Harry Connick Jr Has the Gall To Object To Blackface

October 15th, 2009

Opps! I had quened this, and meant to post it a week ago. Kind of old news now; but still important for my readers coming through to see.

This is a gong type program in Austrialia that well known New Orleans Jazz Musician, Harry Connick Jr., was guess judging on.

Watch what he surprisingly encounters:

Austrialians have been upset with Connick and the global media attention it has gotten. Apparently it’s everone else’s fault that their’s, according to the Aussies own defense of the situation; a national ignorance in Austrialia that racially mocking other people is not quite acceptable.

Yes, there defense is that they didn’t know Blackie minstrel shows where offensive, and nobody in Austrialia took it that way.


Britian’s Guardian News paper takes a personal run at the Aussies for the episode:

To Australia, the world’s most savagely self-parodic country, where there is news of an important breakthrough in race relations.

We lay our scene on long-running Australian TV variety show Hey Hey It’s Saturday, which finished in 1999, but was back on air for a reunion special on Wednesday night - along with celebrity guest Harry Connick Jr.

The piece continues satirically

…the host cheerily points out that this is a comeback of sorts – the Jackson Jive in fact performed this act on the show twenty years ago. You know, in the olden times of 1989, when blacking up was totally acceptable.

Maybe this Blackface Montage from Spike Lee’s Bamboozled will help those who don’t undestand see how Blackface has been used as a tool to demean and dehumanize, and is there for harmful. If not, maybe go pick up a book or something. Reading is fundamental.

Cheers to Harry Connick Jr for having the character to do the right thing and speak up. It would have been easy to laugh it off; and go along with the excuse making.

Connick put out a statement about the uproar.



posted in Cultural, Foreign News, Humor/Satire, Racial Injustice, youtube | | | View blog reactions |


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About The Blog

  • D. Yobachi Boswell

  • Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.

    I created this site to give new voice to socio-political issues that are in need of thoughtful consideration and redress.

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