By Courtney M.
Earlier this afternoon, a friend of mine had sent me a link to this particular video (above) and, needless to say, I was appalled. Brigham Young University—and the state of Utah, in general—is not exactly a hotbed for widespread acceptance and diversity, so it certainly wasn’t a surprise for me to hear BYU’s student body espouse such blatant (and deeply latent) racist beliefs upon being interviewed. Without excusing the severity of their responses (“I can think of some girls that have jungle fever”), the aversion and total repulsion I have towards this video is much more pointed at the interviewer, himself.
Whether he had the best of intentions or not (it doesn’t matter), comedian Dave Ackerman lost all credibility for himself the second he thought it was ok to don blackface and “act” black for his ill-conceived, poorly-executed social experiment. It is never ok for a white man to dress up as a black man (or any ethnicity or minority) as though it were some kind of character or costume to wear. The fact that he thought he could is symptomatic of a major problem in this country that, quite frankly, makes me sick to my stomach. Embarrassingly enough for him, Ackerman conducted this self-congratulatory behavior under the guise of enlightening others all the while remaining blissfully unaware of his own agency and just how much he’s contributing to the very ignorance he proclaims to fight against.
Oh, the irony.
Not wishing to offend you or anyone else, but I have a better understanding now why some people have referred to Brigham Young University as “BY-Eww”. When I applied for entrance to that school (so many years ago!) I still recall the terse response I received, which concluded with the sentence, “We we wish you well in your academic pursuits at another institution of higher learning.” Deserved or not (if it was, it would have been because of my grade point average), at the time I reacted with some indigence. However, viewing this video I’m thinking, “My wish did eventually come true very “well” for me, so thank God they denied me entrance” No pun intended, but this really is like the ‘pot calling the kettle black’, i.e., I don’t know what’s worse: the interviewer’s ‘black face’ tactic, or the responses of those he interviewed.
ReplyDeleteAgain, if you are a faculty member, student, alumnus or whatever of BYU I don’t want to offend, as I am sure this appalling situation exists in other places as well. Nevertheless, BYU being affiliated with the Mormon church... yeah, no surprise here really -- it’s what I would expect.