Update: for his part, Shane tweeted out to us —
@NewRockstars in reference to ur article, I 100% stand by my tweets about FOTB. I deleted them because it was getting me wrapped up in (cont
— Shane Dawson (@shanedawson) January 14, 2015
@NewRockstars (cont) more drama. but I was speaking truth. the networks are transparent and anyone that can't see that is blind.
— Shane Dawson (@shanedawson) January 14, 2015
Original article below:
Note: Hoo, boy. We at NMR Editorial had a prolonged discussion about this particular issue, and no two opinions are alike. We’d love to continue the discussion in the comments below.
This and another tweet from Shane Dawson has set off, yet again, another firestorm of criticism over the YouTube star’s treatment of race. (We’ve covered these stories a few times.)
One problem that will largely remain at least for the foreseeable future was his use of blackface for a number of years before apologizing for it in late 2014. Everything’s good, right? He’s learning and trying to become more mature about racial issues, right?
For many, it doesn’t appear that way. The tweet above and below received vast amounts of criticism, ultimately leading to him deleting the tweets altogether:
One tweet pulled by the eagle-eyed Daily Dot brings up an interesting question:
Shane Dawson… The same Shane Dawson who's been painting his face brown for bout 10 years wants to comment on the diversification of TV? ?
— MissyElliott circa97 (@sailornegro) January 13, 2015
The question is simple — after years of using blackface, does an apology video followed by taking down past videos with such use clean the slate? Many vloggers/bloggers don’t seem to think so. One person that refuses to back down is that of Franchesca “Chescaleigh” Ramsey, who reblogged a post noting a number of issues with Shane’s apology.
Shane, for his part, has claimed in the past that Chescaleigh is simply a “hater.”
In short: For many, the apology simply wasn’t good enough to wipe away years of racist humor, even as others like our friend Tay Zonday believe such humor is actually a noble effort to reveal ugliness in America through rough chuckles. Blackface and minstrel shows have a long, brutal history of oppression (read a book), and there hasn’t been a use of it in entertainment in recent memory (that isn’t itself directly saying “this is racist and wrong”) that wasn’t met with, at minimum, extreme discomfort.
“On the flip,” as they say, is Shane’s suggestion that ABC’s lineup is treating these minority-race families as commodities to be “collected” one-by-one. And that’s a far cry from returning to the era of defending blackface. His clarification also seems to back this up:
@christinelu not what I was saying. I'm all for diversity on tv but the titles and posters are getting crazy.
— Shane Dawson (@shanedawson) January 13, 2015
But let’s return to these two initial tweets from Shane. First off, one uses a Hispanic slur, which in and of itself caused some of the uproar, regardless of Shane’s use of quotes to imply he means that ABC considering it as a title, rather than his approval of its use. (That said, if it were the N-word, would he have written it out uncensored? The mind doubts.)
Secondly, as mentioned, Shane’s history puts a thumb on the scales whenever he brings up issues of race. The tweets, epithet aside, clearly bring up ABC’s lineup as an attempt to use minority-race family shows for some odd game of racial Pokemon. It should also be noted that Eddie Huang, the author of the memoir optioned into Fresh Off The Boat, has himself felt that executives at the network were not far off from that very thing, and simply attempting to tell white-family stories with non-white characters.
On the other-other side, Shane must’ve missed that the title of the show is also the title of Huang’s published memoir, who pushed to keep it as the series name.
Obviously Mr. Huang has all the standing in the world, both as author of the memoir and as a person of color being depicted on national TV. Shane’s somewhat similar response — doubting ABC’s sincerity, or at least the marketing’s sincerity, in their moves toward diversification on TV — is met with static, and many feel that history, apology or no, has eliminated that standing to speak on the matter. “Not good enough” is a phrase read often in response to Shane’s apology. Chescaleigh notes:
“Unfortunately the majority of the YouTube audience isn’t going to listen or care unless it comes from a high profile (ahem WHITE) content creator. According to the fans I’m just “jealous” and “playing the race card”.
Such fans tend to ignore that Chescaleigh, every time she speaks on Shane, is opening herself up to the flood of Dawson fans and hate mail and basically knowingly ruining her own day (some have even contacted her agent, intentionally trying to damage her career for the sin of… speaking her mind?). If that isn’t an indication of how strongly she feels, and an indication that it’s not about jealousy/race-baiting (a stupid term that’s intended to deflect from the actual argument), then there’s really not going to be any pleasing you.
