Calvin Young ought to be willing to learn, but made a big mistake and did the blackface.

“Social justice” is not the same anymore. Etymologically, the word means in noun: “justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.” A difficult path to compassion is blurring. Is it necessary to practice it simply to sleep with difficulty, as we the Deaf people from all walks of life experience oppression? 

Public shaming either gets a response or no response or has no beginning, coming to an end. Public shaming is always the friend of the oppression, for it benefits the oppressor–never the oppressed whose pain is magnified when people feel forgotten. Dehumanization has always haunted the public humiliation of human imagination. 

Three simple categories: the oppressors, the oppressed, and the bystanders. 

Those TEN recommended books to read, in a comfortable, non-threatening environment and learn to unpack White privileges. 

Less than Human: Why we Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others by David Livingstone Smith

Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate by Sue Scheff & Melissa Schorr

Trust in Black America: Race, Discrimination, and Politics by Shayla C. Nunnally 

Living With Racism: The Black Middle-Class Experience by Joe R. Feagin & Melvin P. Sikes

Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work For Racial Justice by Paul Kivel 

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander 

Hate Crimes: Criminal Law & Identity Politics by James B. Jacobs & Kimberly Potter 

The Many Costs of Racism by Joe R. Feagin & Karyn D. McKinney

The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

 

 

Living at the sunrise of the Deaf community, public shaming is a vehicle, and the oppressor travels to another one where Scheff writes, “You never want to put a temporary emotion in the permanent internet because what you feel at that time will stay there forever.”

Was it a cool idea for Calvin Young to paint a blackface on his White face to dehumanize people of color? It should never happen at all. Did Calvin Young use blackface to shame racism? Not even warranted enough close for defense. Racism is taught and learned. 

It takes a lot of encouragement to apologize and is willing to take the steps to unpack White privileges, reminding in the “justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.” needs to transform into a racial justice and restorative justice would be the way and would able to empower the most powerful element of human acceptance instead of social rejection. 

Social shaming, according to Smith’s quote, “merely dehumanizes the dehumanizers, and thus becomes a symptom of the disease for which it purports to be the diagnosis.”

If fully invested in racial justice and restorative justice, based on my learning experience, would be the best way to read books, the volume of human compassion would make all the difference. 

Also, the power of books empowers the personal responsibility to unpack White privileges, instead of dealing with a shaming culture on social media to deal with. 

If empowerment can yield insights, the more knowledge it can be, the power of learning would defeat the practice of dehumanization, embrace change, and….growth. 

If Calvin Young, the personality of Seek the World makes a serious commitment to learning the growing pain about People of Color from all walks of life, including Deaf. Attending racial justice and restorative justice-based workshops nor conferences is a double-edged knowledge. 

It is only up to Calvin Young who is willing to learn from racial justice and restorative justice to find unity and harmony to create humanity. Social justice is not the same anymore. That requires a lot of patience, timing, and a great deal of community accountability. 

Painting blackface has been shamed. It is asking to continue the racist and White ideologies. The history of blackface is deeply rooted in Racism.

Which would be a better way to be totally authentic and blameless? 

Whenever Calvin visits Washington, D.C.: (it was worth my time visiting all those places)

The National Museum of African American History and Culture

The National Museum of African Art

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

African American Civil War Memorial and Museum

Anacostia Community Museum

National Archives: African American History

Emancipation Monument

Mary McLeod Bethune House

Malcolm X Park

Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial

The Lincoln Theatre

The Howard Theatre

Sojourner Truth (U.S. Capitol Visitor Center)

The Shaw Memorial

Only Calvin Young can make all the efforts alone through a racial justice and restorative justice, it is only beginning.

-JT 

Copyright © 2020 Jason Tozier

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