October 1, 2025 • 44 mins
What’s so wrong about a white person painting their face black to entertain a crowd? Well, it helps to understand the history of blackface in America to understand its harmful legacy.
Bob and Tyrone Howard trace how 19th-century minstrel shows dehumanized Black Americans, reinforced racist stereotypes, and shaped American culture, politics, and entertainment for generations. They also explore why it's important to learn about the history of slavery, even if it makes you feel guilty or uncomfortable.
If you’ve ever wondered why blackface is offensive, this episode will provide some answers.
GUEST: Tyrone Howard, professor of education in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA.
Michelle Harris-Perry’s book is Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Some of the same people who say that was an
ugly part of our history, we should not have to
talk about that are some of the same people who
say we should remember the Civil War. So I always ask,
why is it that we want to remember the Civil
War but we want to forget slavery? And I think
you cannot talk about the history of this country and
only pick and choose the parts that you want to tell.
(00:22):
Part of what you have to do if you want
to understand history and this totality, you have to talk
about the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You've reached American History Hotline. You asked the questions, We
get the answers. Leave a message. Hey, there are American
History Hotliners. Your host, Bob Crawford here, happy to be
joining you again for another episode of American History Hotline.
Remember send us your questions to Americanistory Hotline at gmail
(00:55):
dot com. That's Americanhistory Hotline at gmail dot com. Okay,
now to today's question. It's about minstrel shows and blackface.
Here to help me answer this question today is Tyrone Howard.
He's a professor in the School of Education and Information
Studies at UCLA. Tyrone, thanks for joining me. Thank you
(01:19):
for having me on today, Bob Okay, Tyrone, here's the
question we were hoping you could help us answer. It's
from Lawrence in Tacoma, Washington, he writes. I hear a
lot of people on TV and social media asking what
the big deal is about a white person painting their
face black. To me, this just viscerally feels wrong. But
(01:43):
I don't actually know the history of blackface in America.
Why is it so bad?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Now?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Tyrone, We've got a little bit of time to dig
into this question, So let's get back to the origins
of blackface. Where does this first come from?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Sure? So this is where we've got to be students
of history to understand where blackface comes from and why
it's deeply, deeply racist, Because the history of blackface goes
back to the eighteen hundreds in this country, and it
was really sort of rooted in this theatrical practice where
(02:21):
white performers use this makeup and had these exaggerated features
to essentially mock and dehumanize black people. And part of
this is also rooted in the fact that when you
go back to the eighteen hundreds, of course, the United
States is still for the most part of that century
rooted in slavery, which is about dehumanization, which is about
(02:44):
sort of seeing black people as inferior. Therefore, the image
of black people is one that is rooted in their
intellectual inferiority, being lazy, being sort of uneducated, and so
these portrayals essentially reinforced black inferiority because what they did
was they oftentimes had damaging stereotypes that we're seeing as
(03:08):
ways to mock and laugh and make fun of black people.
That their grammar wasn't improper, they couldn't think critically, their
communication skills were lacking, and so basically it was a
way to send this larger message to society that these
people are not our equals. These people are not the
(03:29):
serious in terms of being thinkers and doers and people
who could solve problems. And so they're deeply troubling because
it takes us to a time in this country where
we mocked and we ridiculed, and we dehumanized and we
devalue black people. And it was all through the context
of entertainment to make other white people laugh at how
(03:51):
subhuman or how unequal black people were. And in the
country that claims to be centered around equality and and
claims to be centered around justice. These deeply, deeply racist
portrayals of black people have done harm for many, many
centuries in this country. In any efforts to try to
(04:12):
somehow explain away black faces anything but racists fall woefully
short short.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
In my opinion, people know Jim Crow as an era
of history of American history marked by segregation and racial violence.
But the origin of this caricature Jim Crow, it comes
from the minstrel shows, who are what was Jim Crow.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
No, this is another good question that I think that
warrants our investigation, because we do associate Jim Crow laws
tied to what happened in the eighteen I mean the
nineteen hundreds with regard to segregated facilities, segregated schools, segregated housing.
But again, Jim Crow is a character that was created
(04:57):
by someone named Thomas Daddy Rice, who was again a
menstrual performer who used black face to characterize black people
in the eighteen twenties, thirties, and forties. And so this
name became popular because it was again it was a
derogatory sort of depiction of black people that operated under
the name Jim Crow. And so Jim Crow was seen
(05:19):
as this stereotypical black person. And what you have to
understand on this, Bob, is that you know, part of
the Menstrual Show was to offer these really just grossly
sort of pronounced facial features to reinforce these stereotypes that
black people were more animalistic, they weren't really human. And again,
(05:40):
what's important to know about these depictions and Jim Crow
in particular, is that any time you see a people
as less than, then you are more okay with them
being treated as less than. So when you think about
the context and the time, in the historical place we
were in the eighteen thirties, this country was was up
(06:00):
to his ears in slavery. The economic foundation of this
country was built on slavery. And so when you think
about the brutal, inhumane treatment that black people experience, one
can say, how can we be okay with the treatment
of any group of people in that way? But if
you depict, and you characterize, and you put out an
image of these people as less than, then you feel
(06:22):
okay with their treatment because you see them as not
being your equals. So Jim Crow is a big part
of this sort of menstrual history that depicted black people
as being less.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Than Okay, so you mentioned Tom Rice, was it, yeah,
being the character of Jim Carrow. Okay, So you just
shocked me a little bit because you said eighteen twenties,
thirties and forties. I didn't realize minstrel shows went back
that far. So, first of all, you've talked about the
(06:57):
characteristics of the Menstrual show in the demeaning behavior of
these actors and performers. So maybe like, how did they
did they interact with enslaved people? Like how did they
how did they observe because some of them I've read
before that some of the melodies were actually came from
(07:18):
from enslaved people, So how did they observe enslaved people?
And and maybe in answering that question, I'm giving you
a lot here. I apologize, but define, you know, define
minstrel at the same time, So.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Minstrel is is again a way in which you think
about any group of people, but in this particular case,
we're talking about black people who are seeing only through
this entertainment lens. And I raised that because part of
what I think is important for the audience to understand
is that that historically, when you think about racial depictions
(07:58):
of black people, they were all times sort of put
forth as folks who were only worthy of being entertainers
to white audiences, meaning that when whites wanted to be
able to hear singing, when whites wanted to hear dancing,
you bring out black folks and you have them performed
for you in ways that kind of sort of brought
them joy, brought the audience white folks joy. And so
(08:21):
there was singing and there was dancing. And part of
the complexity of this Bobs, we have to understand that
singing and dancing has always been part of the black experience,
not just here in the United States, but even in
other parts of the world where black people are be
it the Caribbean, be it in South America, being in
Central America, be it in Africa. So that is part
(08:43):
of the culture. But anytime someone's culture is mocked and
sort of deemed as derogatory or seen as a way
just to entertain only, what it doesn't take into account
is that those songs and those dancing oftentime I rooted
in a rich culture around resistance, a rich culture around
(09:05):
recognizing ancestors, a rich culture around expression of different ways
of being and so there's a rich, complex history and
culture that's totally not understood when it comes to what
minstrel shows represent. So it's important to note that as
we do our history and as we understand minstrel shows
and Jim Crow that any way that d contextualizes it
(09:28):
from the primary purpose of what is set out to do,
which was to dehumanize and to reinforce this ideal or
this notion of black inferiority. Anything less than that is incomplete.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
It sounds like what you're telling me here is is
that that singing and dancing was, like you said, it
was a rich part of the of the black experience,
the black culture, and that by white people mocking it
right for entertainment, it demeaned everything, right like you First
(10:03):
of all, you've demeaned these people by bringing them here
and enslaving them, and they have yet they can still
experience joy and express their faith through song and dance.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
And then you mean that too, absolutely absolutely, And that's
that's the that's the that's the to me, the really
sad and unfortunate and one of the tragedies of this
is that, you know, when we talk about black people
in the United States. The horrific nature of what slavery
did was it just dehumanize people. It sort of ripped
(10:34):
away their their culture, their religions, their beliefs, their structures.
