p>
45

<p>35</p>

<p>Perhaps this shows the need for , well, education</p>

<p>Hunt</p>

<p>AFAIK, at least in traditional shakespeare productions (there are always experimental productions of course) when Othello is portrayed by a white actor, no skin darkening make up is used - it would be a tad odd to use skin darkening make up to dress up as Othello for a party. What would you think of someone wearing a large fake nose to dress up as Shylock from Merchant of Venice?</p>

46

<p>I agree with #31 & #32.
However, given the inherent potential for IMO misdirected hypersensitivity surrounding this type of thing, and possible ramifications if such does occur, better to go as Billie Jean King ( or whoever), even if less funny.</p>

47

<p>

</p>

<p>Huh? I’ll admit, it has been a long time since I have seen Othello played by a white actor. But you can see pictures of Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Stanislavski doing it online. They used skin-darkening make-up – a lot of it, in Olivier’s case.</p>

48

<p>Ditto the “huh” but I’m guessing that in NYC today, and elsewhere, it’s possible to see classic plays such as Shakespeare cast race-neutral. As such, a white actor playing Othello would not blacken his face today in a race-neutral production.</p>

<p>Perhaps that’s what Brooklyndad saw?</p>

49

<p>One can debate whether it is critical for Othello, on screen or stage, but if they are going as the Williams sisters on halloween, and not Othello on the stage, and want people to immediately get it, it seems clear to me that this is more likely if they go in blackface.</p>

<p>If you are attending a play named Othello, and this guy shows up on stage and says Othello’s lines, it is not a huge stretch to determine that this guy is Othello in the play, however he is made up or dressed.
Not so when random people go to your door on halloween.</p>

50

<p>Good point! I’m filing away in my head that next Hallowe’en I will go to parties as a gender-neutral, race-neutral Othello. Nobody will get my costume. When they ask, I’ll tell them I’m Othello and start reciting lines. :)</p>

<p>Back to our regular programming…</p>

51

<p>Here’s something about Othello: it appears that white actors who have played him have typically darkened their skin, or alternatively, played him as more of an “Oriental.” I actually saw the performance by Ben Kingsley, and I couldn’t remember what color his skin was. It wasn’t that great, surprisingly.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.meredith.edu/english/walton/201/othello%20on%20stage.ppt[/url]”>http://www.meredith.edu/english/walton/201/othello%20on%20stage.ppt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

52

<p>I dont recall when I last saw Othello. Film and stage are different media, and of course film tends to require more “realism” in production values than the stage. An aversion in recent times to blackface may be ONE reason fewer white actors have had that role recently.</p>

<p>Call me PC, I think white kids running around in black face is in poor taste. I am GLAD there are some activists at Lehigh who complained. AFAICT, Lehigh could use a tad more of that. </p>

<p>And yeah, I think kids at a major university should have some sense of history. I mean cmon, nobody there has seen The Jazz Singer, the first talkie motion picture?</p>

53

<p>

I undertsand that point but I do think that in reality - many simply don’t have a sense of that detail and I expect a very low percentage of college students (or their parents for that matter), my guess is in the single digit percentage range, have watched ‘The Jazz Singer’. I’m including highly intelligent, well-qualified, high level college kids in my ‘guess’ assessment here.</p>

54

<p>knitkneelionmom,</p>

<p>When I say local paper, I mean the Morning Call, not an on-line paper. Their search engine is not the best but I tried several keywords and could not find anything. We subscribe to both the Morning Call and the Philadelphia Inquirer and I don’t remember reading anything in either paper. Not that it really matters, but was in the Morning Call and I just didn’t notice?</p>

55

<p>Kathie. Not sure about the Morning Call but I know it was in the Express Times.</p>

56

<p>53</p>

<p>Im not expecting to them to, you know, remember that the first sounded lines were actually the Kol Nidrei prayer. I am talking about just a clip of what I think is the most famous image from the film, which is Jolson, in black face, singing Mammy at the end. </p>

<p>Im pretty sure that image has been copied in political cartoons many times since, including the last few years. </p>

<p>I will forgive the kids their ignorance, okay. But then there are folks who think we spend to much time on black history, on the history of racism, etc. That that TOO is “PC”. If 90% + of educated kids dont know the most famous image of blackface, which happens to be ALSO an important image in American film history, than maybe we dont spend enough time on that history. Hmmmm.</p>

