Journal of Controversial Ideas

According to one version of the reasonable offense objection, even those who wear cross-racial make-up as part of personal costumes that stay shy of racial mockery—think again of the De Lesseps’s Diane Ross impersonation and of the Beyoncé impersonation by the Missouri nurse—generally do so to cause offense, which might be thought to render all such uses of cross-racial make-up unjustified. In premise form, this argument might be stated as follows:

Therefore,

The best way to argue for premise 1 is to draw an analogy. Suppose that in some European country, a group of friends started to wear swastika emblems on their coats. Yet, rather than seeking to communicate their support for (Neo)Nazism, their motives for wearing the emblems happen to be innocent. Perhaps they just like the aesthetic qualities of the swastika, or perhaps they simply hope that it will bring them luck, the swastika being a symbol of prosperity in much of the Asian world. Whatever their precise motivation, I suspect many will intuit—myself included—that their actions are wrong. What is pertinent for present purposes is that this intuition can be accounted for by the fact that, within Europe, the swastika is mostly worn by people with (Neo)Nazi sympathies, which looks sufficient to render the displaying of the emblems morally unjustified within this part of the world. (Although the argument from analogy proposed here does not require me to explain exactly why it is sufficient, I believe the explanation should be sought in the fact it is key to our wellbeing and to social cohesion that we can be reasonably sure that others are treating us, as well as third parties, with what Stephen Darwall terms “recognition respect,”51 i.e., respect for our own and other people’s dignity as a person,52 which seems impossible within the case at hand, given that anyone who witnesses the swastika emblems within a European context will have every reason to assume that those who wear them are advocating (Neo)Nazi tenets, such as antisemitism and homophobia. If correct, then inasmuch as we should try to ensure that others have such assurances, as I take it we should, it follows that the actions of the swastika-wearing friends must be wrong despite their innocent intentions.) However, if the proclivity of those wearing swastika emblems on coats to be motivated by (Neo)Nazi tenets suffices to render it impermissible for everyone to wear this symbol on their coat irrespective of their intentions (barring a few possible exceptions, such as ones where World War II movies are being filmed), then insofar as even those who wear cross-racial make-up as part of personal costumes that are not guilty of racial mockery (see Section 2.1) generally do so with the aim of offending others, these uses of cross-racial make-up look invariably wrong too whether or not some have innocent intentions for engaging in them. To see this, notice that, under these conditions, just as witnessing someone in Europe wear a swastika emblem on their coat (and do so outside a film-set) makes it reasonable to think that they are sympathetic to (Neo)Nazism, so witnessing someone with a personal costume that features such make-up would make it reasonable to think that they are aiming to cause negative mental states such as shock, annoyance, and anger even if this sometimes turns out to be false.

Whereas a lot more is to be said about premise 1, these observations indicate that there are strong considerations speaking in its favor. By contrast, premise 2 does not appear to have much going for it. One piece of evidence for doubting whether most people who wear cross-racial make-up as part of personal costumes that do not mock members of the imitated race in the ways identified in Section 2.1 are seeking to offend others is anecdotal. Over the past years, not only have there been many individuals who have vehemently denied that their wearing of cross-racial make-up was meant to cause offense, but also those who claimed to have done so in order to pay tribute to a cross-racial individual or to a particular group whose members are predominantly, if not wholly, of a different racial background. Besides the already mentioned examples of De Lesseps’s Diana Ross impersonation and Antoine Griezmann’s impersonation of a Harlem Globetrotter, one might think here of Julianne Hough’s cross-racial impersonation of the character Crazy Eyes from the television series Orange Is the New Black in 2013. As the American actress wrote in a Tweet at the time that responded to the uproar spawned by her outfit, “I am a huge fan of the show Orange Is the New Black, actress Uzo Aduba, and the character she has created,” before adding that her impersonation was done “all out of fun and out of respect for the character.”53

