As a black woman I do not find this in any way racist. When you look into the history of Morris dancing you'll realise that the act of blacking up is more commerative than anything else.

Congratulations Gents for standing up to idiocy! Long may you continue to uphold our precious traditions.

I live in bacup and they are not doing it to be racist they are coal miners

I was born and brought up in Bacup and was always taught that this dancing was a tribute to the towns mining history, as Bacup was a mining town many years ago until like most Northern towns the local pit was closed. This annual blacking up of the face is symbolic of the coal miners that used to work at the pit face. There is nothing whatsoever racist about this Lancashire dance group that has been in existence for more than a century. All these people who just cant see beyond their blinkered eyes need to do their research properly and identify things correctly instead of trying to ban everything in society because of wrongly perceived beliefs when there is a perfectly logical reason that does not fit their narrative..... Long may the Britannia Coconutters dance on :)!

Of course it isn't racist. It's just a tradition. And that tradition was probably started as a homage to coal miners. Just because a certain group of people think it MAY offend some people does not mean it DOES offend some people. Keep dancin guys! 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

It's great isn't these men keeping up a tradition that is hundreds of years old, my Grandad was a miner and my Great Grandad came up from Cornwall when the tin mines closed, all that is mentioned is how their black faces 'upset' some people, not the fact that two charities in 2019 benefitted from their dancing, on one day, well done Gents for keeping the tradition alive!

Well done. It's time more people stood up to all the woke stupidity.

Good to see the tradition continuing. Blackface isn't always an insult/parody of 'people of colour', and sometimes doesn't refer to them at all.

Keep it up. There is absolutely no malice intended or racist issues here. It's one of Britain's traditions- It's time we firmly stand up against ridiculous and unfounded PC finger pointing. Where will it all end? Before PC, I doubt if anyone ever even gave a moments thought that the "Blacking-up" represented anything remotely sinister. In fact, it's the PC crowd who, themselves, who taint such things with malevolence. If you don't like it, go away.

I grew up in the Valley and have never seen or thought of it as racist. Had black and asian friends when growing up there and they never mentioned it offended them. I don't think any connection was ever drawn.

Shame on the Morris Organisation! Instead of banning them they should allow them to explain why they black their faces each time they perform, which I'm sure they do already. I'm more intrigued by their outfit!

It's nutting, it's clogging and is much older than Morris dancing, so being kicked out of the Morris ring shouldn't be too much of a problem. Today's Morris dancing, if you look into its history was more or a less a revival tradition, promoted by academics in the early 1900s (Maude Kapeles and Cecil Sharp would be two main names to google). This is older, and more connected to community and working life than many modern Morris sides ( many of whom are carbon copies of the Oxford Heddington morris and have no real local community tradition at all). How do I know? I was born in Rossendale, I first heard the nutters when I was 8 months old, so I think that may give me a head start.

This has nothing to do with blacking up in minstrel shows or other occasions in US culture. Blacking up in minstrel shows parodied black people, made fun of them in a highly charged and racist way in a country where slavery still existed and during its retrenchment in the Jim Crow laws and right up to today (if they still exist). When we had the "Black and White Minstrel Show" on British television (it survived to the late 1970s), that was clearly a parody of black people meant to demean them and make fun of them. Look at a Morris dancer and tell me that they are parodying black people or black culture. It would be a ridiculous claim. Look at an English morris dancer and tell me that these people with no power, no great wealth are somehow at the forefront of oppressing black people by Morris Dancing. I'm sorry that the diversionary identity politics of the US political game-show is now infecting our culture. This is quite simply a piece of cultural imperialism where a sensibility and attitude that has nothing to do with folk culture here is being imposed. If you are a black person in Britain then you are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to be unemployed, get poorer results from our health service, on average receive less pay and die younger. In the Covid-19 pandemic you have been more likely to die of the infection if you are black. There was a few years ago a threat made to a folk festival about Morris dancers blacking-up, the festival capitulated. I had a look at the website of the organisation that issued the threat, they were big on "identity", and all kinds of virtue signalling, but they did not address any of the issues I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Not one, not even close (of course there wasn't Covid-19 at the time). They perverted the history of racism in Britain to suite their own neo-liberal view of the world that never tackles the centres of power that have created and perpetuated racism for their own purposes. No, none of that, apparently it was Morris Dancers all along. What they did was a stunt against a traditional folk culture that struggles for recognition. A working class culture that is ignored or ridiculed in the mass media and now happily preyed upon by organisations wanting a cheap stunt for publicity and funding. If Morris dancers stopped painting their faces then not one single person will have their lives improved. Black people are not oppressed by working class Morris dancers (who I reiterate are not parodying black people or culture in any way), all that will happen is a pointless diminution of a working class tradition. btw. It wasn't illegal to dance and collect money. Also, blacking up doesn't protect people's identity. If you know someone, you will 100% recognise them in the type of face paint that Morris dancers use. I know this from first-hand experience. It's about being a Morris dancer, becoming one through a thing known as sublimation. You put on your costume and you are given licence to behave differently than you would ordinarily , behave as Morris dancers do. It's a thing that is common around the world where people will put white substances on their faces, or different types of ochre, don their costume and they "become" the dancers, the character of the traditional dancer. Oh, and it wasn't coal that they used (that really wouldn't have worked well) but soot or burnt cork. These days it's a bit of stage makeup.

Keep up the tradition! Blacking the face with coaldust or soot was a form of disguise for the dancers. Besides, no human is truly black.

Stand up for culture. Don't listen to the woke mob

I know people in Adderbury Morris in Oxfordshire nearby and was from a mining area of Lancashire, Wigan. The miners would have come home and gone to the pub with black faces from work, before they had showers. The Backup dances originated from Morris dancing, which is far earlier and from mining. There is nothing racist or disrespectful about it. Morris dancers from the north of England had blacked up faces until recently at least. It was about disguise and becoming other.

Good on them 🥰👏👏👏👏👏

It’s called tradition .. if u don’t like ours Plenty of other countries out there

Well done lad’s,stick with it times will change.

Keep it up lads it’s your tradition , tough if your offended

This is nothing new for the Coconutters. In the '70s the BBC stopped them from appearing on one of their shows because they blacked their faces.

I was involved in Morris tradition from an early age my family still are. My father used to black up fir Easter plays. We are not at all racist there's several theory where blacking up historically comes from.

Where's the harm

This tradition is ancient. At least 700 years English people have doing this, there is is absolutely no racist element to it

The leftists will be asking for our commandos to stop using face camouflage next.

I grew up in the same valley as Bacup and have never seen it as Racism.

"Blacking up" that sounds absolutely ghastly, they're miners.

Humour can have its own differences.

As a black person I don't have a problem with this just 💃 not portraying a character.

THEY are always offended

Good on you guys,don't let blm indimadite you,keep up your tradition.

There's a long tradition of blacking up within the Morris tradition. We know it as 'Border' in our area. In Padstow, Cornwall, there's 'darky day', which does have a racial connection in history but only to honour the memory of a black sailor who, I believe, was wrecked on the coast, washed up on the shore and settled in the town where he became very popular, successful and held in high regard. Let's have some common sense, tolerance and respect for all peoples customs and beliefs. ❤️

Why do we in Britain always give up our tradition after the tiniest complaint from any newcomer. Well done lads for not betraying your ancestors who danced this dance long before immigration or BLM. If you ever gave in, the LGBT crowd will complain about your red and white stripped skirts next. So dance on !

Thank you !!!! keep it up lads !!

What or even how does one respond to the multi million dollar industry of skin lighting creams industry!

well done guys for making a stand against the wokes

The Bacup Coconut Dance has absolutely nothing to do with miners, Moorish pirates or disguise. The origins of coconut dancing in the Rossendale Valley area can be traced back to the stage productions of theatrical companies such as the Chiarini Family who included coconut dances in their repertoire. They were tremendously popular in the first half of the 19th century and reports of the time describe how following a show local people would whistle the dance tune in the streets and mimic the dance moves. The earliest dates for the dance in Rossendale are from the 1850's - the Tunstead Mill Nutters (reported to have been formed in 1857). So, all the evidence points to the Nutters' dances as being adaptations of caricature stage representations of Africans or Pacific islanders.

Morris dancing is not anything to do with moors, its a misunderstanding of Mores (meaning custom) as in the customary or traditional dances of each region or nation

brilliant. Keep it up.

Thankfully the practioners of this tradition are standing up to a very small minority whose criticisms lack substance. The blackening up of the faces is not remotely racist but what is worrying is that those demanding a change have or have had positions of power within the Arts Council and the RSA. Over the years there have been no recorded complaints, to my knowledge, being made by persons of colour. Those connected with the RSA and the Arts Council should be called out on this for false accusations of racism against this 150 years old regional tradition rooted in mining and beyond.

Tradition is just that same for anyone whoever and wherever they are in the world . The beating heart of the red rose

Keep it going , it's tradition

I'm woke as they come and I don't think this is offensive at all, so long as you're clear about what it means so actual racists don't get the wrong idea and think you're siding with them.

