Blackface row opens debate over librarians’ academic freedom

This kind of debate always raises the question: what do we find acceptable today that future generations will find abhorrent? There's an inherent foolishness in judging people in the past by our current standards. I'm old enough to remember the 'Black and White Minstrel Show' which would certainly cause screams of outrage if broadcast today and, while I always found it a bit creepy, nobody complained about performers in blackface then. There's also a tendency to confuse trivia with the real issues of racism. It's not about dressing up for a party, it's about treating another human being differently purely because of the colour of their skin. That's what we ought to choose to take offence at, wherever we find it. It's easy to take a photo out of a display and whine at the person who put it there. But that doesn't adress the real inequalities that still face many people just because of their ethnicity. In some ways, it even trivialises it.