My old NYC comedy pal Becky Donahue read my last post on the yellow “chinaman” makeup and hepped me to this now legendary incident, which somehow missed my radar when it happened. I don’t know how I could have been so distracted. I must’ve been busy arguing with white Europeans about the existence of racism.
I’ve always liked Harry Connick Jr. — both as an artist and as an individual — but now I have even more respect for him after watching this. Here he is on this cheeseball Australian show — as an American artist whose own musical stylings are largely indebted to the black artists that came before — and he’s forced to witness this atrocity.
Not only does he not hide his disgust, but he uses this shituation as — in his own words — an “opportunity” to do some much-needed edumucatin’ as to why these types of acts are so fucked up. And he couldn’t have done it more elegantly: “I know it was done humorously, but [Americans] have spent so much time trying not to make black people look like buffoons, that when we see something that, we take it really to heart… If I knew that was going to be a part of this show, I definitely wouldn’t have done it.”
I give him a “10″.
Amazing post. I also like Harry Connick Jr -particularly I like his music but I understand why so many women like just him-. This video makes me feel proud of being a human being as he is, even when it may be one of the few things we have in common (obviously my voice isn’t one of them but sure you already know that, haha). His speech at the end is amazing, encouraging. And, let me say, so respectful for both his country and the audience and public he is. The man has a pair of pelotas.
He defended his point very well.
I was wondering… If blackface is a no-go, how about brown-face? I’m just thinking of old programmes like “Menudas Estrellas” in which little Spanish girls got all made up and had their skin look darker to sing “I Will Always Love You” trying to look like Whitney Houston, or “Colours of the Wind” again dressed up and with their skin darker to look like Pocahontas.