February 8, 2024 • 29 mins
Blackface was born of white folks’ racism and tired imaginations. It was about how white people co-opted Black stories and impersonated Black folks. But it was also about how Black people subverted those narratives and constructed their own.
In this episode, Katie and Yves talk about how the practice of blackface has been a pervasive ill in the history of U.S. culture and entertainment — and an opportunity for Black performers to hone their craft.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
If you've listened to some of our previous episodes, like
(00:23):
the other other Magical Negro or we might regret this
episode later, then you know a little something something about
menstrual shows and Vatteville. And if you haven't, well, then
go back and listen to those episodes. But anyway, menstrual
shows were theatrical performances where actors got up on stage
and literally fixed their faces to become gross caricatures of
black people. One of the key visual components of the
(00:46):
menstrual show blackface. Actually, let me just read this description
from this eighteen ninety three compilation called the Menstrual Show
or Burnt Quirk Comicalities. In the matter of making up
the face, use only the best prepared burnt cork, which
can be obtained from any dealer in theatrical face preparations.
(01:08):
Moisten the hands with water and take a small quantity
of the quirk, rubbing it in the palm of your
hand until it becomes a thin paste. Then apply to
the skin. When it dries, brush the surface gently with
some soft substance, and removing the cork. Use only cold water,
a large sponge, and a soap that gives a generous lather.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Thanks to the enduring presence of white folks doing blackface
in the twenty first century, many folks who never got
a black face minstrel c one oh one in school
are well aware of the history and problems with blackface.
A viral video showing teens in a Cedar City Walmart
dressed in costumes and in blackface.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
On blackface is back on the job after a first
grade teacher was photographed in blackface at a Halloween party. Flatful, Katie,
I was so sick of these news stories, not because
I was shocked, but because it was exhausting seeing all
the hoops folks were jumping through to calculate the value
(02:08):
of being well intentioned and white.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I think blackface is like a ray of passage for
white people actually, so we should give them.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Some grace hot take. But all these examples we have
of blackface today show just how deeply entrenched the practice
is in US culture. It didn't come from nowhere, even
though some folks would have us believe the blackface offenses
are innocent gaps, divorced from any context.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Right, And let's not pretend that we're that far removed
from a time of blackface performances.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Were hard for the course only a century ago. Really,
and as much as some people want to say that
it's an obsolete practice from a bygone era, we are
very much not over. It ain't nothing changed, but the
day and the technology and black stories are very much
a part of the history of blackface. I'm Katie and
(03:00):
I'm Eves. Today's episode bona fide blackface. So let's back
up a little, yes, and talk about the birth of blackface,
a curse creation. Honestly, Yes, in Shakespeare's plays. In medieval Europe,
blackness was associated with evil devil characters were blackface. But
(03:23):
the exact origins of blackface as a whole are debated,
but it definitely has roots in anti black acts that
were pervasive before the eighteen hundreds. Blackface minstreul sy, though,
is a distinctly American tradition that caught on in the
early nineteenth century. Thomas Dartmouth Rice is considered the father
of menstrul sy.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I feel like father is a little too pleasant of
a term.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Let's call him the problematic patriarch. Then, sure, that's better.
He did a one man show where he blacked up,
dressed in shabby clothes, wore a wig, and danced and
sung in a deceitfully clownish caricature of a black person.
He called his character Jim Crow, and it became an
archetypal character in menstrual shows in the US and written
jump Jump, Jump, Jim Crow.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Take a little twirl and around you go wide and
white your talk as a camomen you jump.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Tim Rice wasn't the first person to dawn blackface and
do a little demeaning song and dance, but he did
popularize the act shows where white audiences watched white men
with their faces painted black with burnt cork caught on
like wildfire. The performers got up on stage literally acted
a full pretended to be cowardly and cow towing, and
(04:39):
put on an exaggerated dialect. White audiences laughed, rinse, repeat all.
This was happening in the South and Northeast United States
by the early eighteen thirties, while black people were still
enslaved and the Civil War wasn't yet on the horizon.
These shows were part of the entertainment industry. Sure, but
I don't want to make it seem like it was
(05:01):
just for funzies. Performers like Rice were not sweet summer children.
