227
submitted 3 weeks ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

A city councillor in British Columbia says an online mob of "extremists" and "politically motivated hackers" is responsible for uncovering and publicizing a photo of him wearing a blackface costume to a Halloween party in 2007.

Colwood Coun. Ian Ward on Monday addressed the photo in a statement on his X account after the picture, which was originally published on a personal family blog, surfaced on social media in recent days.

Ward acknowledged he posed for the photo wearing a Washington Bullets basketball jersey, a gold chain and a wig, with his teeth coloured gold and his hands and face painted black.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Binzy_Boi@piefed.social 79 points 3 weeks ago

"times change"

Bro thinks 2007 was the Johnson administration.

[-] classic@fedia.io 8 points 3 weeks ago

I'm not sure what year blackface became for reals not okay. Definitely after the mid80s but also definitely before 2000

[-] sbv@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 weeks ago

We knew it was wrong in the 90s, which is why edgelords like this dude (and Trudeau) were into it.

[-] classic@fedia.io 2 points 3 weeks ago

I place the limit of acceptability somewhere around Soul Man (1986).

[-] cygnus@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 weeks ago

Seriously, was blackface such a rampant thing in the aughts? It seems like everyone was doing it, but I wasn't aware of it at the time.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 17 points 3 weeks ago

No it wasn't. Even in the 90s we knew it was wrong.

[-] SlothMama@lemmy.world -4 points 3 weeks ago

Revisionist history tbh, we absolutely did not know better in the 90s or early aughts, certainly not where I lived. The world was different before widespread Internet access and your pocket of culture, if it really was the way you think you know and remember was certainly not universal.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago

In 1992 Alladin came out - wearing blackface in a costume for that was definitely not the norm. You'll find tens of thousands of pictures of kids dressed up in poofy hats and sweeping pants whose parents knew not to face paint them to be more accurate (and these are kids who'd get facepaint to dress as the lion king or a ghost).

It may be that it was just Boston Massachusetts being a haven for the political correctness but if you know anything about Boston you'll probably know we have a long sad history of being racist assholes (especially to PoC, Italians, Irish, Germans, Catholics... even Native Americans! So I guess pretty much everyone).

I'm happy to admit there are areas of the US where blackface is still normal... but I think the adults are still aware of how problematic it is.

[-] SlothMama@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

I absolutely believe that in a large city the culture you experienced was drastically different than what I experienced. I didn't grow up in a city, and yeah things were pretty different for me as a result.

It's okay, it just means your pocket of experience and mine pool from different demographics and normative values.

[-] interrobang@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 weeks ago

I grew up in Kentucky and dressed as Pocahontas when the movie came out, but nobody painted any kids face and blackface was definitely known & not okay.

We even learned some very questionable 'heritage not hate' bullshit, but blackface would not fly by the late 90s.

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

People are saying in the 90s but I know we had a guy dressed as a terrorists with a brown face on Halloween day when I was in highschool back in 2002 and no one cared, but maybe it's because slavery isn't part of our history and that part of US culture hadn't influenced us yet... These days people like to act like it wasn't accepted for disguises around here 20 years ago even though it actually was. Hell, I know for a fact we even had some on TV after 2005 and no one cared...

[-] 4am@lemm.ee 1 points 3 weeks ago

People still think Group X is funny and not problematic at all

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago

Never heard of that

this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
227 points (98.7% liked)

Canada

7164 readers
143 users here now

What's going on Canada?



Communities


🍁 Meta


🗺️ Provinces / Territories


🏙️ Cities / Regions


🏒 SportsHockey

Football (NFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Football (CFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer


💻 Universities


💵 Finance / Shopping


🗣️ Politics


🍁 Social & Culture


Rules

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:

https://lemmy.ca


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS