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Comment by davidkatz | Hacker News Reader

Could someone point out what the story is here? The linked article seems to suggest that an Israeli official painting his face black and captioning it 'Obama style' is racist, but I fail to see why. People dress up as other people all the time, and usually it's a sign of appreciation.

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The story here is how could the person responsible for delivering war news/propaganda over social media actually paint their face black and not realize many people would find it racially offensive.

With respect, it's not clear to me that outside of the US, many people do find it racially offensive.

Sacha Dratwa is a 26-year-old immigrant from Belgium. (http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/117235/the...)

Does Dratwa understand what blackface is all about? Or as the website states it, Apparently, he’s also into some good ‘ol fashioned Jim Crow styled blackface as well.

Does it make sense to say that a 26 year old Israeli from Belgium is into Jim Crow styled blackface?

Yes, things can be lost in translation across cultures. However, given the context is war, the head of social media should expect their personal Facebook account to come under scrutiny. The target audience of the IDF's social media strategy is an English speaking Western audience, who most definitely find blackface offensive.

As someone who doesn't pretend to understand the conflict over there, the IDF's social media efforts have come across as terribly crass; this picture and caption could explain a little bit of the immaturity of the person behind the social effort

Honestly, I've spent decades of my life living amongst Americans, and I had no idea that 'blackface' is something offensive. This is totally harmless, and no racist by a long stretch.

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