Toggle issues kinda, sorta apology for having blackface on their original series

Toggle landed in familiar territory again recently as the target of public rage — and this time there wasn’t any excuse for them to be ignorant of the consequences. 

Blackface — makeup used to impersonate as a black person — is incredibly offensive and never at all funny due to its historical usage as a caricature of black people and reinforcement of racist perceptions. Minstrel shows of the ’20s had white folks smearing themselves with shoe polish and acting out racist stereotypes, perpetuating perceptions that black people are an inferior race. 

And yet in 2016, blackface was used as a way to elicit laughs in Toggle’s original series, I Want To Be A Star. Nobody found it funny

 

 

They’ve since taken down the offending episode (that culminated in actor Shane Pow dressing up as a black man) yesterday, and they eventually issued an apology. Sort of.  

The line about how the “scene has been perceived as being racially insensitive by some viewers” displays a serious lack of understanding of just how incredibly offensive it was. It’s not a matter of perception and the audience being overly-sensitive — blackface IS derogatory, hurtful, vulgar and should not have crossed the show producers’ minds in the first place. 

Realising that their statement was pretty half-baked, the head of Toggle came out to make an apology for that bungled apology. 

What is it with the lack of sensitivity towards black people? Many Asians just can’t find anything wrong with blackface, as we’ve seen from numerous incidents over the past couple of years. Here are some stories across the Coconuts Media network that shows the lack of awareness in perpetuating the awful practice: 
 

 

EDIT: Article updated to reflect Toggle’s apology for their initial (and shitty) apology.  



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