A massive ‘up yours’ on display here.
Blackface Morris dancers yesterday defied critics to entertain a May Day pub crowd, while still wearing their controversial make-up.
Members of the Britannia Coconut Dancers in Bacup, Lancashire, split from The Joint Morris Organisation, the umbrella group which represents the country’s 800 dancing teams, after being told to stop painting their faces black in 2020.
The dance body ruled that ‘full face black or other skin tone make-up was a practice that had the potential to cause deep hurt’ and members must stop in response to the Black Lives Matter campaign.
But the group defied instruction and continued to take part in traditional celebrations, appearing in the same costumes and make-up, in front of the Crown Inn on Sunday.
This is what needs to happen. More people need to stand up and refuse to comply. Well done these dancers. Well done indeed. Brings a little joy to my heart to see some defiance at last.
Quite so. Especially as I understand that the Black Face related to the historical tradition of poachers hiding their identity.
Was there any attempt to evaluate the ‘potential to cause deep hurt’? Or was it some third had activist claptrap completely disconnected from the real world?
Much of it goes back to a study by a Canadian academic which concluded, with spectacular solipsism,
“[…] it seems unlikely that North American audiences, who encounter Morris at dance-outs at local shopping centres, pubs, and so on […] would see in blackface dances anything other than a white peoples’ representation of black culture.”
and, as we have seen, where America goes, the (il)liberal offence-seekers of this country will follow, regardless of the fact that morris dancers have been blacking up for centuries as a form of disguise (much more practical than a mask with all that hopping about).
Since the modern approach is to take offence first and ask questions later, the unfortunate Coconutters have found themselves on the receiving end of a lot of nonsense over the past decade or so, including the banning from a House of Commons bar of a beer named in their honour and accusations of being directly inspired by minstrelsy, a Deep South tradition which effectively postdates their origin by many decades, if not centuries.
If the face paint is derived from imitation of dark-skinned people, it is far more likely that, along with the costume, it is imitation of the Moorish pirates (arguably the origin of the word Morris) who raided the west of the British Isles in the 17th and 18th centuries and – oh, the irony! – carried hundreds of English and Irish villagers off into slavery in North Africa.
I agree, LR – well done the Nutters!
Do you suppose that having your business being sacked and burned and you life’s work destroyed causes deep hurt? Burn Loot Murder aren’t the good guys you imbeciles.
Well done the Morrisdancers, more need to stand up to the woke plague
btw I hear Justin Trudeau flew over to take part
“Since the modern approach is to take offence first and ask questions later…”
I have heard of someone taking similar offence to a framed photograph in a pub that depicted coal miners emerging from a pit.
I’d laugh, but….
There simply is no downside to ignoring these infantilised monsters, none!
“Soshul meeja” is the ultimate paper tiger. Don’t post on it, don’t even acknowledge it’s existence. Since it’s inception – what, 15 years is it now? – I have not looked at it once!