I think a more parsimonious explanation might be that a lot of people just don’t have precise knowledge of various types of musical instruments, and might associate both a round banjo and a rectangular box instrument with the general idea “old-timey hick-shack instrument that might be in a minstrel show”, and also with the folksy-sounding name “banjo”?
I mean, I kinda doubt that gkster looked at Ducky Lucky’s rectangular box instrument in the pictures and thought “that shape is round”.
Which, again, kind of illustrates my point: visual cues that are obviously distinct and dissimilar to one person with a particular set of background knowledge may seem ambiguous and easily conflatable to someone else. Even though the physical stimuli that their eyes are receiving are exactly the same, and the concrete physical characteristics (shape, color, etc.) that they’d assign to the images may be exactly the same.
I caught one that flew into a dorm building and was too dumb to fly out by throwing my jacket over him. He promptly went to sleep and I carried him outside.
They made the exact same kind of certain pronouncement about the outfits in the photo they linked to, when no-one in that group is wearing an outfit like the duck.
The most parsimonious explanation is that they are just not good at comparing images. In which case, why should I trust their word on what does or doesn’t look like minstrelsy?
Not that I actually need anyone else’s say-so on that score, you understand. I recognize minstrelsy just fine. I still see it on the street several times a year. The duck is not it.
Colors fade, some more rapidly than others. Skin tone can interfere. People gain and lose weight. Skin wrinkles. Images might look different outdoors vs. indoors. It’s a curved surface and it might look weird from some angles. Etc. And of course, not all tattoo artists are equally talented. I’m sure the best of them have a good eye for what works and what doesn’t, but no one is perfect.
The point isn’t that the distortions are even very severe. But here we have a case where some people saw a green head and others saw a dark gray one, and that along with some other elements was enough to trigger a different interpretation of the image. Colors in particular aren’t even an absolute thing (as evidenced by the whole white/gold blue/black dress deal). There’s always a degree of interpretation, but the ambiguities in one medium aren’t going to translate to those in another.
While I’m not the poster in question: a Thing I Learned Today is that apparently almost all banjos are round. (Maybe not all the electric ones; but the image obviously isn’t of an electric instrument.) I didn’t know that; and my not having known that has something to do with my not having commented ‘that’s not a banjo!’
There is a very great deal that I don’t know about musical instruments. I’m aware of this; so I’m not likely to comment on somebody’s post that they’ve got the instrument wrong, unless they’re doing something like identifying a grand piano as a guitar.
Thank you KImstu. I had never paid attention to the distinction between a box bass and a banjo before. Apparently to MrDibble the fact that the 2 instruments look alike to me is an indicator that I’m incapable of seeing whether the duck in the picture might look like someone in a minstrel show or not.
I can’t say I’m convinced by MrDibble’s argument. It seems to be
gkster says that the image is a banjo even though it’s a box bass
There are no box basses in the minstrel show pictures in the link posted by gkster
Therefore there were no box basses ever used in minstrel shows
Therefore gkster can’t tell us anything about the image
Therefore there is nothing racist about the image
Still doesn’t have me convinced…I stand by my point that the duck could be taken as looking like a minstrel show performer, especially with the clothes, hat, instrument, dark head and light beak.
Searching for “cigar box instruments” las led me down a rabbit hole, starting with a Wikipedia page:
Although “guitar” is in the title, the instruments appear to include banjos, basses, and fiddles. Of note:
In addition to the etching, plans for a cigar box banjo were published by Daniel Carter Beard, co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America, in 1884 as part of Christmas Eve with Uncle Enos .[4] The plans, retitled “How to Build an Uncle Enos Banjo”, were included in the 1890 edition of Beard’s American Boy’s Handy Book as supplementary material at the back of the book.[5] These plans omitted the story but still showed a step-by-step description of a playable five-string fretless banjo made from a cigar box.
I find it interesting in such discussions that persons are content to wave away areas in which they are ignorant - such as basic shapes of instruments, or even what instruments are closely enough aligned with minstrelsy so as to suggest racism, but they are equally content in their certitude that certain moral judgments are in play and are correct. (I am not saying thorny locust exhibited this in this thread. But other posters seem quite content in their perception that they, and they alone, are speaking TRUTH.)
Going back to the OP, as was said upthread, “If you have to ask…” Apparently the OP thought this image MIGHT be interpreted as racist. And whether or not that interpretation is reasonable, if the OP gets that tat and runs across crowmanyclouds, crowmanyclouds may say, “That’s a racist duck!”
So on one hand, do you want a tat that you are going to have to explain, or that might possibly irritate someone?
OTOH, ISTM a large percentage of inked people are VERY happy to discuss their ink. And I thought most people got ink because it meant something to THEMSELF, and were not necessarily so worried that someone with different values and perspectives might disfavor it.