The 1st Jewish Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, said: "Ignorance never settles a question." He was subjugated to a great deal of discrimination and hate during his career, and he rose above it all. If people don't understand what men looked like after working in the mines all day, then they have no right to an opinion on this tradition of the dancers. Commemorating the toil and essential contribution of miners is important to Britain's history. Those who pretend to be "progressive" or "woke" or "good socialists" should be more aware, more educated, more tolerant, and more understanding. Instead, they are judgmental, intolerant, smug, narrow-minded, and ignorant. As a minority, I am ashamed.

Looks a good bit of fun lol

Are they supposed to be smurfs ?

Bassetts removed black jelly babies saying they were the only ethnic group in a pack. Yet, jelly babies were supposed to be jelly bears but before the launch somebody said they didn't look like bears so it was cheaper to change the name. Btw. Are the lads still performing? Nothing racist about them at all.

So, they were mining for coconuts? Got it!

Good on you lads Keep blacking up and keep the tradition alive

good for them...

Cool

its getting out of hand nexst they will wont black clothing band

Nor should they … it’s a tradition and for all we know may relate to coal miners!

Hope they keep this tradition going! Proud of our quarrying / mining heritage in bacup. RIP to all the folks who lost there lives building this country in the mines and quarry’s

And following on from Dylan Batt's remark- it also shows the "finger pointers" stupidity.

Why would they want to anyway?

I mean if they are emulating miners then that's different to actually 'blacking up' however I don't see why they can't tone it down a bit! Maybe 'Grey face' would be better. Love the fact that they dance dressed likes smurfs for 7 miles though! Makes you wonder how things like this get started really. I feel like the amount of practice they must all put in must be pretty incredible. Simultaneous taking themselves seriously whilst also knowing it is absurb!

Miners used to come out of the pits at the end of a shift as black as the coal they were mining. This obviously absolutely NOTHING to do with race! I hope they stick to their guns.

Fact is, nobody knows the origin of the blacked up faces - the representation of coal miners is just speculation, the disguise explanation is just speculation, and like most explanations of the origins of most English folklore traditions, the evidence for any given theory is scant. It’s true, though, the origin is unlikely to be racist blackface, because as one of the oldest English folk dance traditions, it predates minstrelsy, it predates the racist practice of going blackface to cosplay black people. However, whatever it’s origin, how necessary is the blacking up to the tradition itself? The point of folk traditions isn’t that they’re frozen in time to whatever Cecil Sharp sanitised and documented them to fit his particular moral standards, the point of them is the adapt and evolve over time to maintain their relevance. So whilst the origin of the blacking up wasn’t racist, the fact is to modern eyes, in an era where decent people attempt to recognise the concerns of others, it *looks* racist. The blacking up isn’t an essential unique part of the tradition - it’s the dance and the rest of the costume which is the important part of it. The dancers could go without the make-up and it would be just as fun to watch. Or they could green up their face, or purple it up, or blue it up, and it would still be just as much fun. The origin of the blacked up face is not racist, but going F You Won’t Do What You Tell Me after being asked nicely to stop doing it because it looks racist, well that *is* racist. Which is a pity, really.

What next, will they can blackvshoes, leggings and vests?

if you read the history of Morris dancing the reason for blacking the face was so the mill owners could not recognise the dancers other wise they would sack the dancers

To suggest this is racist is a total mis-interpretation. In the first instance there are very very few people with skin this shade of black. The make up blends with the costume. The performance is a dance and makes no cultural reference except to the town of Backup. The Scots wear kilts - this does mean they are a parody on transvestites.... It is a fantastic dance and we should celebrate our traditions.

have we now bcome just a society of victims, so someone wears blackface once a year to perform this dance, really so what.

Good for them. They're being persecuted for some theoretical offense someone might take at some unknown time. Utter nonsense.

Something tell me the original people had moor rhythms...

Well done.a tradition older than immigration

Honestly how could that cause deep hurt to anyone … if Morris dancing causes you hurt 2 things go and hide under your bed from the world or read a book to try and gain some wisdom and insight to humanity. None of my black mates are that fragile

Good for them why should they follow silly rules.

Miners black up every shift! Get real!

But the dancers are supporting trans community by wearing a skirt … great tradition proud to be British well done all

Let them continue this tradition. It is blackface because this shit ain’t based on no damn mining traditions but the Moors whom they got the dance from. It’s found all over Europe

Not every thing painted black represents black people. And not all blacks have black skin. Black ks not just the color of people

Asimilasyona karşı ingiliz direnci

lol much ado about nothing

They look like evil smurfs.

But they did all vote brexit 😂😂😂😂😂

Wow! It is The First Time I See Respect from British People! 📯👏🪘 After all, The British Impire grew Because Others People Worked for Them. Right?! 😭🛎️🎂