Nic Naitanui urges public to ‘grow together’ after mother paints son’s skin for Book Week parade

[FRUMPY]

So you think something that was seen as racist 70 years ago should be ok now?

No one is saying that by donning blackface you are making fun of the person you are dressing up as. But that's what blackface did used to represent. And it still carries that legacy and connotation. And for that reason, it's best to steer clear of it. A lot of black people do still find it offensive, and white people don't get to tell them to not be offended.

Honestly, any time I see a white person don blackface, I just think of them as an ignorant troglodyte who isn't educated enough to know what they're doing wrong. Like those bogan country footballers who all donned Aboriginal-themed blackface costumes and couldn't understand why there was such a public backlash.

I love how high and mighty you are in relation to such issues yet your user name is Jobe Watson and it has the words 'Brownlow Medallist' and a picture of him. Yet we all know he used illegal drugs and he is still your hero? He has been found guilty of such actions and been suspended and yet he is your hero.

Honestly, any time I see a person who worships Jobe Watson, I just think of them as an ignorant troglodyte who isn't educated enough to know what they're doing wrong.

 

[Chief]

My favourite part(apart from the obvious wine before 12pm) is when she said that no one would know who we was if she didn't paint him black.
If i saw a child wearing a west coast jumper with 9 on the back, shorts and boots with a black moppy wig, i would hope i'd be able to guess they were dressing up as Nic Nat.

Bit of tape with 'Naitanui' written on it would have sorted out everyone else.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[FRUMPY]

Bit of tape with 'Naitanui' written on it would have sorted out everyone else.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

That would offend mummys everywhere

 

[my name was taken]

I saw it as not feigning offence on behalf of others.

Absolutely, basically said at one time he wasn't offended by this sort of thing but was "educated" to be offended.

 

[Scotland]

Are the dreadlock wigs, inflatable whatever the f*ck they ares and little plush toys racist / offensive?

 

[kneecapper]

Why are people acting as though there is some law being introduced against blackface? By all means, do what you like but you do NOT get to dictate how people (black or otherwise) should react to your decisions. If they want to call you racist, shun you or tell you that you're an offensive piece of s**t that's also THEIR right.

 

[BF Tiger]

Poor kid, look at his choices.

1/ wears dark make-up, gets accused of blackfacing.
2/ goes as he is, gets accused of whitewashing.

F***, when can the past be left behind?

 

[MilhouseVsEvil]

What if the people telling them it's offensive get offended by anything and everything? Why is their offense to be taken as the be all and end all opinion?

Are you going to live your life by their views and not you're own?

Too right... When I was in high school a kid in my year would never do P.E and he wore lip gloss all the time. I laughed at him and said only a girl or a homosexual would wear lip gloss. His favourite lip gloss was princess peach so me and all my friends called him princess peach and had a joke about it the rest of the week. On the weekend his parents rang up my parents because apparently he was upset and not eating or something. My dad correctly told them to frick off as it's not his fault their son chose to get offended.
Long story short, the kid killed himself and I won book week for dressing up as Hulk Hogan, good week.

 

[SloppyJoe]

Reading her tweet she knew what she was doing good on her , why is She ignorant she couldn't of possibly known she was going to outrage the white folk of Bigfooty.

Perhaps not ignorant then, but imo it was definitely not smart - this stuff always creates a shitstorm no matter the intention and the last person I would want to inflict that on is my kid - now he gets to go to school next week and all the kids say "my mum said you were in the news because you painted your face black and that was wrong and Nic Nat said he didn't like it".

But whatever - his mum gets her "queening" moment.

 

[barmy44]

i think people do this debate, and the issue of 'racism' broadly, a little bit of a disservice by painting 'individual offence' as the benchmark of what should and should not be viewed as acceptable behavior.

 

[Jobe Watson]

Wog used to represent something negative 40 years ago. Then it started morphing into meaning something more positive and light hearted.

These days the only time I hear that word is when it's being used in a jocular way between friends.

LOL. African-American friends call each other the N word all the time too. What would happen if a white person said it?

You are just as big a part of the problem as anyone. You creative the negativity when often there is none present. You are the one keeping something that happened 100 years ago alive by reinforcing it as a divisive thing not allowing it to became something different.

No, I'm not the one keeping it alive. I didn't write the article. I'm a white boy from the suburbs, blackface doesn't offend me at all.

But guess what? It offends a hell of a lot of people. That's why there is outrage. And you don't get to tell other cultures what they find offensive. So go ahead, paint your skin black all you want. But don't be shocked when a lot of people take exception to it.

And in this case, the mother obviously knew it would cause outrage but did it anyway. What an silly woman.

I love how high and mighty you are in relation to such issues yet your user name is Jobe Watson and it has the words 'Brownlow Medallist' and a picture of him. Yet we all know he used illegal drugs and he is still your hero? He has been found guilty of such actions and been suspended and yet he is your hero.