They knew that they were inflating the value of the
currency of white supremacy and at the same time making
actual money. Think of seeing the sheet music, the prints,
the shows over and over and over, the mere exposure
effect that allowed white folks to sell the racial inferiority
(05:24):
of black folks in the neat little package of entertainment. Katie,
what do you think the average person in the US,
who pays attention to current events and has a standard
interest in American history knows about blackface.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I think they know that black people get mad whenever
they see a white person doing it. I think they
know that, like, if you get caught doing it, you
could get in trouble.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Which keeps a lot of people from doing a lot
of things solely the fear of repercussion. Yeah, without any
integrity behind it me. But yeah, several years ago, the
media was ablaze with regular folks and celebrities getting outed, fired,
and defended for wearing black face. You know that reckoning
(06:16):
that came along with the Black Lives Matter wave.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Oh, I know, true, I know.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
But now that blackface has kind of had its time
to shine in the news cycle. Conversation about it really
mostly rears its ugly head around Halloween, when the blackface
brigade is itching to break out the oily face paint.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Folks have learned to keep their misdeeds on the low
a little better now.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Mm hmm. Blackface was born of white folks, racism, and
tired imaginations. True, it was about how white people co
opted black stories and impersonated black folks, but it was
also about how black people subverted those narratives and constructed
their own. I've been thinking about blackface in the black
imagination because back in the mid to late eighteen hundreds
(06:57):
black performers performed in blackface. Some of those performers had
even been enslaved in the past and began making the
rounds on stage, compelled to entertain again in a different setting.
And black performers work in the early days of minstrelsy
gave them experience in theater that cleared a pathway for
many performers to come According to author Henry T. Sampson
(07:19):
in his book Blacks and Blackface, most of the leading
black comedians from the mid nineteenth century to the early
twentieth worked in blackface. Sampson says this about those early
black performers who wore blackface. These black singers, composers, and
dancers brought an original vitality never before seen on the
American stage. They brought a great deal that was new
(07:42):
in dancing, including the buck and wing, the stop time,
and the Virginia essence, which constituted many of the fundamental
steps in American jazz dancing.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Let me find out what the bucket wing is. So
I feel like I'd be good at day.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
You probably would.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So what you're saying is they were our who innovated
and who were worthy of acclaim that they only really
got from white audience based on the performer's ability to
make them laugh.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, they were busting their chops working to gain skills
in the craft. But to white audiences there were still
like specimens in a menagerie, or maybe like seeing white
folks performing black face was like seeing lions in a
zoo in the city, and then seeing black folks performing
black face was like seeing lions with their pride in
the savannahs. White performers were making more money than the
(08:29):
black ones, and there were still way more white folks
and black face than there were black folks. But black
folks were limited in the jobs they could get that
would make them decent money, and this was one option.
So in this history, black people weren't just this like
invisible force, providing fodder for a white ridicule propelling white
folks to new theatrical heights. They weren't these powerless, silent
(08:53):
entities relegated to tucking their tail between their legs as
they took a psychological beating. The history of blackface is
not just about the unrestrained power of white people to
tell stories, i e. Lies about black people's lives. As
we set back with our arms folded. Black folks were
the storytellers too. Watch this pawn shot foot and nothing
(09:15):
in there with some guitars and banjos and saxophone and
guitars and van Jules and saxophones, stealable.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
The warning then started to watch them on tell you
more after the break. Billy Carsands, Dewey Pig, Meat, Markham,
John Mason, flornoy E Miller, Bert Williams. There were a
(09:44):
bunch of black performers who did blackface. Some of them
figured they might as well get a book, some experience
and some recognition by blacking up and capitalizing on the
spectacle that white folks had created. Actor and composer Eddie
Green worked in film and on radio shows like Amos
and Andy and Duffy's Tavern. He sometimes were a blackface
(10:06):
and a black post. He wrote. His daughter, Elva Diane Green,
said this, the book I have written about my father
has been a hard seale to some blacks today because
of the era in which my father lived. Some people
do not see and do not want to see the
relevance of yesterday's all black cast movies or old time
radio or vaudeville as it applies to progress. As for myself,
(10:28):
I understand seeing my father and blackface has taken some
getting used to. It's still kind of embarrassing to admit
my father was a blackface comedian. And if I am embarrassed,
what do I expect from others?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So everyone wasn't really writing for it at the time either.
