My avatar for the longest time was the Minah Bird in the short Inki and the Minah Bird.

For those who are unaware, the Inki character in this short was a small tribal African child in a grass skirt who spent his days attempting to hunt various animals with a spear. And by African, I mean the blackface depiction with the white lips that is reminiscent of old Al Jolson films.

Now, I didn't remember ANYTHING about this part of the video. I had last watched it when I was a small child. But I enjoyed the part I did remember, namely the Minah bird, because the bird was methodical, walked in step with Mendelssohn's "The Hebrides," and could whup the crap out of anything. So when it came time to choose an avatar during a period of time when people were not using their faces as screen shots, I used this character.

It wasn't until years later that my girlfriend, who happened to be black, asked me why the cartoon bird was my avatar. So I looked it up and... let's just say I discontinued use of the avatar before the topic was broached again.

> And by African, I mean the blackface depiction with the white lips that is reminiscent of old Al Jolson films.

Not trying to excuse anything, but I wonder how much this kind of depiction was an artefact of animation/video production in a black-and-white or early-colour era, much like how old cartoon animals with black fur often wear white gloves, to give hands/mouths some contrast and make movement visible.

Arguably, even "modern" cameras are apparently not designed with noncaucasian skintones in mind, something interest groups do not tire to bring up.

> I wonder how much this kind of depiction was an artefact of animation/video production in a black-and-white or early-colour era

Zero. Nada, Nothing.

The history of blackface begins with stage and musical performances "aping" actual black musicians and banjo players [1].

There wasn't a lot of film work happening in 1848 . . .

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show

Black Face is older then cameras. And as far as modern cameras go, with my limited experience in digital photo post processing, I'd say that the skin tone issue might have something to do with White Balancing. This is tricky in landscapes already, because not everybody carries normal grey cards with them (some people do apparently). And I know from people that shoot a lot more portraits that getting skin tones is always tricky.

Not saying it isn't related to cameras, so. But if it is, I'd suspect it to be much more of an issue with in-camera created JPEGs, RAW files don't do white balancing (at least all my Nikons don't). I have zero clue how dedicated video cameras work, so...

There's a ton of cartoons from the era clearly blackface.

However, to your point, even recent photographs in color and black and white depict the tonal contrast one could imagine inspiring the cartoon character in question:

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-3e50441087256791f079ff...

https://get.pxhere.com/photo/black-and-white-people-white-ph...

Until you get to the name Inki... tips their hand a bit.

> Arguably, even "modern" cameras are apparently not designed with noncaucasian skintones in mind, something interest groups do not tire to bring up.

That doesn't make a lot of sense. Can you give an example of why you think that?

Not so long ago, film processes and machines were optimized and calibrated for reference images of only white faces[1]. Darker-skinned people often found their skin tones were badly reproduced. The analogous thing happened again in digital processes, up to and including AI image processing trained on datasets where white skin is overrepresented. The industry's awareness of this issue is now pretty high. I don't know if the issue is solved in practice on current-gen cameras/phones/software or not. Anyone have latest info?

[1] https://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363517842/for-decades-kodak-s...

That's interesting, I hadn't really thought of it that way.

I wonder if that's why the first colour grading exercise in the training material for BMD DaVinci Resolve is an excerpt from a documentary about rhinos, where you need to balance a reasonably clean shot of a white woman, a gorgeous but fairly tricky shot of a black man (in profile, strong sunlight on his nose, eyes and cheek, rest in deep shadow), and a couple of mid and long shots of black gamekeepers walking around.

There's a lot to get right and a lot to get wrong, and you can end up making everyone look a pretty sickly colour.

Oof, I was hoping you weren't talking and the black bird that did the little hop thing I remember from the cartoons. You were. I didn't remember and probably didn't understand the context of it at the time.

I don't think the show is necessarily THAT offensive, for what it's worth. Yes, the depiction of the child's physical appearance is stereotypical of the era (the child's name is problematic too), but the story being told is that of a young child from a hunting community who is learning to hunt by terrorizing insects with his spear until he runs across something (a lion with false teeth) that makes HIM the prey. The lion is just unlucky because he keeps running into the Minah bird whenever he's actually got the child in his grasp.

What's sad about the racist aspect of the show is that the depiction of a child at play in this show totally mirrors the behavior of children when they get a bug catching net. It's a Merrie Melodie, so there's no speech or inner monologue that is forced upon all children's shows day. Just a kid being a kid.

The story is alright. The way they drew the character, definitely not alright. And you know the lovely associations racists make between black people and spears.

Could have been a cute animation about a kid biting off more than they could chew. And a hapless lion and a bird that takes not shit. It's a shame they had to shove the nastiness in there.

> blackface depiction with the white lips

Lips of lighter tone than skin are not necessarily blackface.

Pale lips (black and white):

https://get.pxhere.com/photo/black-and-white-people-white-ph...

Pale lips (color):

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-3e50441087256791f079ff...

On the other hand, "Inky" isn't great...