And so the resilience of black people is that we
will still sort of recreate our own traditions, our own customs,
even in the in the context of in humane conditions
such as slavery. And so if you try to take
those behaviors, those rituals, those customs, and that gives you
(10:57):
some simbilus of hope in the face of such brutal oppression,
and then even that's taken to your point, Bob, and
that's mocked, and that's ridicule, essentially trying to take away
all elements of those characteristics that help people to be
whole and human.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So we talked about the popularity of these shows. So
we have a basic understanding that is South South slavery,
South racism, North abolitionist. That's not in the nineteenth century.
That's not completely true, is it?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
No, Because I think we tend to characterize the country
in the eighteen hundred sists slavery is in the south only.
But we know that while there were states in the
North that did not sort of, you know, operate based
on slavery. Hence how the Civil War came to be,
when one of the reasons why the Civil War came
(11:51):
to be. But let's be clear, this is about attitudes
and beliefs about black people, and some of those attitudes
and beliefs about black people were just as stringent in
the North where slavery did not exist, as they were
in the South where slavery did exist. So I think
we have to push back on this notion that there
was this really progressive way of thinking and being that
was in the North about how folks viewed black people.
(12:13):
That wasn't the case in the South. This was about
the ways in which black inferiority was a staple in
the first couple of centuries of this country that I
think we're still seeing the remnants of folks trying to
get out of today.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Something that I've learned and correct me on this if
I'm off base. But even a lot of the people
who worked for anti who were anti slavery in the North,
the whites who were anti slavery, they weren't for equality.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, this is a good point, and that's very true
because part of what you have to recognize that there
were lots of Northerners, and to be fair, probably Southernish too,
who saw the brutal nature of slavery and said that's wrong,
and saw the ways in which families were separated in
and the ways in which people were exploited for their
(13:03):
labor and not compensated for their labor. They felt that
just is not a just and humane thing to do,
and so that is one set of beliefs. However, many
of those same people who thought that was wrong felt like, yes,
these people, black people should not be subjected to this. However,
that doesn't mean that they're my equal because again, sort
(13:23):
of baked into the fabric of this country from sixteen
nineteen when some of the first enslaved Africans were bought here,
is that these people are unequal to us. When I
said unequal to us, I mean unequal to white people.
So I can feel two things can be true. At
the same time, I can feel like this is wrong,
this should not happen, this institution called slavery. But at
the same time, I don't think these people are equal
(13:45):
to me either. I just don't think they should be
subjected to this kind of harm, and that type of
thinking did exist in the North, and to a degree
as well in the South as well.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
So where were these shows more popular?
Speaker 1 (13:59):
The mental show?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So you would have a white a white man like
Tom Rice who put on black face and he performed
songs that were at least derivative of songs that enslaved
enslaved people would sing. So I had read before that
in New York City, for example, like they people people
like people would be falling out of there, like they
(14:20):
pack in to see these shows white people and it
would be like watching the Beatles in nineteen sixty four.
I mean, people, I've read accounts of people going crazy
for minstrel shows. So where were there any in the South,
and where were they most you know, most popular?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, so this is what we have to be mindful
of that when you think about minstrel shows, these were
oftentimes put on for some of the elites at the time. Uh,
these were put on for for folks who had memes
and just like you know, folks might say today, I
want to go see a concert of one of my
favorite entertainers to hear them sing the songs that I
(14:59):
really enjoyed. That's how mistral shows were seen back in
the eighteen thirties and forties, right, you had individuals who
felt like, we're going to go see this show that's
comedic but also rooted in again this sense that we're
going to laugh at what these people are. We want
to see whites sort of mimic and sort of and
(15:20):
really try to portray the inferiority of black people, and
we don't. We don't really sort of critique the fact
that there were people who were, like you said earlier,
so called progressive for the times in terms of thinking
that slavery was wrong, that there was no place for slavery,
but who would still participate in the watching and pay
(15:42):
money to see these shows that were deeply, deeply racists.
And so part of what we have to come to
groups with is that even in this moment, that we
have to push people to think that just because you
say you don't believe that the mistreatment of a group
of people is okay, but if you still, in some way,
shape or form, engage in the participation or the support
(16:05):
of any kinds of representation of black inferiority or the
inferiority of any group of people, that the two don't
coexist together. So at the time, we saw large theaters
would put on these shows of white actors. You know,
it would be featuring songs and dances and oftentimes have
different kind of comedic routines associated with them. And so
(16:26):
I think it's important to note that this is not
something that was done only in say, poor rural communities
at the time, the large cities like New York and Washington,
d C. In Boston, you saw minstrel shows taking place.
And that's why I think we have to talk about
the complexity of this not just being something that happened
(16:47):
in the South, but it happened throughout the North as.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Whale were minstrel shows in essence a form of propaganda
for chattel slavery.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Absolutely, I mean, part of what we have to understand
is that that slavery, while it was the economic foundation
of this country in its formation, it also had to
be framed in a way that told everyday people, this
(17:20):
is okay. The mistreatment of these people is acceptable because
they're not like us. They're inferior to us. They are
not just intellectually inferior. And I always find the whole
depiction of enslaved Africans, especially the notion of them being
lazy as an interesting one because they were depicted at
(17:42):
the time of being lazy, yet they were the ones
providing intense labor in the building of this country. So
these were folks who worked twelve thirteen, fourteen hour days,
seven days a week, twelve months out of the year
for no compensation. So how can we say that they're
lazy on the one hand, but yet they're working tirelessly
(18:04):
harder than any other group of people at the time.
So I think in order for that sort of institution
to thrive, you had to be able to tell people
that not only these people intellectually inferior, not only these
people lazy, but also and this is the important part
as well, these people also can be violent, and that's
why they have to be controlled. That's why they have
(18:24):
to be surveiled, That's why they have to be watched,
That's why they have to be enslaved, because these people
will harm you if we don't control them. So the
more you put out those messages, the more you put
out these images, the more you put out these depictions,
it seeks into the minds of people everyday, people every
day of white people, who felt like, these folks are
to be watched, controlled surveiled because they're intellectually not equal
(18:48):
to us. But also they can be violent as well.
And here's where you think about something like W. D.
Griffin The Birth of a Nation. The Birth of a Nation,
which came out in the nineteen hundreds and was shown
at the White House by W. Wilson, was a cinematic
success because it also reinforced this idea, though not through
the minstrel sort of format, but it sort of reinforced
(19:11):
this idea of black violence, of black brutality, of black
intellectual inferiority, that if you don't watch these people, if
you don't enslave these people, black men, big sort of
oversized black men will come and try to sort of
do physical harm to our children, and they will try
(19:31):
to rape our women. And so all these images, as
much as we may not take them seriously, they really
sent a powerful, deeply embedded message that these people are
not to be trusted, these people are not to be liked,
these people are a threat, and therefore we have to
meet them either with control by way of enslavement. And
(19:51):
even after the Thirteenth Amendment ended in eighteen sixty five.
Then it was okay, Jim Crow laws that continue to
keep these folks separate and a part. And then when
you see racial vidence by way of lensings and the KKK,
because they were still seeing through the lens of what
these Mitschel shows depicted black folks as being less than violent, lazy,
(20:12):
not to be trusted.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
This is American History Hotline. I'm your host, Bob Crawford.
Do you have a question about American history? If so,
record yourself using the voice memo app on your phone
and email it to Americanhistoryhotline at gmail dot com. That's
American History Hotline at gmail dot com. Okay, back to
the show. I'm talking with Tyrone Howard, professor in the
(20:42):
School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. We're talking
about the history of Mistel shows and blackface in America.
Can we talk about the mammy stereotype? Is it part
of the conversation about blackface?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Well, yes and no, And let me tell you what
I mean by that. So again, the mammi stereotype is
one that is where racism and sexism come together, and
racism and sexism come together because it depicts black women.