I'm guessing you.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Would guess correct, because some artists talked about how they
would take no part in it, how it was low
tier performance, and some critics said that black folks doing
blackface was an affront to the race working backward. But
take Bert Williams and George Walker.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Good Morning, Going hung by Williams Walker.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
They were a comedy team that did really well for themselves.
They performed in blackface and called their duo the two real.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Coons Gangay, that's me and you girl.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Walker said this about their act. We thought that as
there seemed to be a great demand for black faces
on the stage, we would do all we could to
get what we felt belonged to us by the law
of nature, and they profess to be pro black child.
Walker also said this, over and behind all the money
and prestige which move Williams and Walker is a love
(11:42):
for the race, because we feel that, in a degree
we represent the race in every hair's breadth of achievement.
We make it's to its credit. For first, last and
all the time, we are Negroes. And Bert Williams was
a pioneering entertainer and super successful comedian. The Silent Lost
film Dark Town Jubilee Darren Williams marked one of the
(12:04):
earliest appearances of a black comedian in cinema. His work
poked fun at white caricatures of black people. He was
not simply an agent of white supremacy. So I think
the element of black performers doing blackface, it wasn't even
just about them wearing blackface too, Like they did blackface
(12:24):
through audio work as well, in terms of the types
of dialect that they would put on. They did blackface
on the stage, and once the screen came around, they
would do it on the screen as well. But performing
a blackface the interesting thing about it is that they
were still performers who were working on their craft, who
were interested in getting better at acting, and they chose
(12:47):
blackface as the avenue for them to do so it
was a more accessible avenue for them to be able
to get work. So they were like, Okay, this is
my lane. This is a kind of entertainment that's popular
right now, and it's something that I can use to
get my skills up. And at the end of the day,
their work was foundational in terms of early black theater
(13:09):
instead of foundation for future actors and for future entertainers
to be able to get their feet in the door
as well.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, I wonder like if they felt like typecasted ever,
Like you start doing black face hoping that you can
not do that anymore, and you can just be an
actor on your own merits. It kind of reminds me
of how this conversation about black men in Hollywood having
to wear a dress.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
It's like, oh, they make you wear a dress.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And they won't let you move on if you don't
like wear a dress first, or you get typecasted, you're
like always in a dress. People who refuse to address
all the conversations that go on with that emasculation of
black men and the masculinization of black women. And it
does seem like it is more accessible route for people,
like you see people doing sketch comedies for free on
(13:54):
YouTube and TikTok. There's just like so many like media
Big Woman's House where the joke is a, oh, there's
a man in address here. So I wonder if was
it a similar industry that was set up. I'm gonna
just do this for a minute and then I'm gonna
get out and put it on his black face, and
then I'm gonna be a real actor. I'm gonna be
really on the stage perfecting my craft. Or did they
(14:15):
get stuck in that or did they prefer that and
not want to leave.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I think that a lot of them would have said
they wouldn't have preferred it, but that it was an
avenue for them. But there were people, and I think
it was Bert Williams. Please correct me if I'm wrong
anybody who knows, but Bert Williams who said something about
I kind of would rather do blackface or do this
kind of performance in front of why audiences because the
(14:40):
opportunities that were available to him within black performance weren't
as like lucrative, or there weren't as many of them.
But I think a lot of people ended up doing
it throughout the entire course of their career. And then
there were some entertainers who didn't do it for the
entire course of their career, Like there were some entertainers
(15:01):
who moved on to doing radio work after they did
scream work, like Eddie Green I think was one of
those entertainers. I think it was kind of hard to
make that decision, like we would think about it today,
like how long am I going to be doing this
thing until I move on to something else. I do
think in a way, for people who work in the
arts and entertainment, it's kind of a privilege that we
have in contemporary times to be able to think how
(15:23):
we're going to move on when for them it was like,
this is what I can see for now, and this
is what I know is working for me, and this
is how I'm choosing to move in the industry that
I'm in. And the question was more of how am
I going to have integrity about the work that I
(15:43):
do and continue to gain skills and then hopefully maybe
one day in the future, even if I'm not creating
a path for myself to move differently, then I'm creating
a path for someone else to move differently.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So when a black person is doing black face, where
they like still doing like the exaggerated caricature of what
like a black person is, was it like similar themes
as when a white person did it.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yes. Yeah, they were still hamming it up. They were
still blacking it up. They were still using that exaggerated dialect.
