Speaking of Masks - Black/White Man Robs Banks

This is kind of old news, but Mickey's post reminded me of this crazy thing that happened last year. A polish man named Conrad Zdzierak bought a very realistic looking silicone mask from this company SPFX Masks called "The Player". Yes, a black man mask called "The Player", which Zdzierak used to successfully rob four banks, a credit union and a CVS pharmacy in Cincinnati, Ohio last spring. According to ABC, "police arrested an African-American man who'd been picked out of a photo line-up by several of the victims and identified by his mother, who thought she recognized her son in a bank surveillance photo shown on TV." Turns out, this actual black man just really really looked like the mask. Anyway, they caught the real criminal and he pleaded guilty to the charges.

So is this situation racist? I don't know if Zdzierak decided to specifically purchase this $690 mask because it was a black man mask and he knows people may make certain assumptions about a black man's tendency to commit crimes as opposed to a white man. I mean, you have to admit, it's a pretty smart idea... using someone else's face and race to conceal your identity. Luckily, the man who weirdly resembles the mask wasn't wrongly prosecuted further. (Eww it would be so creepy to see someone wearing a mask of your face. Uh.) Is the fact that the mask is called "The Player" racist? The company also makes a mask called "The Inbred", which depicts a white disturbed individual... that could be seen as offensive to some as well, right?

 

Although I may not have a super strong opinion on this one, I thought is was a crazy story worth mentioning.

Either Emily or Travis hipped me to this a while back. It's a mask for sale on a costume site on Amazon and it is listed as Plain Brown Wrapper (Rapper) Adult Halloween Mask. Not too much else to say, really. Wooooooo!


-Mickey

First Post - The Help

So, I stumbled upon an article today about this book called The Help, which came out in 2009 and was written by Kathryn Stockett. It is a novel "set in Jackson [MS] in the 1960s [and] focuses on the relationships between African-American maids and affluent white families that employed them". Which is cool, I guess. A potentially uncool thing would be the lawsuit a woman named Ablene Cooper is filing against the author for using her as a basis for one of the main characters. Apparently Cooper was once Stockett's brother's maid and the lawsuit claims the character "Aibileen" is based on her. It appears as though the fictional character shares a life story and certain characteristics with Cooper, but unlike the real person, she speaks in "a thick ethnic vernacular" and has "a skin color [similar] to that of a cockroach." Not the most flattering way to describe a brown person.

Not having read the book, it's kind of hard for me to make an educated decision about the racist or non-racist merits of the book or the lawsuit. I'm just going to put this one out there.

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Gawker