In a single picture, he was a brand new relative within the Huxtable household from “The Cosby Present.” In one other, his face was superimposed on the physique of Michael Jordan as he glided to the rim. In one other, he was positioned in a scene from a traditional Italian movie through which the actor Totò, sporting Blackface, performs an envoy from a fictional African nation.
When Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s international minister, returned to Rome from a trip on the island of Sardinia, it took little time for Italians to note his deep tan. By Aug. 25, pictures and memes that includes Mr. Di Maio in a type of Blackface appeared throughout the Italian internet. One of these situations depicted Mr. Di Maio as a Black migrant on a crowded boat.
As a substitute of criticizing the photographs, Mr. Di Maio embraced them, sharing some on his personal Instagram account, together with those of Mr. Jordan, Totò and the Huxtables.
“Guys. I promise that subsequent summer season I’ll placed on 50 SPF sunscreen,” Mr. Di Maio wrote in a caption below the photographs. “And thanks for making my day lighter.”
In the USA, racked by questions of systemic racism, some public figures who’ve been caught in Blackface have been pressured to resign or have been fired. The observe has additionally grow to be taboo in most of Europe, the place it’s, on the very least, thought-about extremely offensive.
However maybe much less so in Italy, the place performers nonetheless seem on tv in Blackface to play notable figures resembling Louis Armstrong or Beyoncé.
Final 12 months, the Italian airline Alitalia pulled an commercial that featured an actor sporting Blackface to painting former President Barack Obama. In 2008, Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, known as President Obama, “younger, good-looking and tanned.” When he was chastised for it, Mr. Berlusconi mentioned it was a praise and that individuals wanted to cease being so uptight.
Representatives for Mr. Di Maio, an influence dealer in Italy’s governing 5 Star Motion, made an analogous argument.
“The minister has been categorically towards any type of racial discrimination or violence in any of its types,” mentioned Augusto Rubei, Mr. Di Maio’s spokesman. “It was a self-mocking submit concerning the tan the minister obtained after a number of days in Sardinia. Blackface isn’t one thing that’s understood in Italy,” he mentioned, including that Italian tradition didn’t have the identical sensitivities as different nations.
Nonetheless, the pictures posted by Mr. Di Maio, who has a popularity for gaffes, didn’t go with out criticism within the nation. Some argued that they mirrored Mr. Di Maio’s provincial worldview, one that doesn’t take into accounts world conversations round racism taking place outdoors Italy. Others mentioned the photographs ignored the discrimination confronted by Black folks in Italy, the place African migrants typically grapple with violence and intolerance.
Igiaba Scego, a Somali-Italian author who focuses on Black research and colonialism, mentioned Italy has by no means confronted its colonial and fascist previous.
“In different nations, they know that practices resembling Blackface result in violence,” she mentioned. “In Italy, they simply don’t take insults to Black folks critically.”
Quite than discovering the posts hurtful and stunning, “the minister discovered it humorous,” she added.
Mr. Rubei, the spokesman, additionally defended the minister’s cameo subsequent to Totò, the Italian actor, by saying he did it as a result of each males are initially from Naples, and that nobody in Italy related that efficiency, from the 1961 movie “Totòtruffa,” with racism, or “thinks Totò is sporting Blackface.”
In different phrases, he mentioned, folks had been making one thing out of nothing.
“He didn’t paint his face Black,” Mr. Rubei mentioned of Mr. Di Maio. “He was actually tanned.”