They were still enacting the character of that foolish, naive,
bumbling black person.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
It's interesting you said that the guy Bert said he
likes doing it in front of white audiences because it
gets he gets paid more. I do think we see
that not like literal black face, but like the exaggerated
caricature of black people and black people participating that for
white audiences because it is like good money at the
end of the day.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, And I think the other interesting thing to think
about in this conversation is how, yes, the black people
who were doing black face were still entertainers, There were
still gathering their skills, and they still set a foundation
for people who were to come. There's also an argument
that in doing that, they were creating more lanes for
black culture to make its way into mainstream popular culture
(17:15):
because menstreal shows were a popular form of entertainment. It
was a way that black music was able to be
put on a stage, and black entertainment was able to
be put on a stage before a lot of different
kinds of audiences because it wasn't just white audiences who
were watching black face performances either, it was also black audiences.
(17:37):
And there's also much ado that scholars have made over
what that actually meant for black people to enjoy and
laugh at and see white and black performers. What is
some of that I do some of that ADU is like, okay,
a kind of like psychoanalyzing of why a black person
would laugh at their own image being demean So, like,
(18:01):
what does it mean for black people to sit in
front of an audience and see this portrayal of them
that they know isn't true, but they're enjoying it.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Wow, this is literally nothing new in the sun. Because
I feel like people say that now, like how could
you laugh at all the share we laugh at? Yeah,
how can you laugh at media? How could you laugh
at insert whatever, like foolish character you see that's black?
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Like this is a bad representation for the race, right,
but like people like it, And it wasn't even like
that back then too, Like people like Williams M. Walker
were like, I'm doing a good job for my race.
And there's a comment that I don't know the origin
of the comment, but it said that Booker T. Washington
(18:44):
said that he was a fine man of the race
is basically what his comment was. Er Williams was, yeah,
which was funny to me, Like he was one of
the best representatives of the race. He did a really
good job at ving ane grow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I feel like the representation of it all, like that's
kind of like the peak that people say.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It's like, well, you're.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Getting representation, Like black people are on screen, black people
are on stage, black people are on the radio. This
is representation, like you should be happy. It's kind of
like a cyclical thing that we see, like kind of
no matter what iteration or whatever timeline we're in, or
whatever medium or whatever genre is popular that we're debating,
it's like, it's representation.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
The end of the day, it's representation. Yeah, And the
comment held a little bit more weight back then in
the early nineteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds, because it was
less representation exactly. There weren't that many people there so
to say, like, you represented us. Fine. It's kind of
like it's kind of one of those things we had
to get through to get to where we are today,
to where we can't complain about it, I suppose. But yeah,
(19:43):
I was thinking about the idea of the commercial viability
and success of the work that black people in blackface
were doing, and how it made it so that black
people were able to enter the mainstream. And I think
that's kind of a complicated conversation because what is the
value of black culture being in the mainstream and other
people being able to co opt it, to be able
(20:05):
to use it as they please, to be able to
make their own determinations over it. I don't think that
has a very straightforward answer, like, I definitely definitely acknowledge
the value of how black people did whatever was available
to them back then to be able to work on
their own art and then share and spread that art
(20:27):
and their love for it and create those foundations and
open those doors for future people. But I don't think
it's a wholly positive thing, like, not one hundred percent
to say that this made black people's culture be able
to be mainstreamed commercial viability basically is not the end all,
be all great thing. I think. Yeah, I agree, Yeah,
(20:51):
we got to go to a break, but we'll see
you again soon. In the conversations that we have about
the history of black face today, we're really trying to
get people who aren't black to just realize how bad
it is, and then we tell them to just not
(21:13):
do it or reprimand them for doing it. In the
flattening of history that we have to do to course correct,
I can't shake the feeling that we end up erasing
black folk's presence in that narrative. Black folks stories, black
folks control of their own narratives. I don't want us
to forget about their achievements, their art, and the foundation
that they laid. So I think in all of these
(21:35):
conversations that we have when these instances of black face
pop up in the media, kind of like you said earlier,
white people don't do it again. And it's a lot
of black people and quote unquote allies who are the
