Nic Naitanui urges public to ‘grow together’ after mother paints son’s skin for Book Week parade

[ITCHY EYEBALLS]

???

Imitating your idols

 

[Off The Couch]

There's nothing wrong with that.

Lost in the back and forth is that people learn from their mistakes. I engaged in blackface at one point. But now that I know what it means I woudln't do it again.

The problem is there are people here that, after being informed of what blackface is and its racist history, still believe its ok to engage in.

I've got no problem with someone admitting they were previously ignorant of it, and then learning from it. Nobody is born with knowledge of history.

I agree - I was responding to a post wherein the person thought that Nic Nat was smarter than some of his fellow Fijians on this board because he was offended and they weren't.

 

[Nikita Blue]

I find it disgusting that as a nation we are at the point that we are so americanised now that we have to find examples of their racist past to become all up in arms about.

Blackface has no history in this country as a form of racism. It is not tied to the indigenous people of this country in any way. In this instance we have a child whose idle is a big man of fijian heritage (where guess what, blackface also has no history or relevance to racism) and only wants to dress up as close as his can to his idle and here we have thousands of privileged (mostly) white people all up in arms about how it offends black people.

You want to get upset with anyone? Get upset with the social media blogger dickhead. Not the kid or the mum who in reality just wants her kid to feel special.

(so people know im a mainly white person with a grandmother who is a full blooded aboriginal), the mother of my children is 1/4 american indian and my wife now is fijian and of indian heritage)

No history in this country? I can remember the furore when the two police officers used blackface to openly mock the deaths of indigenous men in custody.

 

[MilhouseVsEvil]

No she didn't.

Sounds like she did what her child asked for and maybe wondered if it would be taken the wrong way.

Obviously the kid loves Naitanui and would love to be just like him. How is that racist?

A kid dresses up as his hero?

People need to stop automatically thinking the worst of a situation.

you might wanna read the first 5 pages of the thread.

 

[VineyIsLORD]

Racist, bigot, ***phobe, etc. are all names for Satan in the new leftist religion. They think that if they just lump up into a large herd of group-think and collectively call you a racist, then it must br true. Their religion is validated!

Errr.... you sound like a paranoid conservative

 

[Off The Couch]

At the end of the day it's about respect. If you know that something you've said or done or going to do is likely to or has upset or caused hurt to someone, then apologise, learn from it and we all move on.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

Painting your skin darker to portray yourself as a black person is basically the definition of blackface.

I'm sorry you see the world in such a black and white way.

 

[Abruzzi]

So it's only racist when he chooses?

 

[Demonic Ascent]

At the end of the day it's about respect. If you know that something you've said or done or going to do is likely to or has upset or caused hurt to someone, then apologise, learn from it and we all move on.

Would the kid/mum really have thought Naitanui would be offended by it (and he's the only one whose opinion matters)? They probably thought he'd be stoked that a kid idolised him so much to go to that extent.

 

[threesixpio]

At the end of the day it's about respect. If you know that something you've said or done or going to do is likely to or has upset or caused hurt to someone, then apologise, learn from it and we all move on.

pretty simple

 

[The Passenger]

Well done drunken bogan mum. You sure showed those politically correct extremists. Go forth and multiply and most importantly, don't take any guff from those swine.

Seriously though, whilst blackface might not have the extreme history in Australia as it does in the US, and a youngster making his skin darker to idolise his favourite footballer is not the same as Al Jolson dressing up as a golliwog.... But why even venture in that territory if not to deliberately provoke people, and going off her facebook post it was quite clear she wanted to "stick it to the pc crowd". Most importantly, why bring your young child into this, who would have no idea that he is being pushed into murky territory, and that his picture is now going to be splashed across the nations newspapers?

 

[threesixpio]

Well done drunken bogan mum. You sure showed those politically correct extremists. Go forth and multiply and most importantly, don't take any guff from those swine.

Seriously though, whilst blackface might not have the extreme history in Australia as it does in the US, and a youngster making his skin darker to idolise his favourite footballer is not the same as Al Jolson dressing up as a golliwog.... But why even venture in that territory if not to deliberately provoke people, and going off her facebook post it was quite clear she wanted to "stick it to the pc crowd". Most importantly, why bring your young child into this, who would have no idea that he is being pushed into murky territory, and that his picture is now going to be splashed across the nations newspapers?

Yep

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

So it's only racist when he chooses?

He didn't say it was racist.

He also said that people are ignorant to what "blackface" is, even himself at one point.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Well done drunken bogan mum. You sure showed those politically correct extremists. Go forth and multiply and most importantly, don't take any guff from those swine.

Seriously though, whilst blackface might not have the extreme history in Australia as it does in the US, and a youngster making his skin darker to idolise his favourite footballer is not the same as Al Jolson dressing up as a golliwog.... But why even venture in that territory if not to deliberately provoke people, and going off her facebook post it was quite clear she wanted to "stick it to the pc crowd". Most importantly, why bring your young child into this, who would have no idea that he is being pushed into murky territory, and that his picture is now going to be splashed across the nations newspapers?

