The conversations are amazing
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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I think you're tying yourself into a logical pretzel here, are you going to tell me blackface isn't racist because nearly nobody has that pure black use in minstrel shows? This seems like incredible displays of mental gymnastics, rather than taking occams razor.
I don't agree that racism is the simplest explanation. I could be wrong, but it isn't how I've seen the image be used.
How have you seen the image being used in a manner that makes other explanations more likely?
No. Like I said, I think your explanation could also make sense. It's just not the assumption that I made.
Fair enough. However, I think it's worth pointing out that the most vocal users of such iconography, when confronted with even the possibility that it may in fact be racist to depict a chinese man as a yellow bear (curiously, usually depicted wearing a red shirt, like the flag of the PRC), they tie themselves into frothing logical pretzels to defend their usage, rather than shifting to any other clearly non-racist yet still insulting caricature.
Note: absolutely not saying the author of Pooh was making anti-China iconography way back when, I am pointing out modern usage.
His shirt being red referencing the PRC is actually a great non-racist visual connection. And of course they wouldn't suddenly switch to another caricature; the meme is Pooh, so that's what they're going to use.
The thing with the shirt is that it places greater emphasis on the visuals. If we accept that there's in some cases a connection to the shirt, we can also accept that that means there is certainly connection to the yellow bear. "Yellowface" is already a known concept.
Hmm, yeah makes sense.