In 2005, a white Queen’s student painted her face black for a “Miss Ethiopia” Halloween costume.
After a picture of her circulated online, outrage ensued, but it still seems that a story arises every October about someone else donning blackface.
Nirosha Balakumar, ArtSci ’19, was drawn to the issue after reading about the Queen’s incident in a Journal article, “Race, racism and blackface”. When an assignment in her Gender Studies course required her to tackle a topic of intersectionality, Balakumar wrote a spokenword poem entitled, “Dear Halloweeners and Costume Seekers”.
Read more at QJLongform.com.
Tags
Artist, black history month, blackface, spoken word
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