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."
Hey we can update this entire “we are all one” argument to a more modern movie.
Try this one on for size— interspecies love and sex between a white woman and an alien from outerspace. So ridiculous in it’s prospective and silly virtue signalling... and a damned boring movie, completely needlessly and uselessly— PREACHY.
Movie: “The Shape of Water”. Not kidding- a ridiculous “fantasy” with a specieist agenda. This will NEVER stop these psycho dem liberal whateverists (how about lunatics?).
RE: Spoofing individuals should be done carefully as well, but can be quite funny, especially when the roastee is also laughing.
As I said in a few posts above — SPOOFING, PORTRAYING and MOCKING are different and should be taken by the viewer IN CONTEXT.
Unfortunately, even spoofing and portraying is offensive now. In other words, we throw the word — RACIST around like rice in a wedding.
“Watermelon Man” from 1973.
I’ve seen a non-white redneck-— from the historical photos from where the term originated. Red bandana wearing, BLACK coal miners who fought the Logan County, WV wars, Blair Mountain, and eventually the US Army sent there by the President at the time.
Rednecks—the original term. Labor— coal miners. Not sunburned white Southerners.
And Crackers?— They were teamsters in the South who supplied the CSA with beef cattle stock. Cracking their whips from the saddle and from their wagons of supplies.
But, nobody wants to know this. Or that one can find so called “red necks” in deepest Bergin County, NJ in Five Families neighborhoods. Oops.
You deserve a Social Justice Warrior medal with two stars for political correctness.
Interesting.
Rednecks—the original term. Labor— coal miners. Not sunburned white Southerners.
But the latter is and has been the stereotype
You’d be offended too if your boss made a point of demeaning you just for cheap laughs.
It's always a thrill to be lectured on racial insensitivity by a son of the Indian Subcontinent, where they honed the practice into a fine art.
Caste System, anyone? And don't let the Untouchables handle the luggage!
Oh you can’t throw rice at a wedding anymore. You blow bubbles or throw rose petals. That’s why young people are having so few children. Rice,the symbol for fruitfulness and plenty has been replaced with air.
“Don’t fool with Fu Manchu,
“Don’t fool with Fu Manchu,
“Cause if you do, he’ll make a fool out of you.
Confucius say, “Many men smoke, but few men chew.”
Another Caucasian appropriator: Edward G. Robinson as Chinese Tong assassin in “Hatchet Man”.
Because they depicted black people as, not to put too fi an edge on it, sub human.
I get it. I never thought it was the least bit entertaining—even when Pryor and Gene Wilder did it.
Even back in the late 70’s and early 80’s I cannot recall seeing anyone dressed up like that “in real life.”
IIRC, Shirley was in disguise to escape the Yankees in that makeup.
At a wedding in 1987 we were given birdseed to throw instead of rice because the latter was said to cause birds to die of indigestion.
But otherwise, throwing rice is now cultural appropriation? Or is it OK if the bride is Asian?
Their Religious officials wore a red collar as part of their vestments. It's usage in the South was a consequence of so many Scotts-Irish settling there.
http://scotshistoryonline.co.uk/rednecks/rednecks.html
https://neddybee.blogspot.com/2005/05/who-are-rednecks.html
It has been said that the American Civil war was just a continuation of the English Civil War, with the North being mostly settled by English descended people, and the South being mostly settled by Scottish-Irish descended people.
“Watch this and tell me with a straight face it’s not offensive.”
Yes, it’s a terribly offensive and innacurate portrayal of blacks. It must have made them feel the same way men, heterosexuals, Christians and gun owners feel lately.
Richard Pryor on Black History Month:
“Has anyone noticed that when they finally gave us a month of our own, that it’s the shortest month of the year?”
Demeaned? Unikely. And they laughed the loudest at Richard Pryor blacking up Gene Wilder in 'Silver Streak.'
The difference today is that 50% of American society raised on collective guilt and the original sin of racism walks around like an open sore, just itching to find offense, hatred, bias, and all of the other sores they've been raised to hunt down like bloodhounds. Two generations of being told "You mustn't say 'hate', honey" and "Be sure you're becoming to everyone, honey" has now become the adults who act like squalling toddlers. And God help us all, because these imbeciles will decide whether to keep our life support machines running...
No they say rice blows up in the stomachs of birds. It’s stupid. We should have stopped the PC crap back then when it first raised its ugly head.
In Logan county WV there was a battle between miners wanting to unionize and the owner with his guards and the sheriff Chapin’s deputies. The miterers hunkered down in blair mountain where hundreds of thousands of rounds were fired/
miners came from northern WV and Penn to support the miners. They rode on open flat bed train cars and wore red bandannas around their necks to avoid sun burn. They were called “red necks.”
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