Alex Hale apologies for dressing up as Tupac

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The_Tiler

Well-known member
I just don't get it.

Alex dresses up, at fancy dress party, as his favourite singer.

Why does he have to apologise?

Surely its not racist to dress as your hero at a fancy dress party.
He wasn't mocking Tupac.
 
I remember going to the Army v Navy rugby about 10 years ago. We went as the A Team and my mate went as Mr T (he's white). Absolutely nothing meant by it. No racial undertones.

It has to he taken in some 'context'. It's not just 'shock and horror' white guy blacks up.

Then again.... Hayles isn't the brightest of people. He's had a few dodgy years😂
 
The_Tiler said:
I just don't get it.

Alex dresses up, at fancy dress party, as his favourite singer.

Why does he have to apologise?

Surely its not racist to dress as your hero at a fancy dress party.
He wasn't mocking Tupac.
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Ask that of the Sun who deemed it worthy to print.
 
He didnt just dress up as his favourite singer though, did he?

He ‘blacked up’.
I‘m surprised people are seemingly offended by someone apologising for something that they did that was ……. offensive.
 
I am still waiting for apologies from my three coloured mates who turned up at a Forces fancy dress party as members of the KKK. back in the 80's.
 
FabioPorkpie said:
He didnt just dress up as his favourite singer though, did he?

He ‘blacked up’.
I‘m surprised people are seemingly offended by someone apologising for something that they did that was ……. offensive.
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You need to explain to me then.

If he didnt black up his face, he wouldn't look like Tupac, so it would be pointless. As a poster said above, his mate dressed as Mr T, blacked his face.

Are we saying that nobody can go to a fancy dress party dressed as anybody apart from their own race and colour?
 
The world has indeed gone mad. They'll be able to do you for cleaning your shoes with Cherry Blossom soon.
 
The_Tiler said:
I just don't get it.

Alex dresses up, at fancy dress party, as his favourite singer.

Why does he have to apologise?

Surely its not racist to dress as your hero at a fancy dress party.
He wasn't mocking Tupac.
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As someone who is very much against racism/ xenophobia and I really do think around 10-20% of our population are racist, I don't really get why he should apologise for this, but I totally 100% understand why he has, and it is fair enough.

It depends on the context, and retrospective context by people who were not there does not always work, but a lot of the time it can do also. It is hard to apply one rule for all scenarios, and sometimes that can have the opposite effect.

Hales: “The theme was musicians and Tupac is, was and always will be my favourite musician so I went (dressed) as him,”

He's blatantly not being racist there, certainly not intentionally, he's not discriminating against black people, he's showing an appreciation/ recognition.
Would it be less recognition/ appreciation if he didn't embrace Tupac's colour, or would anyone even know who he was meant to be dressed as?
Should he just deny who his favourite musician is, and whitewash over his musical tastes? That could be more disrespectful from his point of view, or the people who know him and the context.

I suppose to some when they do fancy dress they literally try and imitate as much as possible. I can see how some others who were not there, could misunderstand the context and get offended though. Maybe I've misunderstood the context.

This isn't really comparable to someone blatantly being racist, discriminating or dressing up as the KKK, Hitler or whatever, but it's very easy to see how some can think it is the same, without the context etc.

The racists we do have, could see this as him being in support of racism though, which is the big problem I have with it.
 
The_Tiler said:
You need to explain to me then.

If he didnt black up his face, he wouldn't look like Tupac, so it would be pointless. As a poster said above, his mate dressed as Mr T, blacked his face.

Are we saying that nobody can go to a fancy dress party dressed as anybody apart from their own race and colour?
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I don’t think I’m the right person to explain this to you.

For what it’s worth though, my point was mainly that it shouldn‘t offend anybody when somebody apologises for having blacked up.

Maybe he should have picked somebody who didn’t have such a generic outfit.…. Even blacked up I wouldn’t have looked at that photo and gone ‘oh, he’s Tupac’. Or maybe he could have accepted that people wouldn’t necessarily know who he was supposed to be.

Would somebody in tight black trousers, white socks, black shoes, a single glove and a red leather jacket need to black up for you to know they are Michael Jackson?