It might be pointed out, correctly, that since most, if not all, societies have taboos on offending others, especially in ways that are regarded as racially insensitive, there are strong social and professional incentives for individuals such as De Lesseps, Griezmann, and Hough to deny that they were seeking to cause offense. While this suggests that such statements do not prove too much on their own, there are additional considerations that, combined with this kind of anecdotal evidence, do seem to offer us strong reasons for doubting whether, in the main, those who wear cross-racial make-up as part of personal costumes that steer clear of the types of racial mockery discussed in Section 2.1 do so with ill intentions. One was mentioned in Section 2.2 when I noted that even in the United States where opposition to the use of such make-up appears the greatest, no less than 42% of the adult population report being unconvinced that it is always wrong for a white person to wear the most controversial type of racial make-up, namely black make-up, whereas another poll indicates that 34% believe that it is at least sometimes morally permissible for white people to do so.54 (To put these figures into perspective, a much larger share of adult Americans, namely 70–72% among white Americans, 71% among black Americans, and 58% among Hispanics—believes that it is never acceptable for a white person to use the N-word.)55 Another relevant additional consideration is to do with the fact that, each year, tens, if not hundreds, of millions of individuals dress up as someone else during costumed holidays and events such as Halloween, Carnival, Purim, and themed parties, which might involve impersonating specific celebrities, politicians, members of another sex, members of another profession, members of another age group, etc. Although it is theoretically possible that most of these individuals are seeking to shock, annoy, or otherwise offend others as opposed to simply be enjoying this type of pretend play or showing their admiration or affection for particular persons (e.g., a movie star, a professional athlete) or groups of people (e.g., the Harlem Globetrotters, firefighters), this view is statistically implausible, as it presupposes much higher rates of sadism within contemporary populations than are believed to exist by psychologists.56 However, if this is correct, then it is unclear as to why we should think that those who wear cross-racial make-up as part of personal costumes that portray cross-racial individuals in racially non-mocking ways, i.e., in ways that do not ridicule the appearance, behavior, or social standing of members of the imitated race in the ways described in Section 2.1, would generally have malevolent goals. (Notice in passing that this last consideration also casts doubt on a previously mentioned claim by Howard, namely that when white Canadians believe themselves to have innocent motives for wearing black make-up, their conduct remains best explained by a subconscious desire to assert their perceived racial superiority.)57

Another version of the reasonable offense objection is backward-looking. As noted already, throughout the 19th and first part of the 20th century, countries such as United States and Canada had a theatre genre known as “minstrel shows.” During these shows, white actors, and in some cases black ones as well, would portray black people as buffoonish and dim-witted while wearing burnt cork, shoe polish, or greasepaint to make their skin seem unnaturally dark.58 Because of this history, many contemporary scholars believe that using black make-up for personal costumes can never be morally justified. Consider, for instance, the following statement by Leonard:

One immediate thing to note about this version of the reasonable offense objection, according to which past objectionable uses of cross-racial make-up can render contemporary uses of such make-up wrong, is that its scope appears to be limited. For one thing, it only seems to condemn the use of cross-racial make-up if, and when, the skin color is adopted of a racial group that was historically ridiculed and dehumanized through cross-racial impersonations that featured such make-up and that in some cases might continue to be. So, while wearing black make-up for personal costumes must be off-limits within the United States and Canada given their past black minstrelsy traditions, the fact that neither country had a tradition in which white make-up was used to mock and dehumanize Caucasian people, which is an extremely rare phenomenon if it exists at all, means that the current objection does not proscribe donning this type of make-up in any straightforward manner; while it could be that the problematic use of one type of cross-racial make-up in the past suffices to render impermissible the use of all types of cross-racial make-up, this is by no means obvious and would need to be argued for. For another, it only seems to apply to some countries, namely those in which cross-racial make-up was widely used, and in some cases might still be widely used, to mock and dehumanize members of particular races. Unless this is the case, for one country in the world such as the US to have, or have had, such a practice or tradition would be enough to ruin the party for everyone by making the use of cross-racial make-up wrong across the world, which would be an odd imperialistic implication. By contrast, it appears to lack force within countries that have never had such practices or traditions (whereas an investigation into which countries fit this bill is for historians to conduct, the most likely examples include ones that are, and historically have been, ethnically highly homogenous, such as Iceland and Japan).

