As an American living in Australia I've encountered a lot of things I would consider racially insensitive, and some that I find downright offensive.
For example, the N-word isn't really as shockingly taboo as it is back home. My husband's brother-in-law, when I told him about the murder rate back in Oakland, where I used to live, asked if it was mostly a "[n-word] problem." It was like someone had knocked the wind out of me. I can't even say that word unless I'm being ironic, quoting, or reciting rap lyrics and even then it makes me very uncomfortable to say it.
Also, I see these
golliwog dolls in quaint gift shops and toy stores and I just have to shake my head and cringe. There is no way you'd see that in America, except maybe at a crafts faire at a white racist church in the South, and even then they'd be made by a woman in her 80's who didn't know better.
I grew up in California, where political correctness arose out of an environment of social activism in the 60's. My dad, who is white, used to volunteer for the Black Panthers and personally knew Huey P. Newton. He wasn't perfect, though. He used to read to me from a copy of "Little Black Sambo" that he had as a child growing up in the South. Still, it's from that upbringing that I was raised to be aware of racism and aware of societal context, especially that things haven't always been the way they are.
I think Harry Connick Jr.'s reaction was perfectly reasonable. Considering the historical context of racism in the U.S. (slavery, black suffrage, Jim Crow, race riots, KKK, MLK, etc.) we have a much lower threshold for stereotypes.
As for the comparison to "White Chicks" and other examples of African America performers playing white? Well, let's just say I'm not as quick to jump on the bandwagon of calling that racist. White people didn't get bought and sold for four hundred years, then deliberately insulted and denigrated on every occasion, and have the only white faces seen in any popular media portrayed as grotesque caricatures. I think, frankly a little joke at our expense isn't so bad, considering how easy we've had it.
As for the comparison to Robert Downey Jr. in "Tropic Thunder," did anyone miss the irony that his character was an
Australian who didn't seem to understand how racist it was that he was playing a black man? Or that the actual African American character in the movie is himself playing up to a stereotype in order to conceal his homosexuality while simultaneously calling out Robert Downey Jr.'s character for being a racist stereotype and taking away a role from an actual African American actor? There were layers upon layers of satire going on in that film, not just poking fun at method acting.
It is way different from a bunch of dentists or whatever putting on afro wigs and singing a Jackson 5 song.
The sketch was just bad taste. It's stupid, not clever and was rightfully gonged and put in its place. The intent wasn't necessarily racist, at least not by Australian standards, but it is something that I, as an American, would never want to be associated with and find absolutely unacceptable.
