I was just reading about U of T banning a poster promoting The Black-Jew Dialogues, a comedy show "designed to build inter-racial bridges and shatter cultural stereotypes".
In Berlin, they seem a little less sensitive to perceived racist posters. A few weeks ago, while walking the streets of Berlin, I saw a poster promoting Ich bin nicht Rappaport at the Schlosspark Theater. I did a double-take when I saw the poster, because it featured a white man in blackface.
Forevermore, when I see someone in blackface, I think about the Montreal Subbanator fans and the awesome discussion it sparked. The history of blackface conjures up an immense amount of all-to-recent racist history. Blackface has a racist history, and when white people paint their faces black, it is always racist.
U of T may have overreacted. Berlin prefers to underreact.
