My words might not have been nuanced enough.
The obvious problem I see with blackface, is the inherent condescendence and mockery in it. When you say someone is stupid and lazy, it's pretty clear it's not intended as a complement. It's deragatory. In this sense I find it "intending to do harm". The intention is to peripitate a deragatory notion about an entire population. I can't see a way this is painted as positive. Even if it is accompanied by 'compliments' like crafty and fun.
It's obvious to the performer and crowd that lazy and stupid is morally bad (according to their moral code) so the negativity is not incidental as you say.
> You can't actually believe this. This is about harm prevention, not punishment. I don't think it's my job to judge intention
First, I see calling out as a way to prevent harm. Because it sets the norm that this 'bad thing' is bad. Regarding intention, I may have miswrote. Like in the example above, it's clear that the blackface performance was making negative claims about a whole population. I say clear, because the participating parties agree that lazy and stupid are morally bad. It's easy to test. call them lazy and stupid and see how they react.
I also think it follows that painting a marginalized population as morally bad is marginalizing. Not the fact that it is white performers in black face.
I don't really understand how the actual act of appropriation is bad in it self. As you say, black American culture is a major part of American culture. Taking this sentence alone, it's hard to understand how that is a bad thing.
The bad thing, is the social 'revenue' isn't collected by originators. Again, the problem is not appropriation, it's the dissonance between the value generated by black American culture and the black American economic and social status.
I hope I was clearer now. English is not my first language so be gentle :)
Straight Outta Surrey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj7J7vXCf5w
I am fine with it. But then again, he does acknowledge his sources:
Hip Hop Was To Blame After All: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkES4anCYOw
Blackface is only incidentally poison, because white depictions of black people were harmonious with white treatment of black people. Any condemnation of minstrelsy in my opinion should cover most current popular music and dance. From my perspective, if blackface is "obviously malicious", so is Britney Spears and Lady Gaga.
So I wonder how you can so confidently draw the line there, without being suspicious at all (in fact finding the thought distasteful) that majority interpretations of other marginalized groups would normally end up reinforcing that marginalization?
I do feel that cultural appropriation of black Americans is such a deeply baked part of US culture, and by extension US-imitating world culture, over the past 200 years, that insisting that people stop is not a thing that is possible, and may not even be justifiable. Aping a caricature of black American culture is as intrinsic to most non-black people as actual black culture is to black people. You would think there were more than 40 million of us around: there are far more people pretending to be us at any moment than actually being us. Things that we do are seized upon so quickly that non-black sales determine black distribution.
> just call out people bent on intending harm
You can't actually believe this. This is about harm prevention, not punishment. I don't think it's my job to judge intention.