Now let me be clear, because there's a gender sort
of analysis to this that's important. Minstrel shows by and
(21:22):
large depicted black men as being inferiority of just being
inferior intellectually and the like all the things we've been
talking about. But the Mammi stereotype is one that depicted
black women who were typically enslaved, who were domestics, who
have the responsibility of nursing for children. But it was
(21:44):
this depiction of this large, dark skinned, overweight black women
who had these really and this is the complexity of
the character like these motherly characteristics. The same time, was
not seen as being on the same level as white women,
(22:05):
if that makes sense, right. So they could cook, they
could clean, they could take care of children, they could
sort of help to manage the house, but they were
also seen as being uneducated. They were also seen as
being sort of not intellectually gifted, if you will. And so,
while not in the same sort of sort of vein
as the mestral show, but there were some shows that
(22:26):
were put on now we're talking probably twentieth centuries that
depicted black women in these really sort of you know,
disproportionate sort of ways in terms of their physical features
and body types that again were not really rooted in
trying to help black women be seen as equals, but
to depict them in ways that was deeply troublesome. Now,
(22:48):
as with any stereotype, I want to be clear here
about with any stereotype, what we know is that there's
always a kernel of truth and certain stereotypes. But the
problem with the stereotype is when we take that small
kernel truth and we use it to describe an entire
group of people. And that's why the minstrel shows and
even the mammy stereotypes are harmful, because then when people
(23:08):
who have limited interaction with any group of people see
the stereotype of what might be the depiction of one
or a small number of people and say that's how
they all are, that's how we start to really really
begin to sort of buy into harmful, racist, sexy stereotypes
about the people, and we don't get to know who
folks are on an individual level and to understand the
(23:29):
variability across groups and within groups.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
There were these mammy dolls and they were very popular.
Talk about just just to button this this part of
the conversation up, I mean, the the mammy caricature cared
for the wealthy white person's child from a very tender age,
(23:54):
and there were there were, you know, relationships between these
children and the domestic enslaved person who took care of them.
So I kind of build build on that, like like
we were there bonds of kinship formed that broke as
these children grew older and and saw the world, you know,
(24:18):
in a different way. Or or were these bonds real? Yeah,
so this is this is a really good point. I'm
glad you're asking this because yes, they were real for
many of these black women, because think about it from
this standpoint. In many of the homes that you had
wealthy white people, most of whom were slave owners. Uh,
(24:41):
black women were responsible for care taking responsibility for the
children for some of them from the time of birth.
So they would they would nurse these children.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Uh, they would play a primary role in the raising
of these children. Uh. They were oftentimes seen as the
emotional support for these children. And these white children would
grow up seeing this woman in their household as being
a really caring, loving and important figure in their lives. Right.
And so you cannot have that much of an impact
(25:12):
on young people because there's so much research on human
development and child Development that says that early attachment matters
because when young children have an early attachment to someone,
the bond typically strengthens over time because you come to
see this person as a reliable and loving and consistent
figure in my overall well being. So lots of black women,
(25:34):
and that's the part that oftentimes does not talked about,
is the ways in which these black women who played
these roles had to play the caregiving role for white
children in addition to doing this for their own children
as well. There's a phenomenal book by Melissa Harris Perry
called Sister Citizen, Shame, Stereotype and Black Women in America
where she talks about, you know, mammys were oftentimes placed
(25:59):
in this unenviable situation of not being able to be
the protectors and defenders of their own children because they
had to make sure they looked out for the white
children that they had helped to raise as well. And
what's really fascinating to me on this, Bob, is that
you had these black women who played these motherly roles
in the lives of white children. And these white children,
(26:22):
especially those who were, you know, the sons of slave owners.
They ultimately grew up to take on the role of
the overseers or the owners of the plantation. But yet
they still maintain this brutal system of slavery and kept
black women and men, in some cases black children who
(26:43):
they grew up with in this horrific system. So how
do you have someone who cared for you, who nursed you,
who nurtured you, who loved you like you were one
of their own, and you grow up to become a
grown adult, but yet you still allow that system that's
sees those individuals as being second third class, not even citizens,
(27:04):
just people, and you don't call them to question sort
of why that system is harmful. Not to be fair,
there were some protections and some provisions that some whites
gave to those women who play that vital role in
their lives, but by and large they had individual protections
or their families had protections, but it did not take
away from the entire system or the institution that they
(27:26):
were caught up in that was called slavery.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
If we can, let's talk about menstrreal shows and their
connection to American music. The sixteen nineteen Project did an
amazing podcast episode on this that I personally highly recommend
so in your own research and thought about this, how
(27:51):
did the music of African Americans and enslaved Americans get
wrapped up in minstrel shows and make its way into
the music we hear today even.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, So, look, music has been a it has been
at the core of so much of the black experience
here in the United States. And when you listen to,
for example, old Negro spirituals, these these these Negro spirituals
were rooted in worship, they were rooted in a spirituality,
(28:28):
They were rooted in hope and the possibility of better times.
So they had meaning and they gave people hope, and
they gave people purpose, and they gave people a sense
that one day, a better day was coming. And so
when you take this sort of misrepresentation of black music
and you begin to sort of strip away the core
(28:50):
elements of what made it unique and what helped it
to sustain a people, then all of a sudden you
kind of have this really bastardized sort of representation of
the music that comes nowhere close to what its intentions
were when it was initially created and how important it
was to people survival, if you will. And so I
think anytime you have people who are outside of a culture,
(29:11):
who come and try to take elements of a culture
and try to somehow package it and sort of sort
of sort of portray it in a certain way, you're
going to get something that's very different from the original product.
And that's why you saw in these menstrual shows a
really just just just just just unfair, unauthentic and really
(29:32):
just off base accounting of black music, which ultimately stood
the test of time. And I think that when you
see some of the historical some of the folks who
study the history of black music, uh, they begin to
help us to understand the roots of why black music
in these United States was important, how it's been adapted,
(29:54):
how it's been enhanced, how it's been built upon, or
how it's been sort of torn apart and really made
out be something that it's not. And so I think
it's important to recognize just the foundational roofs that music
has had, and not just black culture, but I think
black culture and black music in particular has had an
impact on mainstream culture across the board when it comes
to music, and it's important to understand those those origins
(30:17):
because history would tell us that that often time minstrel
shows tried to make mockery out of that music, which
is now in the current form, billion dollar industry in
this country and even worldwide when you think about it.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
So like music film, right, you talked about birth of
the nation, Like, how did these racist tropes from the
minstrel shows make their way because it wasn't I mean
the minstrel shows, vaudeville, the beginning of film. They were
it's all connected here, right, it's all they one bleeds
(30:50):
into the next. So talk about how those racist tropes
made their way into into film.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, because you know, part of what what was so
powerful at the time is that, you know, this country,
we've always used different mediums to tell stories about whatever
is going on at the time. I mean, newspapers, for example,
talked about the news of the day. You know, Entertainment
was a way to kind of send messages about certain
(31:17):
issues with certain people, and film became a powerful medium
to do that. And so film was a way that
you could put out a product and you could begin
to really share that film with millions of people across
the country. And so yes, there was a through line
between vaudeville, between the mestral shows, between you know, the
(31:37):
Birth of a Nation, which was, like I said earlier,
it was an epic film at the time. I think
it was nineteen fifteen that it was made because part
of what people struggled with at the time, and really
to some degree even today, the less we know about people,
the more we tend to make up. And that's what
(31:59):
ignorance is, that's what prejudices when we judge before knowing.
And to be clear, not all whites of the day
owned black people, right, Not most whites enslaved black people.
You know, it was only those whites who had means
who owned black people during slavery. But what's important to
(32:19):
note is that we were a country in the eighteen
hundreds up until eighteen sixty five that was largely separate
and unequal. We know this, right, So many whites had
very little interaction with black people because they didn't live
in the same community, They didn't live in the same neighborhood,
they didn't freak with the same store, they didn't freak
(32:40):
with the same schools. Because we were separate in equal
a separate and unequal, I should say. But what happens
is that when people don't have access to authentic people
of any background. You begin to have that void feel
by different accounts that people share with you, or by
mass media of the time. So film, like I said,
(33:00):
it becomes a powerful medium to tell the world, to
tell the country this is how they are. And when
I say that they this is black people, they're seeing,
as I mentioned earlier, as unintelligent, They're seen as sexually
aggressive towards white women. All the harmful stereotypes that that
we know really sort of lead to the ways in
(33:20):
which black pop foreseedd And this was shown all across
the country. I mean, this was shown in large cities
such as Chicago, Denver, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Minneapolis, and you start
to think about how it seeps into the conscious and
subconscious of white people at the time. To say that
black people are to be feared. It says that the
KKK is a good thing because they were the ones
(33:40):
who come to the rescue to save white people from
these violent blacks. This is white supremacy at its finest,
and when you have its, you know, sanctioned at the
highest levels of government, when you have the president at
the time who does a private screen of it at
the White House with members of his cabinet with family members.