ones who are saying this about these instances. And I
(21:58):
do think that that flatten the history of blackface, like
there's a big batty in this situation, and it just
condenses the nuance of the conversations around blackface, because the
history of black people doing blackface is a long one,
and it's very evident that the impact that blackface had
(22:20):
on the entertainment industry in the United States is one
that is huge and it's long lasting. So I just
think we need to talk more about the complexity of
blackface and about the roles that black people had as
storytellers and as artists within that realm, and that they
weren't just these invisible, silent characters who are to the
(22:45):
side that white people were enacting their violence upon. That
there was agency that some of these artists had, that
they did have thoughts and feelings that they shared about
people who are about the about black face in general.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, I do think it's important to acknowledge the black
people's agency, but I will say every time one of
these instances happens in the news, I kind of do
not want to hear about the nuance about black face,
about black people doing it, because I can see it
quickly devolving into like how when black people talk about
slavery and then white people's first thing is like, well, yeah,
sold jass I was in slavery. There was a black
(23:23):
plantation on us too, so it was just like to
avoid all that. I don't think MSNBC should be like
expousing all the black black face actors, just because I
think it will just give white people too much length
to continue to do it basically like, well, actually, I
(23:45):
am participating in a long tradition, and you know they
had agency and I have agency, so fucky, I can
definitely see that happening.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, I agree with you. I wouldn't want it to
be like here there is there that rebuttal and oh
my goodness, that conversation around black people sell slaves too
is a whole thing. But I also think it's related
to like how there are so many people today who
(24:16):
feel like, well, racism doesn't present itself in the same
ways that it used to present itself, So it no
longer exists and we shouldn't be talking about it anymore.
I just I don't think that it should be presented
necessarily at the same time we're talking about these But
I think in general, just having a larger view of
(24:41):
blackface and how it operated is beneficial.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, because like I think now, when you say black face,
it's seen is like wholly negative, yes, wholly just like
bad bad. This is what white people did to us,
and they're making fun of us. But you know, like
you said, black people did it too, and they chose
to do it like they weren't.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Being forced to Well.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I guess capitalism. Yeah, capitalism will force you to do
a lot of strange things.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
It sure will. And I think force is an interesting
word to use, actually, because that did that was a
way that some people viewed black people's work and doing
blackface minstrreulcy, like they were forced to do it, like coerced.
They were coerced. Yeah, And I think a better word
is just compelled sometimes because of things like capitalism, racism,
(25:41):
their economic status, whatever their social status was at the time,
having a family, all of those things could have made
a person more compelled and compelled to the point where
they had to do it to be able to survive.
There's a difference between I think being four to and
compel to, but sometimes that that line is pretty thin.
(26:04):
Yeah and blurry, yeah and blurry. So all this said,
blackface has its hooks in American culture and it's not
so easily shaken.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
It's time for role credits, the segment where we give
credit to a person, place, or thing we encountered during
the week. Ease, who are what would you like to
give credit to?
Speaker 1 (26:28):
This week? I want to give credit to black historians.
It is the beginning of Black History Month, and there
is a lot of a do around Black history this month,
of course in the United States specifically, so I just
wanted to shout out black historians for all the work
that they do digging through the archives, being able to
(26:50):
dig up the stories so we can even share them
through this month. Doing the good work of highlighting the
things that need to be highlighted throughout the year and
every year. It's really important work and a lot of
the stories that we share on this show that I
care about all of the people that we learn about
when be possible without the work of black historians.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
I'm sort of like, kind of related, what is it?
So I don't think this person would call themselves a historian,
but they will call themselves a journalist. But there's this
book out called Madness, which is about a segregated like
mental institution in Crownsville, Maryland, and the writer Antonia Hilton,
is who I would like to give credit to you.
(27:32):
This week I went to see her at the Carter
Center in Atlanta, and it was like a really good
book talk, Like she's a debut author and it was
just like a masterclass on how you do a book talk.
I've like I was blown away truly, And she's a reporter,
so she's really good at speaking. Like I said, it's
she's her first book. She's a debut author, so she
still had that like excitement of like people coming to
(27:54):
see her, Like you know how some people will be
like here here, Nigadam when they sign in your book.
