So a few weekends we got out for a walk in Dunedin and were wandering about and realized that we didn’t feel like cooking, so we toddled off to the local fish and chip shop. On our way there we ran into a bunch of the local students out on some kind of pub crawl.

Now, a bit of background: when Canadian students go out to get drunk and it’s not halloween we just get on with it. We put on clothing to cover out nakedness and, you know, drink. Kiwi students, not content with merely getting drunk, feel the need to dress up in costumes. At least once a year, perhaps based on some bizarre ritual that I, as a Canadian know nothing about, the Scarfies get dressed up in the bizarre, offensive racial/ethnic stereotypes one can imagine.

This years lot outdid themselves. We started off, at the low end of the scale, with idiots in ponchos and sombreros and fake beards. Things progressed rapididly down hill from here. There was a nice young fellow, a future leader of NZ industry or somesuch no doubt, in a conical hat (Vietnam) with a Japanese flag t-shirt (ehm?) and yellow face on. There were other young men (because it was mostly men) in rags with bones and clubs in blackface. The topper, the absolute best, was the fellow with a black sweater, little mustache drawn on with makeup and a red armband with a swastika on it.

Moving on from there, Christine and I were out for a walk a day or so later while the lad was off on a play date. We popped into a shop that Lucas doesn’t really like, so we could a leisurely poke about. The store sold what they called “Licorice dolls” and what others would know as “gollywog” or dolls. I remember my Mom telling me she had one when she was little, about 60 or so years ago.

Discussing this with Christine we had a moment where we wondered if much of this wasn’t racism, but rather just pure ignorance/naivite/the off shoot of a largely (or at least until recently) monocultural society.

Then I thought back to the young, drunk men we saw wandering by the chip shop. Dunedin, because of the University, the Polytech and the foundation year program at the Uni, has a small but growing Arab population. Waiting for their meals were two young men speaking in arabic while, outside, were there of their friends. The drunk young men wandered past this group. The looks on the Arab men’s faces ranged from worry/fear to disgust.

So I guess my question is this, is there ever a time when blackface/racial stereotyping of this variety ISN’T racist?

If blackface is worn in a cultural setting where it has almost no baggage is it ok?

I know how I feel, but I’m wondering what others think.

In our quest for signs and icons that don’t need words we often stumble (the sign that is meant to signify “baby changing center” but winds up looking like “baby vending machine” springs to mind).

In our quest to make the world safer we often over compensate and solve problems that don’t exist.

When we are at our very best, when we really strain ourselves, we manage to hit the nexus of both perfectly.

To whit:

This is inside the trunk of my Dad’s new car (pardon the photography, if I’d been really hardcore I could have jumped in, gotten a better picture and tested it out). It’s a handle that allows you to escape from the locked trunk of the car.

We live in amazing times.

Here’ s some stuff I’ve seen lately.

I dunno wtf this is about… but I do like random crap…

US Postal Service mail box. On McGill’s Campus. I dunno. Odd.

This person will teach you how to communicate with your Guardian Angel… where to even start?
This was just cool, it’s a vending machine that sells you power for your portable device. You plug in your iPod or Palm or mobile and feed the machine and then it charges it for you.

Right at this very instant one of our neighbors, the one that wears an exclusive wardrobe of Harley and sports related clothing and appears to have his Terminator™ glasses welded to his head is singing along to some Arab disco in a perfectly acceptable falsetto.