It sends a powerful message that basically endorses this message,
(34:03):
that endorses this imagery, that endorses this notion of black inferiority.
So and you have to understand it, even today, in
twenty twenty five, you still have people who subscribe to
some of these tenets of black inferiority. And it has
its roots and all the things we've been talking about.
When I talk about Birth of a Nation being released
(34:24):
in nineteen fifteen, that was only one hundred and ten
years ago. This wasn't something that was that was released,
you know, three hundred years ago. You know, my grandmother,
my grandmother who I have lots of memories with, she
was born in nineteen fifteen. So you begin to understand
that these are events that did not happen, you know,
hundreds and thousands of years ago. The ways in which
(34:46):
you kind of shape of people's thinking is you consistently
put out messages in different mediums that begin to become
become of the popular thinking of the time, and people
believe it if they have nothing to really contest it
and to challenge it to not be true.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And I just want to make a note Melissa Harris Perry.
I've had the pleasure of interviewing her in the past,
and we'll put a link to her book in the
bio here. When did blackface minstrel shows fall out of popularity?
Like the idea of an entertainer painting their face black,
you know, and perform Like when did that kind of
(35:22):
like just become unpopular? We know it pops uping now
and again.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Still right, Yeah, I was just going to say that,
I was going to say that it's it's not how
do I frame this? We still see today in twenty
twenty five and twenty twenty twenty, you know, in the
twenty teens, black face popping up, and sadly it pops
up on college campuses where young people, in efforts to
(35:51):
be funny, to do some of the same things that
was done, you know in the eighteen thirties, to try
to get a laugh or to try to somehow sort
of give a comedic skit, we'll do black face. So so,
while not as wildly popular as it was, you know,
two hundred years ago, it still does occur, sadly. But
(36:13):
I think what began to happen as we moved into
the early nineteen hundreds, I think you saw more massive
resistance from black folk and some white folk who said
this is not okay, who said this is unacceptable. Why
do we depict black people in ways that are not
reflective of who they are? Now, I have to say,
while you know, you still have shows that came out
(36:36):
in the like the nineteen thirties and forties, the Amos
and Andy shows that really were in some ways a
derivative of what you saw with black face, because it
depicted black people in ways that some found comedic but
others found deeply troubling. I think this is where you
had social organizations of the day, different groups like the NAACP,
groups like the Urban League, who said that this is
(36:58):
not acceptable. So when you get to the nineteen thirties forties,
and really it's the Harlem Renaissance that's really pivotal here,
because the Harlem Renaissance in the nineteen twenties and thirties,
you have lots of black artists, lots of black filmmakers,
lots of black authors who begin to offer a counter
story to how black people have been depicted when it
(37:18):
comes to mentell mistral shows. And so I think it's
important to note that you have resistance in the form
of different portrayals. I think you saw more blacks who
had access to education before than before, more blacks who
had access to college. And I think as you started
to see some of the walls of discrimination and racism
(37:39):
coming down, not all of them, but some of them,
I think you began to see the pushback that made
minstrel shows less and less commonplace. And to the point
now when we see them, what we hope to see
as a strong repudiation of any depiction of that era
of our country's history.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
For a lot of folks out there, this is a
hard conversation to have. It's uncomfortable, right for a lot
of people. Is uncomfortable for a lot of white people,
it's uncomfortable. So given where we are right now, Smithsonian
under attack, the current president doesn't want to display all
(38:24):
this slavery and how far we've come and all this
kind of stuff, taking the taking down of pictures of
enslaved people who were whipped and beaten from historic sites right,
Some will say, man, we don't have slaver anymore. We've
(38:44):
come a long way. We had a black president, like
you know, can we just all be equal and normal
and do we have to highlight this. Do we have
to talk about this? Do we have to remember this
ugly part of our history?
Speaker 1 (39:00):
What do you say to that? Yeah, I hear that
a lot, and it troubles me. And let me tell
you why it troubles me, because some of the same
people who say that was an ugly part of our
history we should not have to talk about that are
some of the same people who say we should remember
the Civil War because that's a part of our history.
(39:23):
Because people died in the Civil War. To this day,
it is the deadliest war in our country's history. And
we have, you know, remembrances around the Civil War and
what it was about people who fought for what they
believed in. And people will say we should never forget
their statues erected around folks who fought for the Confederacy
because they felt like they were standing for something that
was principal. So I always ask, why is it that
(39:45):
we want to remember the Civil War but we want
to forget slavery? And I think you cannot talk about
the history of this country and only pick and choose
the parts that you want to tell. Part of what
you have to do if you want to understand history
and its totality. You have to talk about the good,
the bad, and the ugly, and that means that if
you understand the good, bad, and the ugly, you can
(40:06):
lift up the good. You can talk about the promise
and potential of what we are as a nation to
try to become that perfect nation state. But at the
same time, you have to understand the ugly parts of history,
because if you don't, then that means you are bound
to repeat it. And so I know it's uncomfortable for
some people. I know it's not sort of convenient to hear.
And I always tell this to folks who say this
(40:27):
to me in my classes. If it's uncomfortable for you
to talk about slavery, how do you think it felt
for people to live through it? And so part of
what we have to do in this country to get
to a better place, we have to be empathetic. We
have to try to put ourselves into the shoes of
people who've gone through some horrific circumstances, though we will
never ever be able to experience that firsthand, thankfully, but
(40:50):
just try to be empathetic. What would it feel like
to be able to live at a time where you
work twelve hours a day, back breaking work, no compensation,
being physically assaulted and beaten if you didn't do things
to the satisfaction of the overseer or the slave owner.
What would it feel like if you were taken away
from your parents for no other reason because you were
(41:11):
being sold. I think we have to talk about it
because it's part of American history, whether we like it
or not, it is part of our history, and we
can't talk about, you know, the good parts of the
country's history, but leave out the bad parts. Because part
of what we should be talking about is that even
what we see today in twenty twenty five has its
(41:32):
remnants from what happened in slavery. We had. Slavery exists
in this country for two hundred and forty seven years
sixteen nineteen to eighteen sixty five. You think about it
that way, right, We've had more years of slavery almost
as we've had of being an independent nation when you
think about it, right, So part of the issue becomes
when you think about the economic wealth gap that exist
(41:56):
that exists in this country roots that are tied to slavery,
think about redlining and certain black folks not being able
to buy homes and wealthy to do areas. It has
its roots in slavery. When you think about issues such
as sort of health inequalities and access to high quality
medical care, much of that has its roots in slavery
(42:17):
in the after math of Jim Crow. I could go
on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Right the GI Bill and Urban Renewal.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
GI Bill is a great example because this was something
you had men who fought for this country for it
to be the country that it is, who couldn't get
the same benefits that that their white compatriots got for
being in in fighting in wars as well. So I
think part of why we cannot forget about it is
because it happened, and not that we have to stay
rooted in the past, but because it still has uh
(42:48):
sort of ramifications in the current moment, and until we
find ways to address and redress those past wrongdoings, will
continue to see a significant set of the spirits that
play out in current society.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Tyron Howard, this has been it's been great. Thank you
so much for joining us today. We hope we can
call on you again sometime.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
You've been listening to American History Hotline a production of
iHeart Podcasts and Scratch Track Productions. The show's executive producer
is James Morrison. Our executive producers from iHeart are Jordan
Runtall and Jason English. Original music composed by me, Bob Crawford.
