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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lwaxy" data-source="post: 6726694" data-attributes="member: 53286">You know, for all my involvement with "black culture" - my Nigerian ex husband btw begs me to ask you what exactly that is, as there are probably more different black cultures than there are nations in the world - the first thing I heard about "blackface" was when there was all this online bashing going on of this poor young star (forgot even who it was, as it didn't seem to matter) because she applied make up to look like her fav char of some show last Halloween. After picking myself up from the floor nearly dying of laughter, I read up on it and had so many facepalm moments I would really have needed an extra pair of hands. Seriously?? Someone dressing up as someone else gets bashed because they actually took their time to get the skin color right? That was the most nonsensical thing I ever heard. It has absolutely nothing to do with the real "blackface" issue that went on in the past. There is such a clear, obvious difference between wanting to portray a specific thing and mocking a whole race or culture. I talked about this with several, including 'colored' people here in Germany and none got it. My son's black cousin (in London, where painting your face for a costume seems to be mostly a non-issue as well as it seems) insisted to have his face in a white make up to be Clark Kent - not just anyone, specifically Kent - and no matter the overly stupid political correctness with superheroes lately, Clark Kent is white. Where is the problem? In the minds of activists-gone-crazy US non-whites mostly, as it seems. My son is what in Nigeria is still called a halfcast without any of the negative connotations this carries in other places. He was constantly put in the role of the black king when it came to Xmas plays, even though he's relatively light, especially in winter. On one hand, he loved it because with the exception of the Ghanan boy who once did it, he always had a part in the plays. On the other side he just wanted to be someone else once in a while. He was so happy when he got other parts in other plays. If he had been any darker, I'm sure he would have asked to paint his face white to portray his fav chars during Halloween or carnival. And nothing at all wrong with that. Then I read the news about how there is international pressure on Germany to change the tradition to usually put one of the kids portraying the 3 Kings in black make up. Same thing with the Netherlands and their Zwarte Piet.  Seriously, some OTHER culture, mainly US culture (if there is such thing as a coherent one) tries to force their views on European countries? That's not CA, but call cultural assimilation again. How is this not insulting? The racism coming from those people flying under the name of anti-racism is quite frightening. It is even more frightening to have it extended to RPGs. Yeah there are issues with stereotypes, but those go in all directions. It is a stereotype, for example, that everyone who puts on different skin color make up is "insert-color-here"facing anything. In most cases they are just taking on another persona. So yes, intend matters. It always does. It is the most important thing to judge on. Oh and someone else mentioned above that real "Gypsies" can't do magic. Don't ever say that to a Rom - they might agree with you, but from what I have seen most would not (and actually me neither but that is a different story).</blockquote>

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