That said, Shane’s tweets, under a different interpretation, is literally that high profile white content creator wondering if ABC is being genuine. The thing is, some folks don’t buy his apology, and thus don’t buy his tweets as genuine.
And this all circles back to that apology, viewed by many as “not good enough.” What would be good enough? Has his past blackface work effectively eliminated any future possibility of him discussing issues of race?
This is certainly an ongoing issue that we’ll be tracking for some time to come.
Shane Dawson is not racist, nor has he ever intended to come off that way. All of his humor is dark and raunchy, like many others, thats just his style. There are plenty of actors and comedians who have said and done much worse than he has, and continue to be praised for their work. His apology was genuine. He never intended to offend anyone in his videos by doing blackface- he was simply becoming a character, something Robert Downey Jr was hardly criticized for doing in Tropic Thunder. This generation is so fucking sensitive to everything. It is so easy to play the victim, but at this point we’re all minorities. Stereotypes exist, amd if we cant laugh at ourselves and we cant laugh at others than who is left? I had the exact thoughts Shane did in regards to ABCs new shows and Im hispanic. These ABC titles sound incredibly offensive. BLACKISH? Really? Thats not diversity in television thats an outright call to a single ethnic group that, as it sounds, is not qualified to be “all black”. Fresh off the boat doesnt sound offensive to anyone out of its appropriate context? I find it hard to believe that you all can criticize a single dude who tweets about a huge network for dishing out these token shows but dont see the point he is making in that these are offensive titles masked as “diversity ”
Fuck you people. find better things to do than hop on a bandwagon to take down a comedian.
Can we all stop being so sensitive, like really. The guy is a comedian, he apologized before.
Is there a reason why other comedians are not critised? Oh wait it’s because he is a YouTuber, not a high profile comedian. Ridiculous.
How does the general public not take the name “Straight off the boat” or whatever it is offensively. If I was an immigrant of any kind I would find it offensive. But again that is being sensitive. So people brush it off, but when someone critises it we go crazy? Calm down people.
ABC are obviously trying to appeal to the variety of ethnic groups. Its obvious. Shane is right, “Blackish” is such a stereotypical name for a show that stars African Americans. I’d even go as far as saying that ABC are racist for making such a terrible title.
I in no way support how arrogant Shane Dawson was. The guy is a moron. But he is absolutely correct in saying that ABC are exploiting racial issues for support. I mean come on, its like making a show about Jews called ” Road to the Synagogue”. He’s right, but he has no way of articulating his opinions correctly on twitter – leading to him seeming a bit racist.
why is it that every race except asian are offended at the title? i’m asian, i could care less what the title is called. naacp got ya’ll messed up. the titles may appear racist to those who looking for racism but it’s honest. black-ish..about a black family in the suburbs. fresh off the boat…about an immigrant couple trying to raise first generation american children.
If it was a criticism of the poster and title, why not say so initially? “Great that there’s more diversity in these upcoming shows, but they could’ve done a better job choosing titles/posters.” He literally says in his tweet that it’s a “let’s get all the races!” thing. Diversity is not tokenism. How else can these networks progress unless they’re putting out shows with diverse casts?
He’s just backpedaling, as usual.
He’s done blackface, and made other offensive remarks against certain groups yet you people love to ride for him. Which just proves one of two things: You are either racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. Or just really ignorant.
Clearly you have not read any of our coverage.
But no, go ahead and make blanket statements and tell us what kind of people we are after skimming and not actually reading the article.
I don’t think anyone besides Shane will really know if his concern was genuine or he was simply covering his back with his “clarification” once the backlash started.
There has been some concern that elements of the show may be offensive (such as the use of fake accents, stereotypes, and Americanized humor). On the other hand, its being embraced by others as a milestone for the Asian American community.
Just because you can say whatever you want doesn’t mean you should. Due to his track record, I think it would have been wise of Dawson to avoid putting his opinions on racial issues on social media – at least in the way he went about it. It seems obvious that his previous actions would mean any comments like those he made would not be taken seriously and potentially create further damage to his relationship with those who remember and were hurt by his days of using blackface. He could have at least written it more respectfully if he was trying to convey legitimate concern for the issue.
I’m almost certain there has to be a publicist out there who cringed lol