Please keep in touch. Our email is Americanhistory Hotline at
(43:38):
gmail dot com. If you like the show, please tell
your friends and leave us a.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Review in Apple Podcasts. I'm your host, Bob Crawford.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Feel free to hit me up on social media to
ask a history question or to let me know what
you think of the show. You can find me at
Bob Crawford Base. Thanks so much for listening, See you
next week.
Some of the same people who say that was an
ugly part of our history, we should not have to
talk about that are some of the same people who
say we should remember the Civil War. So I always ask,
why is it that we want to remember the Civil
War but we want to forget slavery? And I think
you cannot talk about the history of this country and
only pick and choose the parts that you want to tell.
(00:22):
Part of what you have to do if you want
to understand history and this totality, you have to talk
about the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You've reached American History Hotline. You asked the questions, We
get the answers. Leave a message. Hey, there are American
History Hotliners. Your host, Bob Crawford here, happy to be
joining you again for another episode of American History Hotline.
Remember send us your questions to Americanistory Hotline at gmail
(00:55):
dot com. That's Americanhistory Hotline at gmail dot com. Okay,
now to today's question. It's about minstrel shows and blackface.
Here to help me answer this question today is Tyrone Howard.
He's a professor in the School of Education and Information
Studies at UCLA. Tyrone, thanks for joining me. Thank you
(01:19):
for having me on today, Bob Okay, Tyrone, here's the
question we were hoping you could help us answer. It's
from Lawrence in Tacoma, Washington, he writes. I hear a
lot of people on TV and social media asking what
the big deal is about a white person painting their
face black. To me, this just viscerally feels wrong. But
(01:43):
I don't actually know the history of blackface in America.
Why is it so bad?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Now?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Tyrone, We've got a little bit of time to dig
into this question, So let's get back to the origins
of blackface. Where does this first come from?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Sure? So this is where we've got to be students
of history to understand where blackface comes from and why
it's deeply, deeply racist, Because the history of blackface goes
back to the eighteen hundreds in this country, and it
was really sort of rooted in this theatrical practice where
(02:21):
white performers use this makeup and had these exaggerated features
to essentially mock and dehumanize black people. And part of
this is also rooted in the fact that when you
go back to the eighteen hundreds, of course, the United
States is still for the most part of that century
rooted in slavery, which is about dehumanization, which is about
(02:44):
sort of seeing black people as inferior. Therefore, the image
of black people is one that is rooted in their
intellectual inferiority, being lazy, being sort of uneducated, and so
these portrayals essentially reinforced black inferiority because what they did
was they oftentimes had damaging stereotypes that we're seeing as
(03:08):
ways to mock and laugh and make fun of black people.
That their grammar wasn't improper, they couldn't think critically, their
communication skills were lacking, and so basically it was a
way to send this larger message to society that these
people are not our equals. These people are not the
(03:29):
serious in terms of being thinkers and doers and people
who could solve problems. And so they're deeply troubling because
it takes us to a time in this country where
we mocked and we ridiculed, and we dehumanized and we
devalue black people. And it was all through the context
of entertainment to make other white people laugh at how
(03:51):
subhuman or how unequal black people were. And in the
country that claims to be centered around equality and and
claims to be centered around justice. These deeply, deeply racist
portrayals of black people have done harm for many, many
centuries in this country. In any efforts to try to
(04:12):
somehow explain away black faces anything but racists fall woefully
short short.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
In my opinion, people know Jim Crow as an era
of history of American history marked by segregation and racial violence.
But the origin of this caricature Jim Crow, it comes
from the minstrel shows, who are what was Jim Crow.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
No, this is another good question that I think that
warrants our investigation, because we do associate Jim Crow laws
tied to what happened in the eighteen I mean the
nineteen hundreds with regard to segregated facilities, segregated schools, segregated housing.
But again, Jim Crow is a character that was created
(04:57):
by someone named Thomas Daddy Rice, who was again a
menstrual performer who used black face to characterize black people
in the eighteen twenties, thirties, and forties. And so this
name became popular because it was again it was a
derogatory sort of depiction of black people that operated under
the name Jim Crow. And so Jim Crow was seen
(05:19):
as this stereotypical black person. And what you have to
understand on this, Bob, is that you know, part of
the Menstrual Show was to offer these really just grossly
sort of pronounced facial features to reinforce these stereotypes that
black people were more animalistic, they weren't really human. And again,
(05:40):
what's important to know about these depictions and Jim Crow
in particular, is that any time you see a people
as less than, then you are more okay with them
being treated as less than. So when you think about
the context and the time, in the historical place we
were in the eighteen thirties, this country was was up
(06:00):
to his ears in slavery. The economic foundation of this
country was built on slavery. And so when you think
about the brutal, inhumane treatment that black people experience, one
can say, how can we be okay with the treatment
of any group of people in that way? But if
you depict, and you characterize, and you put out an
image of these people as less than, then you feel
(06:22):
okay with their treatment because you see them as not
being your equals. So Jim Crow is a big part
of this sort of menstrual history that depicted black people
as being less.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Than Okay, so you mentioned Tom Rice, was it, yeah,
being the character of Jim Carrow. Okay, So you just
shocked me a little bit because you said eighteen twenties,
thirties and forties. I didn't realize minstrel shows went back
that far. So, first of all, you've talked about the
(06:57):
characteristics of the Menstrual show in the demeaning behavior of
these actors and performers. So maybe like, how did they
did they interact with enslaved people? Like how did they
how did they observe because some of them I've read
before that some of the melodies were actually came from
(07:18):
from enslaved people, So how did they observe enslaved people?
And and maybe in answering that question, I'm giving you
a lot here. I apologize, but define, you know, define
minstrel at the same time, So.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Minstrel is is again a way in which you think
about any group of people, but in this particular case,
we're talking about black people who are seeing only through
this entertainment lens. And I raised that because part of
what I think is important for the audience to understand
is that that historically, when you think about racial depictions
(07:58):
of black people, they were all times sort of put
forth as folks who were only worthy of being entertainers
to white audiences, meaning that when whites wanted to be
able to hear singing, when whites wanted to hear dancing,
you bring out black folks and you have them performed
for you in ways that kind of sort of brought
them joy, brought the audience white folks joy. And so
(08:21):
there was singing and there was dancing. And part of
the complexity of this Bobs, we have to understand that
singing and dancing has always been part of the black experience,
not just here in the United States, but even in
other parts of the world where black people are be
it the Caribbean, be it in South America, being in
Central America, be it in Africa. So that is part
(08:43):
of the culture. But anytime someone's culture is mocked and
sort of deemed as derogatory or seen as a way
just to entertain only, what it doesn't take into account
is that those songs and those dancing oftentime I rooted
in a rich culture around resistance, a rich culture around
(09:05):
recognizing ancestors, a rich culture around expression of different ways
of being and so there's a rich, complex history and
culture that's totally not understood when it comes to what
minstrel shows represent. So it's important to note that as
we do our history and as we understand minstrel shows
and Jim Crow that any way that d contextualizes it
(09:28):
from the primary purpose of what is set out to do,
which was to dehumanize and to reinforce this ideal or
this notion of black inferiority. Anything less than that is incomplete.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
It sounds like what you're telling me here is is
that that singing and dancing was, like you said, it
was a rich part of the of the black experience,
the black culture, and that by white people mocking it
right for entertainment, it demeaned everything, right like you First
(10:03):
of all, you've demeaned these people by bringing them here
and enslaving them, and they have yet they can still
experience joy and express their faith through song and dance.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
And then you mean that too, absolutely absolutely, And that's
that's the that's the that's the to me, the really
sad and unfortunate and one of the tragedies of this
is that, you know, when we talk about black people
in the United States. The horrific nature of what slavery
did was it just dehumanize people. It sort of ripped
(10:34):
away their their culture, their religions, their beliefs, their structures.
And so the resilience of black people is that we
will still sort of recreate our own traditions, our own customs,
even in the in the context of in humane conditions
such as slavery. And so if you try to take
those behaviors, those rituals, those customs, and that gives you
(10:57):
some simbilus of hope in the face of such brutal oppression,
and then even that's taken to your point, Bob, and
that's mocked, and that's ridicule, essentially trying to take away
all elements of those characteristics that help people to be
whole and human.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So we talked about the popularity of these shows. So
we have a basic understanding that is South South slavery,
South racism, North abolitionist. That's not in the nineteenth century.
