Poles are not racist

Except insensitivity, especially since the number of black Poles is steadily growing.


Poland has not lacked racism (both against and by locals) over the years. Perhaps they should try a bit harder with their TV.


If you watched BBC World (I don't) you'd think the whole world was so-called Palestine and India. Cheap TV and lots of material, plus commentators with axes to gr8nd about those places.

Poland gets a bad enough press anyway where racism is concerned. If Konfa with its openly racist members become a coalition partner, they'll be yet more in the world's media, even considerably more.

It's better for TV stations to play things carefully rather than carelessly.

Yes, there is:

reddit.com/r/news/comments/16gps4l/outrage_as_polish_tv_talent_show_contestants_use/

"masalion
As a brown dude, I don't get it. If you're offended by people using your skin color in a non-derogatory way, aren't you implying that looking like you is somehow bad?

I love being brown, and if other people want a piece of that action, go ahead imo."

"fuckin_normie
There is a difference between using blackface as a mockery because you're racist, and making yourself look like the person you idolize. It's literally the same thing as dressing up as your favourite actor. Please let's not just put everything under one umbrella. Intentions matter"

"DWS223
Given that the United States is not the world and given that Poland's history is very different then our own, would it not be reasonable that "blackface" in Poland doesn't have the same racist connotations that it has here in the US?

Also it sounds like the whole controversy is just a handful of social media trolls. Is this even really news?"

"CopyPasteCliche
Can we take into consideration the fact that it wasn't used to mock the race but make artist appear more similar to them? It's the whole point of this ****** show.

Also I love how we are just exporting issues from US and pretend they are worldwide.

Aight downvote me now. Peace."

There are more comments like this.


Are you sure that "on the whole"? Where exactly? In Africa? Or only in the West?


And ignorant and pretty self-centered/insane to me, tbh.

And you cherrypicked online stuff that you searched for.


That's certainly one take on racism, albeit ill thought out and old fashioned.

Just remember not to be so " ignorant and pretty self-centered/insane" when people disrespect Poles.

But not a hanging offence, and certainly not worth the woke outrage mob effort.
A minor faux paus in the sane western world.

I don't see any of that, and certainly haven't seen it mentioned in the UK press which is where the people who first mentioned it here claimed to have seen it.

Most of the outraged mob are Poles trying to defend the indefensible.

They'll have more to be outraged about if Konfa ("the party for people who don't like Jews") do well and the long articles and TV shows about such things go global.

First of all, I only googled "blackface in Polish TV" and that's what came up, among others.
Secondly, I presented opinions to you that are in the opposition to yours, to stress that point that, indeed, there is a diversity of opinions concerning this matter. You claimed that "on the whole, 'blacking up' is seen negatively", but I don't see that in the comments. There are a lot of sensible comments there that I agree with.


Sorry, but I don't understand what's your point here.


There was nothing disrespectful about that guy's performance. On the contrary. That's the point.

If tasteful darkening makeup to pay homage to a performer is bad, then what is a biological man putting on a dress and calling himself a woman?

Womanhood is not a costume and I find Eddie Izzard, for example, far more offensive than the Polish singer (who never claimed to be black).

Quite. Bad publicity.


In opposition to mainstream decent opinion.


That is by no means n arbiter of what is right.

Have you ever been to Africa?

I say this because I've already heard it quite a few times where an argument is made along the lines of, "It's African-Americans that tie themselves up in knots over racial transgressions, while actual Africans don't mind it one bit."

Newsflash - they do. Africans are surprisingly proud people, who would've thought. On the one hand, they do seem to think that their American cousins are a little bit crazy, but on the other - and I assure you - they still think blackface is in bad taste.

haha let's not tell the guardian then, it'll be on the front page.

I just had a look and it isn't.

I found it eventually by clicking on culture, clicking again on TV, scrolling to the bottom and there was a short article, written very neutrally and expressing surprise that such a thing might happen in today's Europe,

Poles are so often hypersensitive to criticism. Especially when they know someone in their country has dropped a bollock...

