Offensive (adj): causing someone to feel deeply hurt, upset,
or angry.
Offense (noun): annoyance
or resentment brought about by a perceived insult to or disregard for oneself
or one’s standards or principles.
“Who determines what is offensive?”
That is the question posed by azcentral.com's opinion contributor, Rashaad Thomas on January 28, 2019. He was
confronted in a Phoenix restaurant with an old photograph of coal miners meeting
in a pub after work, still covered in soot.
Mr. Thomas felt the photograph
was too reminiscent of white men in blackface and that the photo should
therefore be taken down. The restaurant owner (who we are told is white)
apparently wasn’t bothered by Mr. Thomas’ taking offense to the photograph and
did not take it off the wall. Nor did he take time during the active running of
the restaurant that night to call his co-owners to discuss the photograph and
Mr. Thomas’ reaction to it.
Mr. Thomas acknowledges that the
photograph does, in fact, show coal miners with their faces covered in soot,
but also goes on to say that the context of the photograph is not the issue. He
contends that since it bothers him how much the coal miners resemble the
blackface used in racist propaganda, his feelings about the photograph
are more important than the actual image itself.
“At the downtown
Phoenix restaurant, my concern that the photograph of men in blackface was a
threat to me and my face and voice were ignored.
A business’
photograph of men with blackened faces culturally says to me, ‘Whites Only.’ It
says people like me are not welcome.”
Note: Mr. Thomas only
knows the photograph of coal miners in a pub with their faces blackened by soot
hangs on this restaurant’s wall because he was in the establishment for a party
where he was presumably welcomed inside and served his food and beverages along
with other party goers. So, he wasn't ignored. He says that he asked at least one cohort of Latin descent about the photograph, so the restaurant quite obviously is not a "Whites Only" establishment. I’ll take it a step further and say that in all likelihood, no employee or
the owner himself told Mr. Thomas that he was unwelcome or threatened him in
any way. So, both of these statements are just a bit on the over-reactionary end of the spectrum for me.
“The operators of
that downtown restaurant can choose to take the photograph down, leave it
up or create a title card with an intention statement. No matter their
decision, I think the photograph should be taken down — sacrificing one image
for the greater good.”
Mr. Thomas’ assertion
that removing this photograph, “sacrificing one image for the greater good,” is
actually counter to the greater good for several reasons.
First, the “sacrificing”
of images sanitizes history, which does no service to those living today or those
to live tomorrow. Who determines the standard everything must be measured against? Shouldn't we all be able to see what was awful in our common history to remember it and ensure it is never repeated? Removing everything that someone can find offense in from the public square weakens our collective ability to recognize what was truly terrible about our past and waters down the terms used to describe it, like racism. If everything is racially insensitive, nothing is. People are more apt to turn a blind eye to the real thing when they are constantly hammered by mundane "offenses" like a photograph of miners covered in soot.
Second, context and artistic motivation do matter. Mr. Thomas admits that the
photograph in question is of coal miners drinking in a pub after work.
These men were not photographed while putting on a danged minstrel show. They had put
in a hard day of work and were sharing some drinks and a couple of laughs afterward. Something
people of every stripe still do today. An activity that a restaurant and bar would reasonably want to encourage in their customer base.
And third, sacrificing this image on the
altar of the supposed public good reinforces the delusion that taking offense
can and should be entirely independent of the “offender’s” intention. Since
this was not a photograph of white men in blackface, there is nothing that the
restaurant owner or his co-owners need to do about the photo other than leave it up. Mr.
Thomas can continue to be offended about any and every thing that he likes, but
his choosing to take offense to a photograph that he admits does nothing to portray racial animus or stereotypes places no obligation on the restaurateurs to preserve or
protect his feelings.
