Ditt-fucking-O.

Al Jolson made a career off of blackface.

well good thing he died in 1950

Light skinned slaves kept in the house, dark skinned slaves kept in the fields.

good thing slavery was abolished in 1863

do you have any recent examples?

So, if your point is that there is no cause and effect brought on by history that’s ignorant.

Gladwell has a whole chapter on this in Blink. The short answer is most whites and about half of blacks have a visceral, negative reaction to African features. It is not a general, sloppy claim. Or at least, their is research that indicates this that you can feel free to disagree with.

here’s the thing darrell. how can people be blind to race if it is brought up constantly? not everything is racist or secretly racist. maybe sammy was just using a cream that happened to bleach his skin and it isnt a sign of him selling out to white media.

I’ve got to say, I don’t agree with all of Darrell’s points but I think many of you attacking him don’t have near the understanding on this issue. You can wish race away, but we have 100’s of years of customs and attitudes that play a role even today. I doubt a single person on this blog saw Chris Rock’s new movie “Good Hair” but it deals with some of the same issues, and Chris Rock isn’t some race-baiter just trying to score points. His movie about black women and men putting toxic chemicals in the hair just to look like caucasian hair isn’t something that’s made up. I’m not sure that most white people have been confronted with things like weaves and skin-bleaching, but low self-esteem about black skin and hair is nothing at all new.

Now I can’t say for sure what Sammy Sosa’s intent with the bleaching, but if you ever spend some time in a place like Brazil you ask about why people bleach their skin. Lighter skin is consistently thought of as a bad thing despite the fact that the average Brazilian is darker than even Sosa used to be. In all, I just think just jumping down Darrell and Jemele’s throat everytime race is brought up speaks to how uncomfortable people are talking about race in more than “Is racism bad?” kind of way. Whether you believe it or not, race does have some impacts on a day-to-day level like just about anything that has such a dramatic impact on the way we perceive the world or just America.