That's not completely true, is it?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
No, Because I think we tend to characterize the country
in the eighteen hundred sists slavery is in the south only.
But we know that while there were states in the
North that did not sort of, you know, operate based
on slavery. Hence how the Civil War came to be,
when one of the reasons why the Civil War came
(11:51):
to be. But let's be clear, this is about attitudes
and beliefs about black people, and some of those attitudes
and beliefs about black people were just as stringent in
the North where slavery did not exist, as they were
in the South where slavery did exist. So I think
we have to push back on this notion that there
was this really progressive way of thinking and being that
was in the North about how folks viewed black people.
(12:13):
That wasn't the case in the South. This was about
the ways in which black inferiority was a staple in
the first couple of centuries of this country that I
think we're still seeing the remnants of folks trying to
get out of today.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Something that I've learned and correct me on this if
I'm off base. But even a lot of the people
who worked for anti who were anti slavery in the North,
the whites who were anti slavery, they weren't for equality.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, this is a good point, and that's very true
because part of what you have to recognize that there
were lots of Northerners, and to be fair, probably Southernish too,
who saw the brutal nature of slavery and said that's wrong,
and saw the ways in which families were separated in
and the ways in which people were exploited for their
(13:03):
labor and not compensated for their labor. They felt that
just is not a just and humane thing to do,
and so that is one set of beliefs. However, many
of those same people who thought that was wrong felt like, yes,
these people, black people should not be subjected to this. However,
that doesn't mean that they're my equal because again, sort
(13:23):
of baked into the fabric of this country from sixteen
nineteen when some of the first enslaved Africans were bought here,
is that these people are unequal to us. When I
said unequal to us, I mean unequal to white people.
So I can feel two things can be true. At
the same time, I can feel like this is wrong,
this should not happen, this institution called slavery. But at
the same time, I don't think these people are equal
(13:45):
to me either. I just don't think they should be
subjected to this kind of harm, and that type of
thinking did exist in the North, and to a degree
as well in the South as well.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
So where were these shows more popular?
Speaker 1 (13:59):
The mental show?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So you would have a white a white man like
Tom Rice who put on black face and he performed
songs that were at least derivative of songs that enslaved
enslaved people would sing. So I had read before that
in New York City, for example, like they people people
like people would be falling out of there, like they
(14:20):
pack in to see these shows white people and it
would be like watching the Beatles in nineteen sixty four.
I mean, people, I've read accounts of people going crazy
for minstrel shows. So where were there any in the South,
and where were they most you know, most popular?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, so this is what we have to be mindful
of that when you think about minstrel shows, these were
oftentimes put on for some of the elites at the time. Uh,
these were put on for for folks who had memes
and just like you know, folks might say today, I
want to go see a concert of one of my
favorite entertainers to hear them sing the songs that I
(14:59):
really enjoyed. That's how mistral shows were seen back in
the eighteen thirties and forties, right, you had individuals who
felt like, we're going to go see this show that's
comedic but also rooted in again this sense that we're
going to laugh at what these people are. We want
to see whites sort of mimic and sort of and
(15:20):
really try to portray the inferiority of black people, and
we don't. We don't really sort of critique the fact
that there were people who were, like you said earlier,
so called progressive for the times in terms of thinking
that slavery was wrong, that there was no place for slavery,
but who would still participate in the watching and pay
(15:42):
money to see these shows that were deeply, deeply racists.
And so part of what we have to come to
groups with is that even in this moment, that we
have to push people to think that just because you
say you don't believe that the mistreatment of a group
of people is okay, but if you still, in some way,
shape or form, engage in the participation or the support
(16:05):
of any kinds of representation of black inferiority or the
inferiority of any group of people, that the two don't
coexist together. So at the time, we saw large theaters
would put on these shows of white actors. You know,
it would be featuring songs and dances and oftentimes have
different kind of comedic routines associated with them. And so
(16:26):
I think it's important to note that this is not
something that was done only in say, poor rural communities
at the time, the large cities like New York and Washington,
d C. In Boston, you saw minstrel shows taking place.
And that's why I think we have to talk about
the complexity of this not just being something that happened
(16:47):
in the South, but it happened throughout the North as.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Whale were minstrel shows in essence a form of propaganda
for chattel slavery.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Absolutely, I mean, part of what we have to understand
is that that slavery, while it was the economic foundation
of this country in its formation, it also had to
be framed in a way that told everyday people, this
(17:20):
is okay. The mistreatment of these people is acceptable because
they're not like us. They're inferior to us. They are
not just intellectually inferior. And I always find the whole
depiction of enslaved Africans, especially the notion of them being
lazy as an interesting one because they were depicted at
(17:42):
the time of being lazy, yet they were the ones
providing intense labor in the building of this country. So
these were folks who worked twelve thirteen, fourteen hour days,
seven days a week, twelve months out of the year
for no compensation. So how can we say that they're
lazy on the one hand, but yet they're working tirelessly
(18:04):
harder than any other group of people at the time.
So I think in order for that sort of institution
to thrive, you had to be able to tell people
that not only these people intellectually inferior, not only these
people lazy, but also and this is the important part
as well, these people also can be violent, and that's
why they have to be controlled. That's why they have
(18:24):
to be surveiled, That's why they have to be watched,
That's why they have to be enslaved, because these people
will harm you if we don't control them. So the
more you put out those messages, the more you put
out these images, the more you put out these depictions,
it seeks into the minds of people everyday, people every
day of white people, who felt like, these folks are
to be watched, controlled surveiled because they're intellectually not equal
(18:48):
to us. But also they can be violent as well.
And here's where you think about something like W. D.
Griffin The Birth of a Nation. The Birth of a Nation,
which came out in the nineteen hundreds and was shown
at the White House by W. Wilson, was a cinematic
success because it also reinforced this idea, though not through
the minstrel sort of format, but it sort of reinforced
(19:11):
this idea of black violence, of black brutality, of black
intellectual inferiority, that if you don't watch these people, if
you don't enslave these people, black men, big sort of
oversized black men will come and try to sort of
do physical harm to our children, and they will try
(19:31):
to rape our women. And so all these images, as
much as we may not take them seriously, they really
sent a powerful, deeply embedded message that these people are
not to be trusted, these people are not to be liked,
these people are a threat, and therefore we have to
meet them either with control by way of enslavement. And
(19:51):
even after the Thirteenth Amendment ended in eighteen sixty five.
Then it was okay, Jim Crow laws that continue to
keep these folks separate and a part. And then when
you see racial vidence by way of lensings and the KKK,
because they were still seeing through the lens of what
these Mitschel shows depicted black folks as being less than violent, lazy,
(20:12):
not to be trusted.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
This is American History Hotline. I'm your host, Bob Crawford.
Do you have a question about American history? If so,
record yourself using the voice memo app on your phone
and email it to Americanhistoryhotline at gmail dot com. That's
American History Hotline at gmail dot com. Okay, back to
the show. I'm talking with Tyrone Howard, professor in the
(20:42):
School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. We're talking
about the history of Mistel shows and blackface in America.
Can we talk about the mammy stereotype? Is it part
of the conversation about blackface?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Well, yes and no, And let me tell you what
I mean by that. So again, the mammi stereotype is
one that is where racism and sexism come together, and
racism and sexism come together because it depicts black women.
