Some things interest me, some things confound and confuse me, and then there are things that make me say “hmmm….” This is certainly the latter.
A white Virginia town official is facing heavy backlash for what had been unmistakably labeled as “black face.” Faron Hamblin, the councilman in question, dressed up as Randy Watson for Halloween, a character featured in the 1989 movie Coming to America. He posted a photo of himself on Facebook and captioned it, “I went as the legendary Randy Watson tonight. Give it up to my band, ‘Sexual Chocolate.'” Soon after, he received fierce backlash, as he was berated for his insensitivity, racism, and cultural appropriation, for which he offered an apology after taking down the post. “I never intended for this to be a racist issue,” he stated in another Facebook post.
Just in case you have been living under a rock for the past century, “black face” is when someone who is not black uses makeup to darken their skin to play a character who is black. Whether this is for Halloween, a play, or a movie, cancel culture has deemed this a disgusting and racist act. While one must admit the origins of black face are quite nefarious, I do not think all acts of black face are racist in nature. However, cancel culture is not as considerate and gracious and certainly not as forgiving. It is safe to say that the cancel culture vulture will, rest assuredly, consume the legacy of Faron Hamblin. These are the rules now.
But are these rules hypocritical? If it is called “racist” and especially “cultural appropriation” for a white person to dress in black face in any way, shape, form, or fashion, what is it called when the inverse happens? What happens when black people lighten their skin to appear as white or as another race of people – wouldn’t that be “racist” and “cultural appropriation” also?
How about in the case of rap artist Lil Nas X? He is a black man who put on white makeup to dress as the Harry Potter movie character Lord Voldermort. Or in the case of another rap artist known as The Weeknd? He is another black African American dressing up as Don Vito Corleone from the movie The Godfather and subsequently putting on white makeup. Even classic comedians like Dave Chappell donned white face in his comedic sketches. How is it that black people culturally appropriating other cultures are overlooked, excused, or downright celebrated for doing so, but white people are accused as vicious bitter racists who dare not EVER do such a thing, and if they do, face absolutely dire consequences?
Well, the publication Newsone offers a highly contentious take with vitriolic words meant to score woke points within this far-Left culture.
They state, “It’s almost 2022 and there are still scores of salty white people who don’t understand that racism isn’t the two-way street they desperately wish it was, and that for a double standard to occur, the standard would need to be the same from the start for all parties involved.” They continue, “Do we really need to go through the effort, once again, of explaining the fact that there is no history of white minstrel shows and non-white people caricaturing white people through racist costumes with exaggerated features? Do we really need to remind white people that they are not only the majority, but they represent the default for social and cultural normalcy in the Western world, and because of that their stereotypes don’t carry nearly as much weight as that of Black people and people of color? So, even when it comes to movies like White Chicks or Eddie Murphy’s white characters that he has portrayed in movies, nobody cares about white people’s pretend outrage over it because the context simply ain’t the same.”
Well, you see, it doesn’t quite work that way, at least in a moralistic society for which right and wrong are the bedrock of humanity. You see, in a moralistic society, right and wrong are the determining factors for proper and fair conduct. Without such things, society devolves into a woke stupor of Leftist immorality. In this Leftist version of morality, concepts of right and wrong are relative, resulting in hypocritical hot takes regarding perceived grievances and crediting such grievances to albeit legitimate instances in human history that support such a narrative. This results in certain instances of “wrong” given more credence than others due to its relativistic push based on cultural acceptance of “right vs. wrong.”
As far as the Bible is concerned, wrong is wrong, and sin is sin. It doesn’t matter the pretext for said sin or the extenuating circumstances surrounding such sin. The only thing that matters is that sin has been committed. Sin is not relative, and it is considered hypocrisy to engage in that which is expressly condemned on one side or another, regardless of the justification. But relativism is a practice given credence by the Left. Therefore, the idea of wrong is only applicable when necessary. Thus, Faron Hamblin is guilty, and Lil Nas X, The Weeknd, and any & all blacks who decide to engage in whiteface are all vindicated and once more empowered to express a sense of hypocrisy detrimental to a functioning society, further deepening the divide of an already fractured nation.
Until we realize right and wrong are objective traits and not subjective, I am afraid situations like this will continue to grow in prevalence until we are undone by our own self-imposed widening chasm of petty differences.
May God have mercy on our nation.