Honestly, any time I see a person who worships Jobe Watson, I just think of them as an ignorant troglodyte who isn't educated enough to know what they're doing wrong.

Quoting this post again so that when the mods delete it, everyone can still see what a pillock you are.

 

[Pies n Punt]

a kid wants to look like his hero and this gets in the news?


* off campaigner.

 

[Farm Boy]

So in short. Mother uses her son to troll Nic Nat (by way of cultural appropriation). Nic Nat gets triggered. Twitter blows up. Mother claims a parental win (like some sort of Mother of the year contender). Outrage continues. Mother cracks a bevvy (celebration, wooo). Outrage deepens. Mother claims she wasn't trolling and is actually the second coming of Mother Mary. Outrage spreads onto bigfooty. Farm Boy comments.

 

[aCunningPlan]

Nic Nat is in lots of books, but that's irrelevant too.

He has a very distinctive skin colour too, in case you haven't noticed.

The problem here is intent.
Blackface started with intent to be racist, and encourage racism. The people that wore it were deliberately dressed up to look extreme and silly, and attempt to make light of african americans.

The intent here was very different. It was, in fact, to laud a black person (who btw is of Fijian decent, absolutely no relation to african americans)
The intent was not to offend, or diminish, or degrade. Quite the opposite.

The problem is people wearing skin colour as a costume and taking it off when they like, when people with particular skin colours face unfair discrimination do not have the option to simply take off their skin colour when it suits.

The intent was to look like Nic Nat knowing full well it would offend sections of the community...for the mother the malice was there.

 

[FRUMPY]

Quoting this post again so that when the mods delete it, everyone can still see what a pillock you are.

Why would it be deleted?

 

[brahj]

If I wanna dress up as Homer from the Simpsons, I paint myself yellow and it's fine. If I want to be Carl from the Simpsons it becomes an issue. ¯\_(シ)_/¯

Nice melt.

 

[dangerwood]

In other words, he sat on the fence to not piss off either side.


I thought it could have a been an opportunity to kill off a bit of racism, it's using a seemingly racist thing in the least racist way. Taking the power away from it. I'm not saying we should forget the past but sometimes, somethings have to give for progression.

It's not sitting on the fence. If you bash people for doing this you will get a defensive reaction that just makes people think you're being too sensitive and overreactive, falls on deaf ears no listening no understanding.

Show understanding and you make people want to learn and understand back. Nic nats response was the greatest response possible for positive change.

 

[Jobe Watson]

Why would it be deleted?

The fact it's a personal attack on me and has absolutely zero to do with the topic being discussed in this thread are pretty good grounds I would have thought.

 

[Chief]

it's actually really hard to go as a book character. in my day we all just said too hard and went as movie characters. no footballers though...

I have two kids. It is piss easy to go as a book character.

You can Google if you don't know any.

 

[Chief]

So in short. Mother uses her son to troll Nic Nat (by way of cultural appropriation). Nic Nat gets triggered. Twitter blows up. Mother claims a parental win (like some sort of Mother of the year contender). Outrage continues. Mother cracks a bevvy (celebration, wooo). Outrage deepens. Mother claims she wasn't trolling and is actually the second coming of Mother Mary. Outrage spreads onto bigfooty. Farm Boy comments.

If that's the way you see it, the rest of the world will allow you your fantasy.

 

[aCunningPlan]

History is only a factor when it suits.

The fact is I guarantee most of the people offended by this are white and have absolutely no relation to the history of it.

By the way there is no history of Australians dressing as Australian Fijians.

This is a racial issue, not a national issue.

Australians have historically engaged in kidnapping pacific islanders to work on the sugar cane fields; if you want to look at historical instances where white Australians have looked at pacific islanders as a lesser race. They couldn't just remove their skin colour when it suited them.

 

[BF Tiger]

Constance Hall, nearly 900,000 followers on FB. Including 16 of my friends, who all happen to be female. Didn't know so many of them can't think and speak for themselves.

 

[Bostonian]

LOL. African-American friends call each other the N word all the time too. What would happen if a white person said it?

That just proves my point on words changing meanings and tones.

These days if a white guy has black friends and they say it all the time around him, they in all likelihood won't have an issue with him using it in a way of positivity, not negativity.

As I've said before, context and intent.

No, I'm not the one keeping it alive. I didn't write the article. I'm a white boy from the suburbs, blackface doesn't offend me at all.

But guess what? It offends a hell of a lot of people. That's why there is outrage. And you don't get to tell other cultures what they find offensive. So go ahead, paint your skin black all you want. But don't be shocked when a lot of people take exception to it.

And that's why we need to challenge these people on their ideas.

And in this case, the mother obviously knew it would cause outrage but did it anyway. What an silly woman.

