Understanding the history of blackface and why its so harmful
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[Music]
[Music]
when i was 10 years old
we traveled from colorado to new jersey
to visit relatives
at christmas time we did a host of a
variety of things
i actually got to see the original cast
and the wiz and did a lot of sightseeing
but one of my favorite moments was to
stay up late at night and wait till
everyone else had gone to bed and then i
would sneak downstairs to watch
television
a host of old movies that probably had
no business watching such as bonnie and
clyde and
oklahoma that was a little okay but i
remember one evening come across a show
it was an old movie and it must have
been white christmas
or holiday inn of that type but it was a
musical
and i um started watching and then they
started to do this
musical scene and i noticed i saw bing
crosby in blackface
and i i i was confused i i couldn’t
quite understand
what the black face had to do with the
singing and dancing
that was my introduction to blackface
minstrelsy
blackface minstrelsy originated in new
york and not the south
as a lot of people would think in the
1830s
it was an incident where white actors
would blacken their faces with burnt
cork
paint on bright red lips
exaggerate the whites of their eyes and
put on a tightly coiled wig
to create characters of african
americans on the american stage
the typical minstrel show was a parody
of black culture
song and dance and speech interspersed
with
stump speeches jokes musical interludes
and theatrical skits
the cast included a roster of recurring
characters
the interlocutor acted as the emcee
you had mr tambo and mr bones
as the end men then you also had
characters like the clownish slave jim
crow
which was also the name of the jim crow
laws that we knew in the american south
or the maternal mammy a hyper-sexualized
winch
an arrogant dandy zip [ __ ] and the lazy
childish [ __ ]
the caricatures were often brutal but
not to the white audiences who laughed
at the antics of the illiterate slaves
as they sat secure in their own
superiority
the image of the dancing simple-minded
buffoons captured the public’s
imagination
and spread across the country like
wildfire
blackface minstrelsy grew to be the most
popular form of american entertainment
in the 19th century
abraham lincoln and mark twain spoke
highly of the american minstrel show
applauding the characterization and the
source of its humor
but just as it entertained it also
dehumanized the subjects of its ridicule
leaving the abolitionist frederick
douglass to describe blackface minstrels
as quote the filthy scum of white
society
who have stolen from us a complexion
denied them by nature
ironically after the civil war african
americans forged their own careers on
the professional stage
the route to success often meant
appropriating the mass that was used to
mock them
white audiences also embraced black
performance
in their local communities these amateur
minstrels used instructional guides
that provided them with jokes routines
songs and costumes they needed to put on
their own shows
such was the habit of politicians
fraternal orders
colleges high schools and community
performances
who carried on this tradition well into
the 20th century
the professional minstrel show left an
indelible
imprint on the american psyche the
images and racial stereotypes
that continue to circulate in american
society on sheet music
magazines books vaudeville
theater film television radio
records and all kinds of formats
these stereotypes were a powerful
reinforcement of the ideas of white
supremacy
and black inferiority the news headlines
of the last few months have shown us
that the legacy of blackface minstrelsy
continues to haunt us in a survey
conducted by the pew research center
they found that one in three americans
say that blackface is
always or sometimes okay
if it’s used in a halloween costume so
let me
ask this question what is the appeal of
darkening one’s skin
in order to impersonate someone of a
different race
blackface minstrelsy was born out of the
realities of slavery
and racial segregation and it’s a
continual
reappearance echoes the pain and
suffering felt by black people
whose bodies and cultures were presented
as strange
and grotesque it is a persistent
reminder of the racism and prejudices
that bred its very existence
the way it infiltrated society is a
clear example of how deeply ingrained
racism is in this country
and the racial subjugation embodied by
blackface minstrelsy
and perpetuated through a continuum of
his history
is a form of aggression a psychic wound
that refuses to heal
racial impersonation of any form cannot
escape this legacy
so it’s time to shift the power of
representation
to develop more expansive narratives
about the rich complexity of who we are
as human beings
acknowledging and recognizing blackface
for what it is
and what it symbolizes is a step in the
right direction
educating ourselves and how stereotypes
reinforce
racist ideologies is another
success in either case depends on an
honest self-assessment
of our social and cultural biases and
how they came to be
the legacy of blackface minstrelsy is
our shared history
and requires all of us to take
collective responsibility in dismantling
its power
to oppress and humiliate
the next time you’re confronted with
someone in blackface
or see a racist stereotype tell me
what will you do thank you