Are accent impressions racist?

[Story of O]

How about if an impressionist does an accent because his subject has one?

[Currywurst and Chips]

Surely there's a bunch of factors involved? Like:

- any intrinsic power imbalance between the accent doer and the subject
- whether the particular accent has a history of being used to cause harm or offence
- the intention behind doing the accent
- whether doing the accent is perpetuating some kind of stereotype or inequality

How is that gauged though?

Is it wrong for white British people to do Australian accents by that measure as they were once a colony we sent prisoners to?

Appreciate your attempt to codify what's (not) on.

[OyinbO]

I do a great BAME accent, tbf

[Wally Banter]

Surely there's a bunch of factors involved? Like:

- any intrinsic power imbalance between the accent doer and the subject
- whether the particular accent has a history of being used to cause harm or offence
- the intention behind doing the accent
- whether doing the accent is perpetuating some kind of stereotype or inequality

How is that gauged though?

Is it wrong for white British people to do Australian accents by that measure as they were once a colony we sent prisoners to?

Appreciate your attempt to codify what's (not) on.

Nah, you're alright.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

I do a great BAME accent, tbf

I do a great BANE accent.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

I do a lame bame accent.

Tell you what, post up whose accent you want to mock and why, and we’ll let you know if you’re on safe ground or not if you’re struggling with this.

[Currywurst and Chips]

It's not about mocking

[StillSpike]

Just to widen it out a bit.

If you do an impression of Stephen Hawking, is it disablist ? (or is it Ok because you're actually doing an impersonation of the software?)

Do carry on.

[Millennial Snowflake]

Surely there's a bunch of factors involved? Like:

- any intrinsic power imbalance between the accent doer and the subject
- whether the particular accent has a history of being used to cause harm or offence
- the intention behind doing the accent
- whether doing the accent is perpetuating some kind of stereotype or inequality

How is that gauged though?

Is it wrong for white British people to do Australian accents by that measure as they were once a colony we sent prisoners to?

Appreciate your attempt to codify what's (not) on.

Seems to be:

- predominantly white, English-speaking global superpower (UK, USA, Australia) = OK
- predominantly white, non-English speaking less developed country who are blamed for immigration etc. (Poland, Bulgaria, Romania) = NOT OK

[Dunners]

There's nothing wrong with doing impressions of other nationalities, so long as it is tastefully done.

[Constanza]

I once saw Mike Yarwood doing a live painting show of a popular impressionist era. Wasn't worth the Manet.