Now let me be clear, because there's a gender sort
of analysis to this that's important. Minstrel shows by and
(21:22):
large depicted black men as being inferiority of just being
inferior intellectually and the like all the things we've been
talking about. But the Mammi stereotype is one that depicted
black women who were typically enslaved, who were domestics, who
have the responsibility of nursing for children. But it was
(21:44):
this depiction of this large, dark skinned, overweight black women
who had these really and this is the complexity of
the character like these motherly characteristics. The same time, was
not seen as being on the same level as white women,
(22:05):
if that makes sense, right. So they could cook, they
could clean, they could take care of children, they could
sort of help to manage the house, but they were
also seen as being uneducated. They were also seen as
being sort of not intellectually gifted, if you will. And so,
while not in the same sort of sort of vein
as the mestral show, but there were some shows that
(22:26):
were put on now we're talking probably twentieth centuries that
depicted black women in these really sort of you know,
disproportionate sort of ways in terms of their physical features
and body types that again were not really rooted in
trying to help black women be seen as equals, but
to depict them in ways that was deeply troublesome. Now,
(22:48):
as with any stereotype, I want to be clear here
about with any stereotype, what we know is that there's
always a kernel of truth and certain stereotypes. But the
problem with the stereotype is when we take that small
kernel truth and we use it to describe an entire
group of people. And that's why the minstrel shows and
even the mammy stereotypes are harmful, because then when people
(23:08):
who have limited interaction with any group of people see
the stereotype of what might be the depiction of one
or a small number of people and say that's how
they all are, that's how we start to really really
begin to sort of buy into harmful, racist, sexy stereotypes
about the people, and we don't get to know who
folks are on an individual level and to understand the
(23:29):
variability across groups and within groups.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
There were these mammy dolls and they were very popular.
Talk about just just to button this this part of
the conversation up, I mean, the the mammy caricature cared
for the wealthy white person's child from a very tender age,
(23:54):
and there were there were, you know, relationships between these
children and the domestic enslaved person who took care of them.
So I kind of build build on that, like like
we were there bonds of kinship formed that broke as
these children grew older and and saw the world, you know,
(24:18):
in a different way. Or or were these bonds real? Yeah,
so this is this is a really good point. I'm
glad you're asking this because yes, they were real for
many of these black women, because think about it from
this standpoint. In many of the homes that you had
wealthy white people, most of whom were slave owners. Uh,
(24:41):
black women were responsible for care taking responsibility for the
children for some of them from the time of birth.
So they would they would nurse these children.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Uh, they would play a primary role in the raising
of these children. Uh. They were oftentimes seen as the
emotional support for these children. And these white children would
grow up seeing this woman in their household as being
a really caring, loving and important figure in their lives. Right.
And so you cannot have that much of an impact
(25:12):
on young people because there's so much research on human
development and child Development that says that early attachment matters
because when young children have an early attachment to someone,
the bond typically strengthens over time because you come to
see this person as a reliable and loving and consistent
figure in my overall well being. So lots of black women,
(25:34):
and that's the part that oftentimes does not talked about,
is the ways in which these black women who played
these roles had to play the caregiving role for white
children in addition to doing this for their own children
as well. There's a phenomenal book by Melissa Harris Perry
called Sister Citizen, Shame, Stereotype and Black Women in America
where she talks about, you know, mammys were oftentimes placed
(25:59):
in this unenviable situation of not being able to be
the protectors and defenders of their own children because they
had to make sure they looked out for the white
children that they had helped to raise as well. And
what's really fascinating to me on this, Bob, is that
you had these black women who played these motherly roles
in the lives of white children. And these white children,
(26:22):
especially those who were, you know, the sons of slave owners.
They ultimately grew up to take on the role of
the overseers or the owners of the plantation. But yet
they still maintain this brutal system of slavery and kept
black women and men, in some cases black children who
(26:43):
they grew up with in this horrific system. So how
do you have someone who cared for you, who nursed you,
who nurtured you, who loved you like you were one
of their own, and you grow up to become a
grown adult, but yet you still allow that system that's
sees those individuals as being second third class, not even citizens,
(27:04):
just people, and you don't call them to question sort
of why that system is harmful. Not to be fair,
there were some protections and some provisions that some whites
gave to those women who play that vital role in
their lives, but by and large they had individual protections
or their families had protections, but it did not take
away from the entire system or the institution that they
(27:26):
were caught up in that was called slavery.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
If we can, let's talk about menstrreal shows and their
connection to American music. The sixteen nineteen Project did an
amazing podcast episode on this that I personally highly recommend
so in your own research and thought about this, how
(27:51):
did the music of African Americans and enslaved Americans get
wrapped up in minstrel shows and make its way into
the music we hear today even.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, So, look, music has been a it has been
at the core of so much of the black experience
here in the United States. And when you listen to,
for example, old Negro spirituals, these these these Negro spirituals
were rooted in worship, they were rooted in a spirituality,
(28:28):
They were rooted in hope and the possibility of better times.
So they had meaning and they gave people hope, and
they gave people purpose, and they gave people a sense
that one day, a better day was coming. And so
when you take this sort of misrepresentation of black music
and you begin to sort of strip away the core
(28:50):
elements of what made it unique and what helped it
to sustain a people, then all of a sudden you
kind of have this really bastardized sort of representation of
the music that comes nowhere close to what its intentions
were when it was initially created and how important it
was to people survival, if you will. And so I
think anytime you have people who are outside of a culture,
(29:11):
who come and try to take elements of a culture
and try to somehow package it and sort of sort
of sort of portray it in a certain way, you're
going to get something that's very different from the original product.
And that's why you saw in these menstrual shows a
really just just just just just unfair, unauthentic and really
(29:32):
just off base accounting of black music, which ultimately stood
the test of time. And I think that when you
see some of the historical some of the folks who
study the history of black music, uh, they begin to
help us to understand the roots of why black music
in these United States was important, how it's been adapted,
(29:54):
how it's been enhanced, how it's been built upon, or
how it's been sort of torn apart and really made
out be something that it's not. And so I think
it's important to recognize just the foundational roofs that music
has had, and not just black culture, but I think
black culture and black music in particular has had an
impact on mainstream culture across the board when it comes
to music, and it's important to understand those those origins
(30:17):
because history would tell us that that often time minstrel
shows tried to make mockery out of that music, which
is now in the current form, billion dollar industry in
this country and even worldwide when you think about it.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
So like music film, right, you talked about birth of
the nation, Like, how did these racist tropes from the
minstrel shows make their way because it wasn't I mean
the minstrel shows, vaudeville, the beginning of film. They were
it's all connected here, right, it's all they one bleeds
(30:50):
into the next. So talk about how those racist tropes
made their way into into film.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, because you know, part of what what was so
powerful at the time is that, you know, this country,
we've always used different mediums to tell stories about whatever
is going on at the time. I mean, newspapers, for example,
talked about the news of the day. You know, Entertainment
was a way to kind of send messages about certain
(31:17):
issues with certain people, and film became a powerful medium
to do that. And so film was a way that
you could put out a product and you could begin
to really share that film with millions of people across
the country. And so yes, there was a through line
between vaudeville, between the mestral shows, between you know, the
(31:37):
Birth of a Nation, which was, like I said earlier,
it was an epic film at the time. I think
it was nineteen fifteen that it was made because part
of what people struggled with at the time, and really
to some degree even today, the less we know about people,
the more we tend to make up. And that's what
(31:59):
ignorance is, that's what prejudices when we judge before knowing.
And to be clear, not all whites of the day
owned black people, right, Not most whites enslaved black people.
You know, it was only those whites who had means
who owned black people during slavery. But what's important to
(32:19):
note is that we were a country in the eighteen
hundreds up until eighteen sixty five that was largely separate
and unequal. We know this, right, So many whites had
very little interaction with black people because they didn't live
in the same community, They didn't live in the same neighborhood,
they didn't freak with the same store, they didn't freak
(32:40):
with the same schools. Because we were separate in equal
a separate and unequal, I should say. But what happens
is that when people don't have access to authentic people
of any background. You begin to have that void feel
by different accounts that people share with you, or by
mass media of the time. So film, like I said,
(33:00):
it becomes a powerful medium to tell the world, to
tell the country this is how they are. And when
I say that they this is black people, they're seeing,
as I mentioned earlier, as unintelligent, They're seen as sexually
aggressive towards white women. All the harmful stereotypes that that
we know really sort of lead to the ways in
(33:20):
which black pop foreseedd And this was shown all across
the country. I mean, this was shown in large cities
such as Chicago, Denver, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Minneapolis, and you start
to think about how it seeps into the conscious and
subconscious of white people at the time. To say that
black people are to be feared. It says that the
KKK is a good thing because they were the ones
(33:40):
who come to the rescue to save white people from
these violent blacks. This is white supremacy at its finest,
and when you have its, you know, sanctioned at the
highest levels of government, when you have the president at
the time who does a private screen of it at
the White House with members of his cabinet with family members.