Having discussed two ways in which its scope appears to be restricted, the question remains whether the history version of the reasonable offense objection is successful within its domain of application. Is it reasonable to be offended by a person P wearing cross-racial make-up as part of a personal costume when the adopted skin color belongs to a racial group that was historically mocked and dehumanized by cross-racial impersonations involving the use of such make-up within the relevant society even when there are no grounds for assuming that P is seeking to cause offense (see Section 2.5.1) and even when P’s impersonation lacks any specific features that mock the members of the imitated race (see Section 2.1)? To see why I am skeptical, it should be noted that since those who engage in such impersonations do not seem to have the aim of shocking, annoying, or otherwise offending anyone—nor do their impersonations ridicule the appearance of the members of the imitated race (e.g. by representing black people as having unrealistically dark skin or overly large lips); attribute crude stereotypical behaviors to them (e.g., by representing black people as buffoonish or dimwitted); or portray them in degrading roles (e.g., by portraying black people as servants)—it looks like insofar as it is reasonable to be offended by their cross-racial impersonations, it must be because these impersonations remain sufficiently similar to ones that are, or were, disrespectful because of the impersonators’ motives and/or their appearance, behaviors, and/or enacted roles. However, it is doubtful whether enough such similarity exists. Not only is there a world of motivational difference between, say, a white person who performed as a blackface character in a 19th- or 20th-century North American minstrel show and, say, a white person who darkens their skin for a Halloween impersonation that is meant to pay homage to a black idol of theirs (as both De Lesseps and Hough claimed they were seeking to do), cross-racial impersonators who eschew features that mock the appearance, behavior, or social standing of black people like the ones just mentioned end up looking very different from such characters, which can be compared to the difference between, on the one hand, a photo or realistic portrait of someone and, on the other, a humiliating caricature drawing of that person made by a high-school bully on a whiteboard to embarrass them in front of other students.

Lest I be misunderstood, I am not denying here that the use of cross-racial make-up constitutes a relevant similarity even if I am right that it makes an important difference whether or not other people’s skin color is being exaggerated (as happened in North American minstrel shows where black people were represented as having unrealistically dark skin). The point I am making is simply that this link does not seem strong enough to render cross-racial impersonations unjustified in cases where such impersonations are well-intentioned and stay clear of racial mockery. To vindicate this claim, it bears mentioning that there exist many things that we can wear that have some link to unjust or immoral practices or events where the links in question are clearly too weak to create a moral duty to refrain from wearing those things even when they remind some individuals of said practices/events and cause them to suffer unpleasant mental states. For example:

Although there are links between the relata in each of these cases, these connections are so tenuous that they cannot plausibly make it wrong for people to wear a cross-necklace, kippah, headscarf, or BLM T-shirt respectively.

In response, some might concede this but feel that compared to the relata in the examples just mentioned, there exists a much tighter relationship between e.g., past enactments of blackface characters in North American minstrel shows (to return to this example) and the contemporary wearing of black make-up for personal costumes even when these impersonations are neither ill-intentioned nor guilty of racial mockery as defined in Section 2.1. One reason why I think such impressions are misleading is to do with the tendency within the Anglosphere to use the term “blackface” to refer to all possible uses of black make-up, including ones that are well-meaning and that avoid mocking the appearance, behavior, and social standing of black people, such as those by De Lesseps, Hough, and the Missouri nurse. Since this term has highly pejorative connotations, due to its close association with black minstrel characters, using it as a catch-all to describe any possible use of black make-up is like referring to any Muslim headscarf as a “terrorist scarf” or to any BLM T-shirt as a “pro-rioting T-shirt.” Once such pejorative terms are used, the connections between the relata will appear a lot stronger than they are in reality.

Another reason for thinking that the link between blackface characters and impersonations of black individuals such as those by De Lesseps, Hough, and the Missouri nurse is much weaker than many in the United States and Canada nowadays believe is that, while blackface characters have been taboo for several decades within North America, it is only recently that they have come to be widely—although as we saw in Section 2.2 by no means universally—perceived as intimately related to uses of black make-up that seem neither ill-intentioned nor mocking of black people’s appearance, behavior, or social standing. Consider, for instance, how in the early 2000s, American talk-show hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon still felt comfortable, and did not face any professional repercussions for, wearing black make-up on national television; whereas Kimmel did so to impersonate NBA player Karl Malone and television host Oprah Winfrey, Fallon did so as part of an impersonation of comedian Chris Rock.60 Fast-forward circa 15 years and we are presented with a popular television host, Megyn Kelly, being fired not for wearing black make-up herself, but for merely defending someone else who did (Luann De Lesseps) even though this person’s cross-racial impersonation looks to have been well-meaning and did not ridicule black people’s appearance, behavior, or social standing and even though Kelly had been quick to apologize to her viewers and had to be paid an outstanding salary by her employer of reportedly USD 30 million.61 In short, whereas it might appear as if the over-inclusiveness argument offered here draws a false equivalence, both the tendentious use of the term “blackface” and the recent shift in attitudes toward the donning of black make-up and cross-racial make-up more generally suggest otherwise.