Posted on 02/04/2019 12:01:02 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It's been nearly 200 years since white performers first started painting their faces black to mock enslaved Africans in minstrel shows across the United States. It was racist and offensive then, and still is today.
The latest controversy to erupt over blackface is a photo in Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook. It depicts one person in blackface and another dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. After initially apologizing for appearing in the photo, the Democratic governor now says he is neither the person in blackface nor the person dressed as a Klansman.
However Northam's case plays out, it's important for every American to understand what blackface is and why it's so offensive.
Blackface isn't just about painting one's skin darker or putting on a costume. It invokes a racist and painful history.
The origins of blackface date back to the minstrel shows of mid-19th century. White performers darkened their skin with polish and cork, put on tattered clothing and exaggerated their features to look stereotypically "black." The first minstrel shows mimicked enslaved Africans on Southern plantations, depicting black people as lazy, ignorant, cowardly or hypersexual, according to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).
The performances were intended to be funny to white audiences. But to the black community, they were demeaning and hurtful.
One of the most popular blackface characters was "Jim Crow," developed by performer and playwright Thomas Dartmouth Rice. As part of a traveling solo act, Rice wore a burnt-cork blackface mask and raggedy clothing, spoke in stereotypical black vernacular and performed a caricatured song and dance routine that he said he learned from a slave, according to the University of South Florida Library.
Though early minstrel shows started in New York, they quickly spread to audiences in both the North and South. By 1845, minstrel shows spawned their own industry, NMAAHC says.
Its influence extended into the 20th century. Al Jolson performed in blackface in "The Jazz Singer," a hit film in 1927, and American actors like Shirley Temple, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney put on blackface in movies too.
The characters were so pervasive that even some black performers put on blackface, historians say. It was the only way they could work — as white audiences weren't interested in watching black actors do anything but act foolish on stage.
William Henry Lane, known as "Master Juba," was one of the first black entertainers to perform in blackface. His shows were very popular and he's even credited with inventing tap dance, according to John Hanners' book "It Was Play or Starve: Acting in Nineteenth-century American Popular Theatre."
Despite Lane's relative success, he was limited to the minstrel circuit and for most of his life performed for supper. He eventually died "from something as simple and as pathetic as overwork," Hanners wrote.
Such negative representations of black people left a damaging legacy in popular culture, especially in art and entertainment.
Minstrel shows were usually the only depiction of black life that white audiences saw. Presenting enslaved Africans as the butt of jokes desensitized white Americans to the horrors of slavery. The performances also promoted demeaning stereotypes of black people that helped confirm white people's notions of superiority.
"By distorting the features and culture of African Americans—including their looks, language, dance, deportment and character—white Americans were able to codify whiteness across class and geopolitical lines as its antithesis," NMAAHC says.
In modern discussion over blackface, its racist history is often swept under the rug or shrouded in claims of ignorance.
In a 2018 segment on "Megyn Kelly Today" about political correctness and Halloween costumes, the former NBC host said that when she was growing up, it was seen as acceptable for a white person to dress as a black person.
"But what is racist?" Kelly asked. "Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character."
Her comments sparked widespread anger. She apologized, but her show was ultimately canceled.
White celebrities, college students and even elected officials have made similar claims of ignorance over past and current controversies involving blackface.
But NMAAHC is clear on this: "Minstrelsy, comedic performances of 'blackness' by whites in exaggerated costumes and makeup, cannot be separated fully from the racial derision and stereotyping at its core."
RE: The performances were intended to be funny to white audiences. But to the black community, they were demeaning and hurtful.
The obvious next question is WHY?
But to ask is to be condemned as racist already. Ask Megyn Kelly.
They were demeaning and hurtful because they mocked blacks, who were a hated underclass, as stupid fools. There were intended to be demeaning and hurtful. That was the whole joke from start to finish.
It wasn't offensive then; it was de rigeur on Broadway and on TV.
So Michael Jackson lightening his skin wasn't offensive? He was a good looking black kid who died looking like an ugly white woman. There are other blacks who lighten their skin. Why don't you SJW Scumbags single them out. It's "cultural appropriation" (your confused term) and I don't like it.
Historical revisionism. Now with flavor crystals!
My wife and I were talking about this over the weekend during his press conference. We’re not black, but we’re also not offended by black face and don’t think people “used to be”. Again, PC run amok?
As a kid, I remember people “browning” their faces in high school during Halloween to dress up as Bob Marley, the rainbow afro guy from Monday Night Football, Fat Albert, and Michael Jackson. Especially after thriller came out.
To me that’s not racist. I’m lost as to why people think it is. It made the costume better.
I was at a Halloween party in high-school where a white couple came dressed as a black couple. Including blackface.
Another kid, who was black, came dressed in a KKK hood.
The three of them rode home on the bus together.
It was all about poking fun. Nobody took things so seriously.
I was a foreign student in Japan on scholarship from the Japanese Minisitry of Education (Monbusho) in the 1980’s.
We had a Halloween party at a nearby University ( Osaka Gaidai ) with both Japanese and Foreign students attending.
One German guy came as “Shintaro the Samurai”, complete with his eyes looking chinky and wearing a samurai suit.
Guess what? Everyone applauded him ( including the Japanese students ) and he won the best costume that night.
The Japanese were not offended by a white man trying to look like a Japanese. Why are we suddenly so worked up over this?
As for putting on a blackface, why should it be interpreted today as MOCKERY? Why can’t it be seen as playful fun like the German wanting to look like a Samurai?
we have a virus in the US called PC and so far there is no cure.
Its mocking a time gone by.
Does dressing up as a Pilgrim on thanksgiving “mock” Pilgrims?
I saw, recently, some B movie made on the 1940s. It was about a series of murders at a radio station. Along the way a white bellboy in blackface and a black porter do a comedy bit together. The bellboy was the clown and the black guy was the straight man. Didn’t look too demeaning to me.
You are entitled to your interpretation, and I’m not trying to change it. I am pointing out that there are other interpretations and an intelligent, open minded person will recognize that.
I believe this is another situation where insensitivity or buffoonery or clowning to get paid for providing laughs gets weaponized into an instrument of attempted racial guilt infliction. I decline to participate as a victim or a member of the racial lynch mob.
CWII is the cure.
We’re headed to socialist/fascism/communism on a rocket.
I...don’t...care.
I am so tired of every bit of all this race crap. It is hypocritical to the max and one way as h**l.
I fail to se the difference in White Chicks.
They dressed up as white girls in white face, to wear and apply accentuated features of whites, to play a highly stereotyped role for the amusement of audiences.
Its just another double standard.
Botom line is all this stuff the race baiters do is not about ending anything, its about hatred and revenge on people who do not or think what they claim all white people do and think.
Further this whole claim is worthless as the standard is only applied whenmits convenient, or on their enemies, and let their friends slide. Like the Ted Danson/Whoopi photo example.
Sad times we are in. Socialists have succeeded in balkanizing peoples and we are far worse off, all on purpose.
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