BLACKFACE IS BLACKFACE

Blackface makes me sad
BECAUSE
Blackface is always bad

It's bad at Halloween
It's bad if you're a Queen
Because
Blackface is blackface.

It's bad if you're a man
It's bad if you've got a tan
Because
Blackface is blackface.

If you have 1 ancestor 500 years back that's black

If you have 10 ancestors 100 years back that are black

If you are Halle Berry,
ALWAYS clear when under attack
about the fact
that you ID as black

It's STILL called blackface
when you put on blackface
BECAUSE
blackface is blackface


If you have a Dominican Daddy

and a Puerto Rican Mama 
who have both got some black
EVEN THEN
blackface is blackface

which is bad at Halloween
even if you are an entitled
Prima Donna Queen
because
BLACKFACE IS BLACKFACE


~DebLynn
 

Maybe Zoe Saldana should have thought about "honoring Nina Simone" by producing a movie that stars a black actress, who identifies as some type of black woman without reservation, one who has the dark-skin and black features that Nina wrote and sung about routinely --instead of putting on blackface and stepping into the starring role herself BECAUSE blackface is blackface.

 - - - - -
The gap between Zoe's mindset on race and Nina's is probably as wide as the gap between Gandhi's and Donald Trump's just about anything under the sun. That means Zoe wouldn't have made a good producer of a movie about Nina Simone either.



If  co-stars Zoe Saldana, Mike Epps, and David Oyelowo
are feeling especially brave then maybe all three of them
can start thinking about the fact that
Saldana were preferentially hired
in the first place
because she has light face
with white features
just like 80 to 90 percent of black actresses since 
white Hollywood stopped forcing 

black women to play the maid in most films


Once more, the white folk involved pretend they don't see large aspects of race and are colorblind then follow up by leaving breadcrumbs for three black people, two of whom might actually identify as black, who pretend they don't see the colorism in the actress hiring even when this colorism based hiring was highlighted by blackface

--EVEN WHEN "Nina" is a story is about one of the ultimate enemies of erasing blackness, Miss Nina Simone.




This movie is the gift to black women that just keeps on giving, one slap in the face at a time.
HERE'S OUR SILVER LINING
It's a good thing that Nina Simone documentary on Netflix , "What Happened Miss Simone?" is excellent. I suggest everyone watch it now and then again when "Nina" comes out toward mid April.

Pssst!  Someone tell Zoe that racist roles exist and that racist roles have been turned down black actors.

Here's a clip of Denzel Washington taking about how he turned down the starring role in "The N*gga They Couldn't Kill" early in his career, much earlier than Saldana is in her career, comparatively speaking.

And for those who want to say, "At least her story got told. That's the most important thing," Hollywood is working on Madam C. J. Walker's story next.