Holy Shit Hawera – blackface in a public parade in 2018?
I just don’t know what you can possibly say…
Lions Club decision to wear blackface at Hawera Community Parade ‘not racist’
The chair of Hawera Mt View Lions Club has defended their decision to wear blackface at the Taranaki town’s A&P parade on Friday, saying it was not racist.
Joy Babington told Stuff on Saturday morning “it’s a shame we have to apologise for something we were out in the community doing that had nothing to do with racism and all the rest of it”.
“For goodness sake, we’re a Lions club, we put a float in every year, we didn’t have a theme this year, so we decided to go black and white, and they had face paint because they were painting kids faces and the rest of it, so we painted our faces.
“What’s wrong with that? Some small-minded, bigoted person has called us racist, threatened to bash us up; it’s not worth replying to,” Babington said.
…when I first saw the picture I thought, ‘this is either a hoax and needs debunking, or this really happened and there needs to be an urgent explanation as to what the fuck it is before the rest of us all start jumping to conclusions – because it kinda looks egregiously racist right’?
Not only did it turn out to not be a hoax but their hamfisted-dickhead-compounding-their-insult-with- grotesque-ignorance-ultra-defensive-justifications just managed to make it worse…
The club defended its decision in a post on Facebook, claiming it was “by no means meant to be derogatory as a racist commentary [sic] rather a celebration of all cultures. What if these person [sic] had been dressed up representing Maori [sic] wabine [sic] and warriors. Would that have been offensive too?”
…ok first rule in a social media pile on, get Grandma off the coms, second rule apologies immediately.
How on earth in 2018 NZ could anyone hosting a public parade not sense that blackface on white people is as offensive as a cross burning festival?
Work it out Hawera.
I do not know what to think of this, but it seems a silly action, not worthy of all that much attention.
We have various other things go on, where dark skinned people try to ‘whiten’ their skin for whatever purpose, in Africa, the US, Latin America, we have others engage in bizarre activities during carnival and so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_whitening
Michael Jackson was accused of this, but he appears to have had a particular skin condition.
https://www.umassmed.edu/vitiligo/blog/blog-posts1/2016/01/did-michael-jackson-have-vitiligo/
The Hawera Lions Club appears to be a bored to death kind of lot, having nothing better to do than paint their faces black.
One needs to ask, do they have any brown or dark skinned members, or are they a remnant of whites preferred civil organisations, so common in Anglo Saxon, hypocritical societies.
merely a pathetic display from Hawera bumpkins?–or continuation of the deep seated racism that exists in Taranaki…
predictably people are criticising Hone Harawira for reacting strongly to this provocation, but hey, it is now 40 years ago Hone and He Taua broke up boofhead Auckland University Engineering Students mocking the Haka in public–he is entitled to be frustrated by such lack of progress demonstrated in Hawera
at least one pākehā, Andrew Judd is making an effort, and a lot more need to as well rather than leaving it up to Hone
+100…agreed
History is not really taught anymore. They seem to have no idea of the significance.
Saying that, all I can say is “Hawera”… a ‘special ‘place.
Reminds me of this petition where NCEA students have successfully launched a petition worried that they will fail their level 3 history exam because they didn’t know what the word ‘trivial’ meant” and now they have made NZQA accept their Y13 History essay marks based own student’s own definition of word TRIVIAL.
Another “you must be kidding” moment. The irony of year 13 students not understanding what trivial means, is significant on so many levels…
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/11/students-launch-petition-after-confusion-by-word-trivial-in-nzqa-exam.html
https://www.change.org/p/nzqa-nzqa-to-accept-y13-history-essay-marks-based-own-student-s-own-definition-of-word-trivial?fbclid=IwAR3zpKzCmtKxwgswmL2v160H7sJ1WxSOE7fG9g4XEdYcyjisAZp4-p92Y4U
(Worth reading to see how poor the language skills are prior to going to university and now they have to have vocabulary marked in their own interpretation to get there, some funny spoofs too like asking for their credit card details…).
So maybe the people in Hawera seriously didn’t understand the significance of the black face paint historically and just thought is was the All blacks because apparently we are all going to become baristas, struggling farmers, aged care workers or tilers or if you are “really smart’ a lawyer in the vein of Jordan Williams or a CTV engineer… cos they seem to be dumbing down, if not just abandoning a lot of tertiary education in NZ in favour of the above where apparently those in the ‘know’ think the future lies…
Critical thinking out, team working networkers with face paint or petitioning for ignorance in…
Good on Hone – this is a bloody disgrace in this day and age. Go to Hawera, I regard it as red neck heaven. Go on to the Lion’s facebook page and have a go.
well said SAVENZ
No doubt the boring old fart burghers of Hawera think this is “trivial” too, which demonstrates their illiteracy as well as their racism.
No doubt the boring old fart burghers of Hawera think this is “trivial” too, which demonstrates their illiteracy as well as their racism.
Historical ignorance rather than intentional racism I suspect.
It’s not offensive at all. What about the black and white minstals show? Get a life. The is just PC crap out of control.
It’s not offensive at all. What about the black and white minstals show? Get a life. The is just PC crap out of control.