In the last few days, Megyn Kelly’s show has been cancelled for heavily defending people who use blackface costumes for Halloween. Thank you NBC for making the moral decision to do so. While most people understand that blackface is not okay, there are groups of people who approach issues as such with ignorance.
“What’s wrong with an innocent act if we’re just having fun?”
Or as Megyn Kelly had stated, “But what is racist?” Kelly asked. “Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”
Let us be clear. There is a long shame-filled history behind blackface and it should in no way, shape, or form be dismissed as a fun act of face painting.
The issue with this is that a behavior which has a history of extremely negative meaning to another person is dismissed as nothing, is trivialized by people who have never been bothered by the act and do not deserve the right to determine that the act should not damage those that have been affected. You do not have that right, Megyn Kelly.
In the recent years, there have been counter-statements of individuals stating that things are okay and wouldn’t bother them if those behaviors were done to them. Individuals who are defending such behaviors and have never been affected by them need to understand the history of what these acts have meant to other people, stand in the shoes of those that have experienced the harm, and empathize.