Would a Mohawk and fake beard and loads of chunky gold necklaces and a feather earring and sleeveless denim jacket need to black up for you to know they were being Mr T?

Hell, I may have even have considered doing the above blacked up for fancy dress 25 years ago, in my naive youth. But for many years now, I wouldn’t dream of doing so as I understand why it’s offensive.
If I had done it, and I had subsequently found fame and those photos turned up in the media, I would apologise.

I just find it weird that people can’t understand why he feels he should apologise....
How can his apology trigger people?
 
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Contrary to the recent popular belief, the world has not gone mad.

It is not now, nor has it ever been, acceptable to "black face". Period.

Just because you arent offended doesnt make it ok.

Now, I do think its possible for a non-racist person to inadvertently do something racist, without the intention of doing so, but does the lack of intention make it not racist? of course not.

Ask yourself the question, why would people find blacking up so hilarious as part of a fancy dress costume? and if your answer is related to making sure the fancy dress is as authentic as possible, you aint kidding anyone apart from yourself.
 
In a world where racism wasn't a thing. Where skin colour was worthy of no more comment than eye colour or hair colour and where there wasn't a history of black people being persecuted, enslaved and discriminated against and subsequently mocked by white actors "blacking up", then it wouldn't be an issue.

But we don't live in that world sadly. So it is an issue. Hales might not have intended any offence but he's still been naive and ignorant (as are many of the views on this thread).

Ironic that people talk about context to defend people blacking up, because that's exactly the issue. It's not the act alone of blacking up to better represent a character in fancy dress that some find offensive. It's the act of doing so against the context of black history that makes it so, whether intentional or not.
 
FabioPorkpie said:
Would somebody in tight black trousers, white socks, black shoes, a single glove and a red leather jacket need to black up for you to know they are Michael Jackson?

Would a Mohawk and fake beard and loads of chunky gold necklaces and a feather earring and sleeveless denim jacket need to black up for you to know they were being Mr T?

Hell, I may have even have considered doing the above for fancy dress 25 years ago, in my naive youth. But now I wouldn’t dream of doing so as I understand why it’s offensive.
If I had done it, and I had subsequently found fame and those photos turned up in the media, I would apologise.

I just find it weird that people can’t understand why he feels he should apologise....
How can his apology trigger people?
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I think that Michael Jackson outfit would be one of the most recognisable though, there's like 10 boxes to tick there, and that lot would tick 9 of them. Obviously MJ's skin tone gradually got lighter too, he wasn't wearing that outfit in the Jackson 5 etc. It's not quite as easy as Tupac, as there's not as much to go off. I've looked at the picture and could probably been able to tell it was Tupac.

Mr T would be more recognisable too, without the face paint, but a white Mr T wouldn't look right I don't think, not when he was the only black character in the show.

I've done some daft stuff similar to this too when I was younger, a lot of people I know have, but certainly not racist, and not one would do it now, and far less people the age we were back then wouldn't do it now also. I would retrospectively apologise if it caused offence, but wouldn't be apologising for doing it, not in the context it was done, as I know I just didn't mean for it to be disrespectful or offensive.

I can certainly understand why he's apologised, and would have done the same in his position.
 
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festa5 said:
In a world where racism wasn't a thing. Where skin colour was worthy of no more comment than eye colour or hair colour and where there wasn't a history of black people being persecuted, enslaved and discriminated against and subsequently mocked by white actors "blacking up", then it wouldn't be an issue.

But we don't live in that world sadly. So it is an issue. Hales might not have intended any offence but he's still been naive and ignorant (as are many of the views on this thread).

Ironic that people talk about context to defend people blacking up, because that's exactly the issue. It's not the act alone of blacking up to better represent a character in fancy dress that some find offensive. It's the act of doing so against the context of black history that makes it so, whether intentional or not.
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Totally get this, very good points.

Non racists could do this and mean absolutely nothing by it, racists could do it an it mean something completely the opposite. But because we do have racists it puts the non-racists into question, and leaves it open for massive degrees of interpretation.

Racism will always drag the country down though, and there are a lot more racists than some people realise.
 
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