The fact people are "outraged" says a lot about a small section of our community with too loud a voice.

If a small kid dressing up as his idol causes the emotion of outrage we need to check those outraged people into a clinic and have them checked over for mental issues. Not give them a platform where their views become the norm that everyone else has to cowtail too.

 

[PetterdHoisted]

Coul

all just my own opinion and i dont profess to be expert or automatically 'in the right', based on a fair amount of reading on the topic of 'racism' and without trying to butt heads with anyone, or paint it as 'us vs them', 'righteous vs ignorant', 'racist vs non-racist' etc...

people of all 'colours' can be the victim of individual racial prejudice, although it would carry far more 'sting' for non-whites.

i was called a 'white maggot' once in the alice while visiting family as a 12 year old. it scared me, and it was an example of racial prejudice. but it didnt question my entire being and worth in the way the reverse probably would have. once the initial fear subsided, i was largely unaffected. to put it simply, outside of the 'individual racial prejudice' level, 'true racism' requires a power imbalance that white people have not only never experienced, they created. 'individual racial prejudice' can and does flow both ways, 'institutionalised racism' which is far more insidious and far more common, only goes one.

white people have not anywhere at any time faced 'institutionlised racism', which is the far more insidious problem than explicit outburst of a racial nature in public. see my final copy and paste for a bit of expansion on this.

'racism' as an issue is extraordinarily nuanced, but yeah - youd be hard pressed to argue that white people are the victims of racism outside of the individual level, which is not overly common in any event, and doesn't carry anywhere near the 'weight' of true 'racism'.

white people are largely insulated from racial stress, and have been conditioned and existed as the 'racial norm' for a long, long time now. a good place to start, and i post this a lot, is the article 'white fragility': [http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/view/249].

broadly speaking, you can 'do something racist' without 'being a racist'; you can 'do something racist' without intending to 'do something racist', and you can hold racial prejudices while being friends with people in that particular racial category you are broadly prejudiced against.

its not only about intent, and it isnt only about the particular person in question 'being cool with it'. it isn't about 'some of my best friends are...', nor is it as easy as categorisation of people into 'racist' and 'not racist'.

on the whole, 'painting yourself black' is frowned upon by many. you can do it out of admiration, you can do it out of ridicule, but it remains a charged action.

lastly, using 'white chicks' as an example doesn't really change much. it wasn't a great movie, it could also be rightly argued as fairly offensive, but showing an example where two black people have (possibly? probably? definitely?) been racially and culturally insensitive really proves nothing, and doesn't excuse the overall problem.

yes the kid had no intent to be racist, yes he idolises a black person, and the mum may have had no intent either. this does not excuse the act that can and does reflect some shame onto many people of colour. blackface has been degrading in the past, this picture can and will reach many people this has been degrading towards today, and it is simply not necessary, regardless of 'intent'. all just my opinion, of course.

brief disclaimer - not trying to inflame or criticise anyone, and happy to engage, clarify or expand on any points ive made.

to copy and paste from a prior post of mine, as my hopefully final (rather lengthy) word on this issue:

"without trying to start a fight or get personal or paint myself as 'the good guy', but i pesonally believe that racism is not something with which white people have ever been tarnished in the true sense. obviously you can be insulted based on the colour of your skin ('stupid lazy white c***!') which is offensive and an insult, based on your race. it does not, however, carry the same personal and social significance of an equivalent insult directed at a person of colour ('stupid lazy black c***!'). one carries centuries of personal and social belittling at the hands of the people that have economically, politically, socially, and culturally carried the balance of power, often to the direct detriment of people of colour. one is simply far more loaded than the other. there hasn't been, historically, the negatives carried with whiteness that there has with being a person of colour.

of course it is possible to dislike a person of another colour without being racist, just like its possible to engage in racism without being a racist.

that is why people often say 'white people cannot be victims of racism'. it is a lazy statement, because of course white people can and are abused on the basis of their skin colour, but without the same historical power factors, it does not carry the same sting, nor are white people subject to broad institutional racism.

my sources for the above (admittedly very briefly put) claims are:

Hilliard, A. (1992). Racism: Its origins and how it works. Paper presented at the meeting of the Mid-West Association for the Education of Young Children, Madison, WI.

Mills, C. (1999). The Racial Contract. NY: Cornell University Press.

Feagin, J. R. (2006). Systematic Racism: A theory of oppression. New York: Routledge.

Di Angelo, R. (2011) White Fragility. International Journal of Pedagogy."

Could not disagree more. telling a white person that their injury is less because they are white, you are just peeing in the same puddle as the racist, don't care how many scholarly refs you provide.

It's simple:
-Colour carries NO meaning
-Condemn all discrimination based on it.
-Be happy

 

[Furn2]

How else is a white kid supposed to look like Nik Nat ?