BTW - I play upright bass and clawhammer banjo, and own a cigar box uke. Knew a guy who made them. I know a little about such instruments. And I think it silly that folk think whatever instrument this kids’ cartoon illustration is supposed to represent is a significant factor in whether or not it could reasonably be viewed as racist. Heck, I thought it most resembled a shamisen!
Nah. I’d wonder about what the image is intended to actually depict.
I say this knowing a guy who’s tats could be White supremacist or could be Norse pagan and it’s only because of the setting I know him in that leads me to think the latter . . . but, sadly, with no small amount of uncertainty.
To be clear, I don’t think the artist intended that to be a depiction of the racist minstrel trope. But I can’t look at it and not see the connections.
Not sure why you’re quoting me to illustrate it, then.
Or why you think people who say ‘maybe some people would see it as racist’ in response to the OP specifically asking whether that might happen are making ‘moral judgments’. I suppose we’re making the ‘moral judgement’ that racism is wrong; but I don’t see anyone making a ‘moral judgement’ as to whether the OP should use the image for a tattoo, or whether people who take a look at it and don’t see it as racist are more or less moral than people who take a look at it and think they see potentially racist elements in it if taken out of context.
The closest thing to judgments I see being made in this thread, though I don’t know that they’re “moral” judgments, are those being made by those who seem to be absolutely certain that nobody could plausibly see the image as potentially racist if they’ve actually looked at it. I’m not sure whether they think we answered the OP’s question with in effect (not a direct quote from anybody) ‘well, maybe, from some angles it could be taken as racist’ just to annoy those who can’t imagine such a thing?
Well, maybe because your post was one of the most recent in a pretty long thread. Sorry the express disclaimer was insufficient for you.
Yeah, I think it could pretty universally be said that someone saying racism is involved or perceived is saying something about morality and expressing a judgment. You disagree? That’s fine. But you sure haven’t said anything here to persuade me of your interpretation.
“That image is racist.” Or, “That image could be perceived as racist.” I guess I lack words to specifically describe those statements if they do not express moral judgments. Please educate me and expand my vocabulary.
Well, presents to YOU. I didn’t add it up, but my impression was that more people in this thread DID NOT see racism than DID. Or are the racism spotters infallible?
Many people seem finely attuned to perceiving various sorts of insults - whether or not they are intended, and whether or not their perception is “reasonable” (the definition of which I am not interested in debating here.)
I probably shouldn’t have stepped into this thread. No, I don’t think the duck is racist. No, I don’t care whether the OP gets this or any other tat. And no, I don’t think it would reasonably be perceived as racist. But most people are far from reasonable.
Because they are farm animals…living on a farm…in 1949 when the book was first published.
Yes, the dark colored mallard with the banjo gives off a bit of a “Jim from Huck Finn” vibe. I don’t know if I would call it inherently “racist”, but it may be “problematic” when viewed through our current lens.
As I said before, please educate me. How is saying, “someone might think that’s racist” significantly different from saying, “That could be considered racist”? Are you saying that “Someone who is a complete nut job might think…” or that “Someone who is not terribly unreasonable might think…”? Or something else?
It has been called “dubious”, a racist trope, referred to as minstrelry, “somewhat racist imagery” … On review, it looks as tho most of those comments were made by 3 posters. I may have mistakenly assumed more numerous proponents of this position, in light of their multiple posts. My bad.
I really don’t get the objection to the term “moral judgment.” From here and elsewhere:
Moral judgment refers to the determination a person makes about an action (or inaction), motive, situation, or person in relation to standards of goodness or rightness. People articulate a moral judgment, for example, when they say that an action is right or wrong, that a person is good or bad, or that a situation is just or unjust.
I apologize for being obtuse, but how do characterizations of racism not fit within such definition?
“You stomped on my foot on purpose in order to harm me!”
“You accidentally stepped on my foot!”
The first of those implies a moral judgement; the second doesn’t.
“You deliberately used a racist image to express racism!”
“That image you’re considering using could possibly, by some people, be perceived as racist”.
Those are two very different statements. I’m surprised that you can’t tell the difference.
You want a word to describe the second type? Try “informational” or “educational”.
Now that right there looks like a moral judgment to me. Anybody who disagrees with you on this matter, you appear to be accusing of being “unreasonable”; with the strong implication that we’re being deliberately so.
That’s fine. I’m not opposed to the idea of moral judgments, and until today, was unaware that they were generally disfavored by some. I hope you noticed that I did not exclude myself from “most people.”
You are going to some length to add numerous qualifiers to the statements made earlier, while seeming to judge my specific word choice harshly.