Because she's a deadshit who should never have bred in the first place.

 

[Off The Couch]

Would the kid/mum really have thought Naitanui would be offended by it (and he's the only one whose opinion matters)? They probably thought he'd be stoked that a kid idolised him so much to go to that extent.

I would hope so, I believe friends told her that it wouldn't be appropriate - maybe I'm presuming too much. I don't know about you but for me I see the footballer - his heritage is irrelevant. What would she have done if it was Lin Jon or Andrew Gaff. If I saw a kid in an Eagles Guernsey with dreadlocks and the no. 9 on his jumper I'd have a pretty good idea who he was trying to emulate.

I feel sorry for the kid - it's a shame that he has been caught up in it all. I didn't see the news where the family spoke so I'm not sure how they are travelling. Nic Nat as usual has been all class.

I also think the vilification of this women and the child has been way over the top as per usual - makes those who are being so disparaging no better.

Anyway there's a game on - I'm more interested in that than this.

 

[Cudi_420]

So it's only racist when he chooses?

He never said it was racist.

The way I see it, it was only an issue when a few whinging white people in the media applied their outrage brush all over it, so he was obliged to respond.

 

[Frank Gallagher]

I'm no expert, but if it's considered wrong for a young chap to paint his face in tribute to a coloured athlete, what message does that send to young indigenous kids? That their colour matters? That it's wrong to be coloured?

Full respect for NicNat BTW.

 

[Sinjin Smith]

The collective delusion of a mass of people bullying a woman due to their cultural appropriation of an American taboo, that didn't even specifically resemble that taboo, is amazing.

People are nuts, but their self-aggrandising morality play makes them feel good so I guess that's cool. This is the new Victorian era, except with less reliable trains.

It's not the morality of it, well at least for me. It was the social media post informing all of her intentions. It was just stupid.

 

[JAlexG]

Stupid ****ing flogs.
Desensitised, vegan, out of touch ****s.
Fair dinkum.
Get the **** over it.

Poor kid rocks up to school in just a eagles Guernsey. Guess who I am.
The fake dreddies and some black face paint "oh you're Nic Nat!

Move the **** on.
Media need to go get ****ed.
This shouldn't even be news.

 

[Gibbke]

The biggest mistake we're all making here is trying to discover the magic formula as to deciding the racist nature of any incident...

There isn't one. There is no relation between this, and American blackface, bananagate, genocide, kanakas...all you can do is judge it on its merits...there's no equation to follow...

That Nic Nat needed to be told he should take offence is reasonably telling, much the same as the ignorance that compels my aboriginal students to call each other (n)igga. The lines are blurred, and the true targets and victims not easily identifiable...

The banana was a premeditated act of knowledgeable vitriol, and has been and should be judged as such. A kid painting his face to look like his idol, as my daughter has done countless times imitating when Queen Elsa, is an act of love, with mum's wayward but protective maternal instincts deciding her kid's self esteem outweighed global political ramifications...

There's direct history, and there's six degrees of separation history. There's inadvertent insult of the "I'm having terrible trouble with my lifestyle" kind (cool people will get this reference), and then there's the stuff we need to retain 18C to combat. At the end of the day, who copped and took the insult...?

I welcome all this, though. Noone's really hurt, but we are all questioning as we should, without quite the degree of "you should be thinking this or that" which usually accompanies these incidents...I think of the disgraceful treatment of Mel McLaughlin last summer as an example of that. Maybe it's because it's really not at the level of Goodes, Winmar, Long, all the others...

 

[Abruzzi]

He didn't say it was racist.

He also said that people are ignorant to what "blackface" is, even himself at one point.

He never said it was racist.

The way I see it, it was only an issue when a few whinging white people in the media applied their outrage brush all over it, so he was obliged to respond.

My apologies. Looks like I've been misled by the credible media again

 

[JackOutback]

I was willing to give the woman the benefit of the doubt in that blackface doesn't have the same history here and maybe she was just tone deaf to why some people might see it as racist. But on reading her post, she clearly knew the potential for offence, citing PC extremists, which means she knew it could be construed as racist and went ahead anyway. That makes her ignorant at the very least.

I feel for the kid, but also the first teacher who spotted him. They must have been thinking 'what the **** do I do with this. How do I fix this without making the kid realise what an idiot his mother is.

The other thing I took out of this is, what does NicNat have to do with book week? Clearly the woman needs to read more to her kid, as well as for herself.

 

[peppy la pew]

It never ceases to amaze me why people like Erin Riley comment on this, telling the world how depressed this makes her, probably relates to most of the outraged on here.

 

[JAlexG]

What the **** happened to this country

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

What the **** happened to this country

Whites came here and slaughtered the natives.