57

<p>^^ Maybe I’m too cynical on this and am wrong but as someone who does like old movies I realize how many young people nowadays won’t even consider watching a movie if it’s in B&W. It might be worth asking some random HS/college kids (not ‘old movie’ or ‘film history’ buffs) if they know what a ‘minstrel show’ is or if they’ve ever seen ‘The Jazz Singer’ or know anything about it. Many of them, possibly including the halloween kids in the article, may not even know what the contextual term ‘blackface’ means.</p>

58

<p>But they were not going as some generic “blackface” stereotype, they were going as two specific, real celebrity people, who are in fact black.</p>

59

<p>^^ Yes - that’s what makes this different than dressing up in a mocking way of a stereotype based on one’s race, gender, etc. They may just be big fans of the tennis greats.</p>

60

<p>Regarding the sentiment that there is way too hyperactive PC monitoring (I am talking about political correctness, not computer CPU), I would rather live in a society with this problem than a society where kids routinely uses the word “gay” as a negative adjective (he is SO gay, etc), where a nationally syndicated broadcaster uses the N words repeatedly in a live show, and the first black president is being caricatured as a watermelon devouring ape. </p>

<p>I will ALWAYS err on the side of being careful and sensitive to the needs, history, and sentiment of the current or formerly opposed groups. This, I say as a parent of straight kids who grew up with all the privilege and the benefit of doubt this society has to offer. </p>

<p>Sensitivity and respect for others’ feeling is not just about a particular group. It’s a more generic, macro psychological tendency. Remember some “protected group” members become so later in life, like handicapped folks. If that ever happens to you and your loved ones, you want to live in a society where there is a heightened sensitivity towards the needs of the people with any disadvantage, out of the norm characteristics, or hurtful history.</p>

<p>You may say it’s not so black and white, but where would you draw the line? A line in the sand has to be drawn, and I prefer to have it drawn with a lot of “safety margin”, if you know what I mean.</p>

<p>Lehigh had several incidents right after Obama’s election where bunch of white kids drove around and yelled N words to fellow black students passing by. Obviously, it was bad enough that the president of the university felt the need to convene a town hall meeting to address the race attitude problem. There were other reports since then, so they were not isolated incidents. On top of that check some popular web sites where students come and discuss the pros and cons of their own nschools. I was surprised to find many posts last ten years (so, way before the time of some agitators of the class of 2011 as another poster seemed to indicate) that detailed various racial incidents on this campus. The only other schools where this theme pops up time and gain are all southern schools. Sorry if I offend the southern folks, but I am reporting what I read - one amazing gem of a post about a well known southern academic star school: “oh, we have no race problem. Only ONE frat on campus refuses to take black pledges. No biggie” WOW!!!.</p>

<p>I have to say, all this is making my son not to consider Lehigh any more (I have a separate post below: S got a 4 year full ride/near full ride Army ROTC scholarship. He could use it at Bucknell, Lehigh, or Syracuse. Bucknell and Lehigh came very close, but in the end, I think he will go with Bucknell. This particular issue was NOT the only thing, but it certainly does not help at all. This and the reputation as a school completely overrun by the Greek system just leave a lot of unanswered questions marks on the table. So, from his perspective, why take a risk when there is another option, a school with equally strong academic reputation without stuff like this constantly popping up?</p>

<p>If all this was a terrible injustice, Lehigh administration has to do some serious PR work to address this “mis-perception”. it certainly drives away some people, like my son. I read somewhere that Lehigh’s application number has been dipping fast, while their acceptance rate has gong up significantly, and the yield is going down, all this while some schools on the rise and some of its peers have consistently seen the opposite trend. I wonder if this is related at all…</p>

<p>I am not saying all this as a Lehigh basher. Actually, I am a bit saddened, because part of me actually likes Lehigh very much, and if not for these things, I would have strong advocated Lehigh for my son (and I DO have some influence, you know). If anybody working with/for/associated with Lehigh is reading this, I hope they think about it carefully. Consider this as a customer feedback and market research data. Some companies pay oodles of money to conduct a market research. (by the way, dismissing all this as a work of a few agitators does NOT work: it only seems like a lame excuse and denial, like burying one’s head in the sand).</p>