But she was like very happy that everyone was there,
like very personable, told great stories. And what I like
about nonfiction books and nonfiction book talks is you can't
spoil the book, Like the more you talk about it
the more I want to read it more, because of
course you can't like get every detail into your hour
(28:16):
and a half talk. So yeah, I'd like to give
credit to Antonia Hilton. She has madness out in the
world right now. It's a really important story that not
a lot of people were looking at. And yeah, I
think it has a potential to shake some shit up.
And I think that's what good writing does, like when
you're uncovering history and putting stuff on the forefront that
a lot of people were trying to hide. And with that,
(28:39):
we will see you next week.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Bye y'all. Bye. On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio
and Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves
Jeffco and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by
Tari Harrison. Follow us on Instagram at on Theme Show.
You can also send us an email at hello at
(29:02):
on Theme dot Show. Head to on Theme dot Show
to check out the show notes for episodes. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is my
(29:31):
best friend sleep Adieton and this is my best friend
man Tan and we are to realco
On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
If you've listened to some of our previous episodes, like
(00:23):
the other other Magical Negro or we might regret this
episode later, then you know a little something something about
menstrual shows and Vatteville. And if you haven't, well, then
go back and listen to those episodes. But anyway, menstrual
shows were theatrical performances where actors got up on stage
and literally fixed their faces to become gross caricatures of
black people. One of the key visual components of the
(00:46):
menstrual show blackface. Actually, let me just read this description
from this eighteen ninety three compilation called the Menstrual Show
or Burnt Quirk Comicalities. In the matter of making up
the face, use only the best prepared burnt cork, which
can be obtained from any dealer in theatrical face preparations.
(01:08):
Moisten the hands with water and take a small quantity
of the quirk, rubbing it in the palm of your
hand until it becomes a thin paste. Then apply to
the skin. When it dries, brush the surface gently with
some soft substance, and removing the cork. Use only cold water,
a large sponge, and a soap that gives a generous lather.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Thanks to the enduring presence of white folks doing blackface
in the twenty first century, many folks who never got
a black face minstrel c one oh one in school
are well aware of the history and problems with blackface.
A viral video showing teens in a Cedar City Walmart
dressed in costumes and in blackface.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
On blackface is back on the job after a first
grade teacher was photographed in blackface at a Halloween party. Flatful, Katie,
I was so sick of these news stories, not because
I was shocked, but because it was exhausting seeing all
the hoops folks were jumping through to calculate the value
(02:08):
of being well intentioned and white.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I think blackface is like a ray of passage for
white people actually, so we should give them.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Some grace hot take. But all these examples we have
of blackface today show just how deeply entrenched the practice
is in US culture. It didn't come from nowhere, even
though some folks would have us believe the blackface offenses
are innocent gaps, divorced from any context.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Right, And let's not pretend that we're that far removed
from a time of blackface performances.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Were hard for the course only a century ago. Really,
and as much as some people want to say that
it's an obsolete practice from a bygone era, we are
very much not over. It ain't nothing changed, but the
day and the technology and black stories are very much
a part of the history of blackface. I'm Katie and
(03:00):
I'm Eves. Today's episode bona fide blackface. So let's back
up a little, yes, and talk about the birth of blackface,
a curse creation. Honestly, Yes, in Shakespeare's plays. In medieval Europe,
blackness was associated with evil devil characters were blackface. But
(03:23):
the exact origins of blackface as a whole are debated,
but it definitely has roots in anti black acts that
were pervasive before the eighteen hundreds. Blackface minstreul sy, though,
is a distinctly American tradition that caught on in the
early nineteenth century. Thomas Dartmouth Rice is considered the father
of menstrul sy.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I feel like father is a little too pleasant of
a term.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Let's call him the problematic patriarch. Then, sure, that's better.
He did a one man show where he blacked up,
dressed in shabby clothes, wore a wig, and danced and
sung in a deceitfully clownish caricature of a black person.
He called his character Jim Crow, and it became an
archetypal character in menstrual shows in the US and written
jump Jump, Jump, Jim Crow.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Take a little twirl and around you go wide and
white your talk as a camomen you jump.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Tim Rice wasn't the first person to dawn blackface and
do a little demeaning song and dance, but he did
popularize the act shows where white audiences watched white men
with their faces painted black with burnt cork caught on
like wildfire. The performers got up on stage literally acted
a full pretended to be cowardly and cow towing, and
(04:39):
put on an exaggerated dialect. White audiences laughed, rinse, repeat all.
