Should you use blackface on your blog?

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

Unfortunately, the resurgence of blackface is a trend we’ve documented extensively here at Racialicious. We’ve spotted the burnt cork on everyone from Kate Moss to Angelina Jolie (arguably), from Dave Chappelle to guests on the Tyra Banks Show, from hipster douchebags to Tokyo Fashion Week models, from white teenagers on YouTube to reality show participants.

One of the most egregious examples of recent memory was when The Huffington Post allowed one of its bloggers, Jane Hamsher, to illustrate a post criticizing Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman with this little number right here.

If you’re a blogger and you’re asking yourself whether you should follow in Hamsher’s steps, ebogjonson has some advice for you in the form of… a flowchart. You have to click over to view it — it’s absolutely hilarious:

This is a highly complicated question, requiring that one juggle a number of aesthetic, political and racial conundrums. During my time as an internet executive, I learned that basically anything could be explained to anyone using an Excel spreadsheet, so as an aid to bloggers and civilians everywhere I’ve put together a handy process-flow/spreadsheet that I believe should answer folks’ various questions lickity-split.

So: should you use blackface on your blog? Click here to find out! (It’s a big file; give it a minute to load if yer using a slow connection.)