I watched the skit, and I watched Harry Connick Jr. speak about how we as Americans have come so far towards equality and toward "not making black people look like [stereotyped] buffoons." I must say that I agreed entirely with his assessment of the skit. I too found it objectionable and offensive. Harry Connick did not call anyone a racist, not the group that "sang," not the show, not the Australian public. He was gracious and kind, but he expressed his objection to ridiculing black skin through "blackface." He did not object to poking fun at Michael Jackson, not at the Jackson five, but at black skin. Harry Connick Jr. was here to promote his new album, and it would have been easier to let the skit pass without commenting than to speak up. He showed tremendous courage and exposed himself to great criticism and financial loss by speaking up for what he considered truth and right. Good job Harry! I will buy your next album, not because I love jazz, but to support your courage.
I am not a fantastic student of history or politics in America, but a piece of the history of social justice for minority races in the United States of America is my story. It is the story of my mother as an American of Mexican descent and the story of my father as an (now naturalized) immigrant from India. The story of justice for minority races in America runs through my veins and reverberates through the privilege of opportunity I have known. Because I own a little piece of that history, I feel compelled to speak up with my "inside scoop." I hope that my anecdotal perspective will add a little understanding as to why we as Americans are sensitive to joking about skin color.
In modern-day America, there are still at least a couple of generations that grew up in a segregated society, a society where the color of your skin determined your value to society, your perceived intelligence, your opportunities for education, your wages, and your social status. At this point in history, with all the opportunity I have owned by birthright, the way that my mother grew up is nearly unimaginable to me.
Near the Mexican border, segregation divided schools into "white" and "Mexican". My grandmother wisely taught my mother English before Spanish so that my mother could pass for white and be educated in the white school. The white school provided a far superior education to what she would have experienced in the Mexican school. Race discrimination was alive and well in Texas in the 1950's, but because of my my grandmother's shrewdness and my mother's diligence and determination, my mother became one of the first in her family to finish university and live above poverty.
My father arrived from India in the USA around 1970, thirsty for opportunity, and just in time to benefit from the civil rights movement. He studied to at a state university and has practiced as an architect for the last 25 years. He came with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and he has worked hard for decades to be able to own his own beautiful piece of suburbia, and even, a few years ago, a black, shiny Mercedes Benz. Discrimination based on his accent or his skin were not permitted by law, and he has experienced little illegal discrimination in a post-civil rights America. He has excelled on a more level playing field than had ever existed for minorities before. I regularly hear him say, in his soft Indian accent, with overwhelming gratitude, "only in America, only in America would my story be possible."
For the black community, even more than for immigrants or the Mexican community, I think racism and segregation have gouged a terribly deep scar. For hundreds of years people were brought from Africa against their will. They were treated as property. They were bought and sold, bred, and abused. When the civil war ended in 1867, they were freed from being slaves, but left to live as a parallel society, with a lower set of standards in justice and education, just to name a couple dimensions of inequality. After hundreds of years in captivity, freedom left blacks in a post-civil war society, neither African nor fully American, in terms of their rights and privileges as citizens. Nearly a hundred years passed before the courage of the civil rights movement peacefully began the process of righting the wrongs left by more than 300 years of injustice based on skin color.Because Aussies have no history of slavery, the story of African-Americans may not resonate with most, but if you go back only a generation, Aussies shudder to think that children of the "stolen generations" were taken from their Aboriginal families because of their mixed (white) blood. Australia's good heart is appalled by the injustice and inhumanity of taking mixed children away from their own Aboriginal Australian parents, who were considered an inferior race and culture. Aussies, with few exceptions, treat the stolen generations with respect and kindness and sympathy. Aussies would not stand to see others, especially those in another country, ridicule the color of the skin of their "stolen generations" because of the injustices that they have suffered.
Americans feel the same protection towards our African-American population that Aussies feel towards their stolen generations. In some ways, the sentiment of protection may even be stronger since the injustice went on for a much greater length of time and involved much greater segments of our society both as the abuser and as the abused. As Americans, we tolerate poking fun at what people do as individuals or even quirky things that communities do as sub-cultures of Americans. We cannot, however, abide the ridicule of the color of skin. The wounds of skin-based injustice are too fresh to be funny to us. We have come too far as a society, toward equality and justice for all Americans, and we refuse to go backwards, even in jest.
So, to my American friends, do not be so quick to see universal racism in Australia. Aussies as a culture, are irreverent and funny and self-deprecating. Aussies tend to make fun of everything they like and everything they dislike. Irreverent humor is the Aussie way of life, and it brings a casual freshness that I love to my daily relationships and interactions. Because of their humor, Aussies are not easily offended, which is why many do not understand the great offense caused by the skit. I don't believe that the "blackface" skit was meant as it has been interpreted in the greater global context. Although the skit will cause a great many Americans offense, I do not think it was meant as a racial slur.
To my Aussie friends, our offence at your jest is not overly sensitive. We call ourselves the land of "liberty and justice for all;" we mean that phrase (from our pledge of allegiance) especially toward those among us who had long been deprived of full equality because of their skin color. I hope I live to see the day when our societal wounds around slavery, segregation, and civil rights are finally fully healed. Until that day, when justice and equality are complete and injustice based on skin color passes away from our living memory as Americans, we'll laugh alongside you if you joke about our quirks; but jokes about color will cut us too deeply, exposing the shame of a history we have long struggled to set right.
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