Picture
On October 29, 2009 several Halloween parties were held. Amongst these parties was one that garnered a lot of media attention: thrown by three University of Toronto student-elected and student-run councils (with university funding). The reason it drew so much attention was because the "Best Costume" prize was awarded to four university students dressed as the Jamaican Bobsled team from the movie “Cool Runnings” in blackface.

For those of you who don’t know what blackface is, it is theatrical make-up that was historically used by white people. It was meant to overtly exaggerated black facial features in order to ridicule and perpetrate racist conceptualizations of the black community. It was commonly used in America and England up until the late 1970s. Essentially, white men would paint their faces black and "act black": uneducated, uncivilized and foolished. Later, black men would also do the same, in blackface.

Though the group of individuals knew what blackface was, they decided they were not exemplifying racist portrayals of blacks and decided to dress up as such because the movie was a fond childhood memory. The group did apologize at a town hall meeting that the Black Students’ Association held. One person from St. Michael’s College also took full responsibility and apologized.

But, further action has not been implemented to prevent such occurrences and an apology by the respective councils has not been released. The issue at hand is far reaching outside of this campus and exists globally. Racism and racist behaviour (whether done consciously or unconsciously) exists, and is often promoted and propagated in pop culture. It is not limited to black Canadians but to everyone.

If we were to go back to those Halloween parties you would have seen people dressed as Arabs and labelling themselves as terrorists or people in niqabs: ridiculing it; all in the name of fun and games and under the cloak of costumes.

The issue won’t be resolved tomorrow, and it may even take several decades and several events before we see a more sensitive media, more unbiased news reports and culturally sensitive education.

One thing that we can not do is ignore the situation.

“O mankind! We created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)” (Quran 49:13).
Picture
 


Comments




Leave a Reply