Nick Cannon doing whiteface
Okay you guys, I have a sentence to share with you, but you can't all start yelling at once after I say it: Nick Cannon did whiteface. He created a character named Connor Smallnut and went out on the street to deliver white-person stereotypes replete with a California surfer dude voice and plenty of hashtags to promote his upcoming album, White People Party Music.
I know. I know we all want to yell and scream about how racist this is, but instead let's take a sip of water and several deep breaths and remind ourselves that this isn't actually racist because, "Oh yeah, whiteface totally isn't a thing."
Is that unfair internet? Oh yeah, I'll 100% give you that. It's not fair that black people are allowed to put makeup on their face to look white, while white people aren't allowed to put makeup on their faces in order to look black. It's a double standard, but y'know what other double standards spring to mind right off the top of my head? Slavery and minstrel shows! Both of which give some serious context to blackface, so maybe we can all relax and let this issue go by for once.
Is his stereotyping of a white person racially insensitive and ignorant? Yeah, probably. But is it also a racist gesture that thereby allows you to also join into racism and finally don the blackface you've always dreamed of? Sadly no. Listen, I'm as bummed as you are about all this. I was really hoping that this would be the moment I could finally try blackface and see what I look like as a racist! But I guess our society just isn't there yet, and there are still things Nick Cannon can do that I can't, like washing Mariah Carey‘s dishes and doing Mariah Carey's laundry, being married to Mariah Carey, and also whiteface. (In that order.) Life just isn't fair. Get over it. (Crushable) The America's Got Talent host defended his decision to don the controversial look, saying he did it in the spirit of his new music, but fans aren't buying it. Wife Mariah Carey, on the other hand, who is of mixed parentage, fully supports her hubby's actions, tweeting, "Nice." Hey, they say no publicity is bad publicity.
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