@amiga500, The Guardian wrote about it on Tuesday already:

theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/12/polish-tv-talent-show-contestants-use-blackface-for-kendrick-lamar-beyonce-performances


Done by the UK and American press without explaining the differences between how it's viewed in Poland and in the US/UK.


First of all, that's not a decent, but an ignorant opinion, imho.
Secondly, I haven't seen a proof so far of that being an opinion of the majority of black people around the world.


But your opinion is? lol

Why would they? They're reporting an incident, not how such an incident is viewed.

Trying to defend the indefensible.

At least you didn't say that Jedwabne was a myth or that Poland is less racist than most developed countries in a Europe.

If there wasin't a war on, it would be. Australia already had this experience with a harmless cartoon, that created those woke world outrage cries of 'racizim'. Look jon just admit the left has absolutely no sense of humour or rational propensity.

abc.net.au/news/2019-02-25/serena-williams-cartoon-by-mark-knight-not-breach-of-standards/10844900

Buahaha

Why push certain countries hang ups on others? We have enough on our own


The thing was it wasn't a blackface.

Very eloquent of you.


Racism isn't a "hang up", nor is one newspaper putting one article about an incident on their website "pushing" anything, now, is it...

Perhaps you'd prefer that the media only report things you like.

No, but the experience of blackface and resulting emotions are.


No, I would prefer they would finally understand they are not the whole world, their world view is 'not the one,true and only' and certain things may have different implications in different parts of the world.

Quite frankly I find this attitude very imperialistic.

In order to be fair and objective and in order not to cause anti-Polish prejudice. Polish media somehow bothered to explain where this outrage in the West is coming from, they explained the "blackface history" to Polish readers.


That's not true. They wrote about the "outrage" this performance caused, some articles even quoted comments of internet users ("cherrypicked", I'm sure lol).


You're such an a$$hole, jon357. You know very well that I'm not that kind of person and this topic was brought up by the most pro-black person on this forum - by pawian. If he didn't write about it, I'm not even sure if I'd hear about this controversy and know what "blackface" is.

They were.

Very much so.

Whether you agree with their editorial line or not.

The media doesn't exist to promote or to condemn Poland. It exists to report news, and people blacking up on TV in 2023 is news.


It did. A great deal. And if the show continues to black singers up, there will doubtless be more.


I'll take that as an admission on your part that you're attempting to defend the indefensible.

Yes, this. I'd rather the West didn't project their issues on us - as you wrote, we have enough of our own lol


Yes, very self-centered, arrogant and controlling, imho.


No, they weren't.

Just like they did with the world's best football referee, calling him far-right, anti-semite etc, just because he dared to attend a business conference organised by mentzen.

Where? In the British press?


Then you're delusional.

Definitely a bollock dropped and dropped to a low depth.

As I said before, if Konfa do well, Poland will be in the news daily, and not just because they've been blacking up minor singers on national TV, though that will doubtless be mentioned.

I hope they've learnt their lesson with that.

He had a great beer advertisement. Can't fault his business acumen, as a politician, something else entirely. You think he should be blacklisted from polite society and Szymon Marciniak should have just said nah I apply 'western standards' 'just say no to hate' ? FIFA in Qatar, Saudis now taking over your Premier League? LOLZO

youtube.com/watch?v=yHsGLz2CIig

He is anyway.

Someone in a high profile sports role does need to be careful who they are photographed with. Especially avoiding politicians with very extreme opinions.


They've got the money and there's a lot for sale.

I have nothing against valid criticism. I've criticised all kinds of stuff in Polish society/in Poland on this forum. But this time the criticism simply isn't valid in my opinion.

Thats where your warsaw milieu don't get it. he is part of polish polite society. the libertarian crowd. very sizeable in number, in poland.

I thought you hate Konfa lol

You sound like a fake new left/woke fascist... really? be carefull of who you speak to, whom you seen with comrade?

This time, I doubt we'll agree.

At least they'll not pull such a stunt again.


Yes, if it's a politician with particularly extreme views. Stuff like that tends to rebound on people.