This was happening in the South and Northeast United States
by the early eighteen thirties, while black people were still
enslaved and the Civil War wasn't yet on the horizon.
These shows were part of the entertainment industry. Sure, but
I don't want to make it seem like it was
(05:01):
just for funzies. Performers like Rice were not sweet summer children.
They knew that they were inflating the value of the
currency of white supremacy and at the same time making
actual money. Think of seeing the sheet music, the prints,
the shows over and over and over, the mere exposure
effect that allowed white folks to sell the racial inferiority
(05:24):
of black folks in the neat little package of entertainment. Katie,
what do you think the average person in the US,
who pays attention to current events and has a standard
interest in American history knows about blackface.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I think they know that black people get mad whenever
they see a white person doing it. I think they
know that, like, if you get caught doing it, you
could get in trouble.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Which keeps a lot of people from doing a lot
of things solely the fear of repercussion. Yeah, without any
integrity behind it me. But yeah, several years ago, the
media was ablaze with regular folks and celebrities getting outed, fired,
and defended for wearing black face. You know that reckoning
(06:16):
that came along with the Black Lives Matter wave.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Oh, I know, true, I know.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
But now that blackface has kind of had its time
to shine in the news cycle. Conversation about it really
mostly rears its ugly head around Halloween, when the blackface
brigade is itching to break out the oily face paint.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Folks have learned to keep their misdeeds on the low
a little better now.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Mm hmm. Blackface was born of white folks, racism, and
tired imaginations. True, it was about how white people co
opted black stories and impersonated black folks, but it was
also about how black people subverted those narratives and constructed
their own. I've been thinking about blackface in the black
imagination because back in the mid to late eighteen hundreds
(06:57):
black performers performed in blackface. Some of those performers had
even been enslaved in the past and began making the
rounds on stage, compelled to entertain again in a different setting.
And black performers work in the early days of minstrelsy
gave them experience in theater that cleared a pathway for
many performers to come According to author Henry T. Sampson
(07:19):
in his book Blacks and Blackface, most of the leading
black comedians from the mid nineteenth century to the early
twentieth worked in blackface. Sampson says this about those early
black performers who wore blackface. These black singers, composers, and
dancers brought an original vitality never before seen on the
American stage. They brought a great deal that was new
(07:42):
in dancing, including the buck and wing, the stop time,
and the Virginia essence, which constituted many of the fundamental
steps in American jazz dancing.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Let me find out what the bucket wing is. So
I feel like I'd be good at day.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
You probably would.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So what you're saying is they were our who innovated
and who were worthy of acclaim that they only really
got from white audience based on the performer's ability to
make them laugh.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, they were busting their chops working to gain skills
in the craft. But to white audiences there were still
like specimens in a menagerie, or maybe like seeing white
folks performing black face was like seeing lions in a
zoo in the city, and then seeing black folks performing
black face was like seeing lions with their pride in
the savannahs. White performers were making more money than the
(08:29):
black ones, and there were still way more white folks
and black face than there were black folks. But black
folks were limited in the jobs they could get that
would make them decent money, and this was one option.
So in this history, black people weren't just this like
invisible force, providing fodder for a white ridicule propelling white
folks to new theatrical heights. They weren't these powerless, silent
(08:53):
entities relegated to tucking their tail between their legs as
they took a psychological beating. The history of blackface is
not just about the unrestrained power of white people to
tell stories, i e. Lies about black people's lives. As
we set back with our arms folded. Black folks were
the storytellers too. Watch this pawn shot foot and nothing
(09:15):
in there with some guitars and banjos and saxophone and
guitars and van Jules and saxophones, stealable.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
The warning then started to watch them on tell you
more after the break. Billy Carsands, Dewey Pig, Meat, Markham,
John Mason, flornoy E Miller, Bert Williams. There were a
(09:44):
bunch of black performers who did blackface. Some of them
figured they might as well get a book, some experience
and some recognition by blacking up and capitalizing on the
spectacle that white folks had created. Actor and composer Eddie
Green worked in film and on radio shows like Amos
and Andy and Duffy's Tavern. He sometimes were a blackface
(10:06):
and a black post. He wrote. His daughter, Elva Diane Green,
said this, the book I have written about my father
has been a hard seale to some blacks today because
of the era in which my father lived. Some people
do not see and do not want to see the
relevance of yesterday's all black cast movies or old time
radio or vaudeville as it applies to progress. As for myself,
(10:28):
I understand seeing my father and blackface has taken some
getting used to. It's still kind of embarrassing to admit
my father was a blackface comedian. And if I am embarrassed,
what do I expect from others?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So everyone wasn't really writing for it at the time either.