It sends a powerful message that basically endorses this message,
(34:03):
that endorses this imagery, that endorses this notion of black inferiority.
So and you have to understand it, even today, in
twenty twenty five, you still have people who subscribe to
some of these tenets of black inferiority. And it has
its roots and all the things we've been talking about.
When I talk about Birth of a Nation being released
(34:24):
in nineteen fifteen, that was only one hundred and ten
years ago. This wasn't something that was that was released,
you know, three hundred years ago. You know, my grandmother,
my grandmother who I have lots of memories with, she
was born in nineteen fifteen. So you begin to understand
that these are events that did not happen, you know,
hundreds and thousands of years ago. The ways in which
(34:46):
you kind of shape of people's thinking is you consistently
put out messages in different mediums that begin to become
become of the popular thinking of the time, and people
believe it if they have nothing to really contest it
and to challenge it to not be true.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And I just want to make a note Melissa Harris Perry.
I've had the pleasure of interviewing her in the past,
and we'll put a link to her book in the
bio here. When did blackface minstrel shows fall out of popularity?
Like the idea of an entertainer painting their face black,
you know, and perform Like when did that kind of
(35:22):
like just become unpopular? We know it pops uping now
and again.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Still right, Yeah, I was just going to say that,
I was going to say that it's it's not how
do I frame this? We still see today in twenty
twenty five and twenty twenty twenty, you know, in the
twenty teens, black face popping up, and sadly it pops
up on college campuses where young people, in efforts to
(35:51):
be funny, to do some of the same things that
was done, you know in the eighteen thirties, to try
to get a laugh or to try to somehow sort
of give a comedic skit, we'll do black face. So so,
while not as wildly popular as it was, you know,
two hundred years ago, it still does occur, sadly. But
(36:13):
I think what began to happen as we moved into
the early nineteen hundreds, I think you saw more massive
resistance from black folk and some white folk who said
this is not okay, who said this is unacceptable. Why
do we depict black people in ways that are not
reflective of who they are? Now, I have to say,
while you know, you still have shows that came out
(36:36):
in the like the nineteen thirties and forties, the Amos
and Andy shows that really were in some ways a
derivative of what you saw with black face, because it
depicted black people in ways that some found comedic but
others found deeply troubling. I think this is where you
had social organizations of the day, different groups like the NAACP,
groups like the Urban League, who said that this is
(36:58):
not acceptable. So when you get to the nineteen thirties forties,
and really it's the Harlem Renaissance that's really pivotal here,
because the Harlem Renaissance in the nineteen twenties and thirties,
you have lots of black artists, lots of black filmmakers,
lots of black authors who begin to offer a counter
story to how black people have been depicted when it
(37:18):
comes to mentell mistral shows. And so I think it's
important to note that you have resistance in the form
of different portrayals. I think you saw more blacks who
had access to education before than before, more blacks who
had access to college. And I think as you started
to see some of the walls of discrimination and racism
(37:39):
coming down, not all of them, but some of them,
I think you began to see the pushback that made
minstrel shows less and less commonplace. And to the point
now when we see them, what we hope to see
as a strong repudiation of any depiction of that era
of our country's history.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
For a lot of folks out there, this is a
hard conversation to have. It's uncomfortable, right for a lot
of people. Is uncomfortable for a lot of white people,
it's uncomfortable. So given where we are right now, Smithsonian
under attack, the current president doesn't want to display all
(38:24):
this slavery and how far we've come and all this
kind of stuff, taking the taking down of pictures of
enslaved people who were whipped and beaten from historic sites right,
Some will say, man, we don't have slaver anymore. We've
(38:44):
come a long way. We had a black president, like
you know, can we just all be equal and normal
and do we have to highlight this. Do we have
to talk about this? Do we have to remember this
ugly part of our history?
Speaker 1 (39:00):
What do you say to that? Yeah, I hear that
a lot, and it troubles me. And let me tell
you why it troubles me, because some of the same
people who say that was an ugly part of our
history we should not have to talk about that are
some of the same people who say we should remember
the Civil War because that's a part of our history.
(39:23):
Because people died in the Civil War. To this day,
it is the deadliest war in our country's history. And
we have, you know, remembrances around the Civil War and
what it was about people who fought for what they
believed in. And people will say we should never forget
their statues erected around folks who fought for the Confederacy
because they felt like they were standing for something that
was principal. So I always ask, why is it that
(39:45):
we want to remember the Civil War but we want
to forget slavery? And I think you cannot talk about
the history of this country and only pick and choose
the parts that you want to tell. Part of what
you have to do if you want to understand history
and its totality. You have to talk about the good,
the bad, and the ugly, and that means that if
you understand the good, bad, and the ugly, you can
(40:06):
lift up the good. You can talk about the promise
and potential of what we are as a nation to
try to become that perfect nation state. But at the
same time, you have to understand the ugly parts of history,
because if you don't, then that means you are bound
to repeat it. And so I know it's uncomfortable for
some people. I know it's not sort of convenient to hear.
And I always tell this to folks who say this
(40:27):
to me in my classes. If it's uncomfortable for you
to talk about slavery, how do you think it felt
for people to live through it? And so part of
what we have to do in this country to get
to a better place, we have to be empathetic. We
have to try to put ourselves into the shoes of
people who've gone through some horrific circumstances, though we will
never ever be able to experience that firsthand, thankfully, but
(40:50):
just try to be empathetic. What would it feel like
to be able to live at a time where you
work twelve hours a day, back breaking work, no compensation,
being physically assaulted and beaten if you didn't do things
to the satisfaction of the overseer or the slave owner.
What would it feel like if you were taken away
from your parents for no other reason because you were
(41:11):
being sold. I think we have to talk about it
because it's part of American history, whether we like it
or not, it is part of our history, and we
can't talk about, you know, the good parts of the
country's history, but leave out the bad parts. Because part
of what we should be talking about is that even
what we see today in twenty twenty five has its
(41:32):
remnants from what happened in slavery. We had. Slavery exists
in this country for two hundred and forty seven years
sixteen nineteen to eighteen sixty five. You think about it
that way, right, We've had more years of slavery almost
as we've had of being an independent nation when you
think about it, right, So part of the issue becomes
when you think about the economic wealth gap that exist
(41:56):
that exists in this country roots that are tied to slavery,
think about redlining and certain black folks not being able
to buy homes and wealthy to do areas. It has
its roots in slavery. When you think about issues such
as sort of health inequalities and access to high quality
medical care, much of that has its roots in slavery
(42:17):
in the after math of Jim Crow. I could go
on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Right the GI Bill and Urban Renewal.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
GI Bill is a great example because this was something
you had men who fought for this country for it
to be the country that it is, who couldn't get
the same benefits that that their white compatriots got for
being in in fighting in wars as well. So I
think part of why we cannot forget about it is
because it happened, and not that we have to stay
rooted in the past, but because it still has uh
(42:48):
sort of ramifications in the current moment, and until we
find ways to address and redress those past wrongdoings, will
continue to see a significant set of the spirits that
play out in current society.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Tyron Howard, this has been it's been great. Thank you
so much for joining us today. We hope we can
call on you again sometime.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
You've been listening to American History Hotline a production of
iHeart Podcasts and Scratch Track Productions. The show's executive producer
is James Morrison. Our executive producers from iHeart are Jordan
Runtall and Jason English. Original music composed by me, Bob Crawford.
Please keep in touch. Our email is Americanhistory Hotline at
(43:38):
gmail dot com. If you like the show, please tell
your friends and leave us a.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Review in Apple Podcasts. I'm your host, Bob Crawford.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Feel free to hit me up on social media to
ask a history question or to let me know what
you think of the show. You can find me at
Bob Crawford Base. Thanks so much for listening, See you
next week.
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