All holidays have the things we love and hate. At Halloween, we love trick-or-treating, and many of us hate the blackface.
I saw on Facebook last week a white Florida teen decided to dress as Nicki Minaj, in blackface. A white Alabama teacher decided to dress as Kanye West, in blackface. His wife claimed no racial intent and that many of her husband’s friends are black -- as though either makes one immune from doing something racist.
Let me be blunt: Blackface is never funny. Why? Blackface was a practice in which white performers darkened their skin and viciously mocked black people and black culture.
A mainstay in American popular culture from the 1830s well into the 1900s, the caricatures and stereotypes used in blackface performances are the foundation of many stereotypes of black folks that persist today. The first man to popularize blackface mimicked a hobbled slave doing an exaggerated dance and singing the song “Jump Jim Crow” -- which later became the name of the Southern system of racial segregation.
The worst part is that actual black performers were also forced to perform in blackface, since white audiences were uncomfortable being directly engaged by black performers.
The recurrence of blackface furthers that history of racial exploitation and objectification. It is indicative of the insensitivity toward the cultural histories of non-white groups and the collective ignorance of our nation’s racial history, regardless of intentions.
So please, next Halloween, if you know someone is considering blackface, tell them no and recommend a simple Google search to help them understand why.
And if you hear a scream in the distance today, that’s just me reading another blackface costume story on Facebook.
I am Joseph Flynn, and that is my perspective.