I'm guessing you.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Would guess correct, because some artists talked about how they
would take no part in it, how it was low
tier performance, and some critics said that black folks doing
blackface was an affront to the race working backward. But
take Bert Williams and George Walker.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Good Morning, Going hung by Williams Walker.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
They were a comedy team that did really well for themselves.
They performed in blackface and called their duo the two real.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Coons Gangay, that's me and you girl.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Walker said this about their act. We thought that as
there seemed to be a great demand for black faces
on the stage, we would do all we could to
get what we felt belonged to us by the law
of nature, and they profess to be pro black child.
Walker also said this, over and behind all the money
and prestige which move Williams and Walker is a love
(11:42):
for the race, because we feel that, in a degree
we represent the race in every hair's breadth of achievement.
We make it's to its credit. For first, last and
all the time, we are Negroes. And Bert Williams was
a pioneering entertainer and super successful comedian. The Silent Lost
film Dark Town Jubilee Darren Williams marked one of the
(12:04):
earliest appearances of a black comedian in cinema. His work
poked fun at white caricatures of black people. He was
not simply an agent of white supremacy. So I think
the element of black performers doing blackface, it wasn't even
just about them wearing blackface too, Like they did blackface
(12:24):
through audio work as well, in terms of the types
of dialect that they would put on. They did blackface
on the stage, and once the screen came around, they
would do it on the screen as well. But performing
a blackface the interesting thing about it is that they
were still performers who were working on their craft, who
were interested in getting better at acting, and they chose
(12:47):
blackface as the avenue for them to do so it
was a more accessible avenue for them to be able
to get work. So they were like, Okay, this is
my lane. This is a kind of entertainment that's popular
right now, and it's something that I can use to
get my skills up. And at the end of the day,
their work was foundational in terms of early black theater
(13:09):
instead of foundation for future actors and for future entertainers
to be able to get their feet in the door
as well.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, I wonder like if they felt like typecasted ever,
Like you start doing black face hoping that you can
not do that anymore, and you can just be an
actor on your own merits. It kind of reminds me
of how this conversation about black men in Hollywood having
to wear a dress.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
It's like, oh, they make you wear a dress.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And they won't let you move on if you don't
like wear a dress first, or you get typecasted, you're
like always in a dress. People who refuse to address
all the conversations that go on with that emasculation of
black men and the masculinization of black women. And it
does seem like it is more accessible route for people,
like you see people doing sketch comedies for free on
(13:54):
YouTube and TikTok. There's just like so many like media
Big Woman's House where the joke is a, oh, there's
a man in address here. So I wonder if was
it a similar industry that was set up. I'm gonna
just do this for a minute and then I'm gonna
get out and put it on his black face, and
then I'm gonna be a real actor. I'm gonna be
really on the stage perfecting my craft. Or did they
(14:15):
get stuck in that or did they prefer that and
not want to leave.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I think that a lot of them would have said
they wouldn't have preferred it, but that it was an
avenue for them. But there were people, and I think
it was Bert Williams. Please correct me if I'm wrong
anybody who knows, but Bert Williams who said something about
I kind of would rather do blackface or do this
kind of performance in front of why audiences because the
(14:40):
opportunities that were available to him within black performance weren't
as like lucrative, or there weren't as many of them.
But I think a lot of people ended up doing
it throughout the entire course of their career. And then
there were some entertainers who didn't do it for the
entire course of their career, Like there were some entertainers
(15:01):
who moved on to doing radio work after they did
scream work, like Eddie Green I think was one of
those entertainers. I think it was kind of hard to
make that decision, like we would think about it today,
like how long am I going to be doing this
thing until I move on to something else. I do
think in a way, for people who work in the
arts and entertainment, it's kind of a privilege that we
have in contemporary times to be able to think how
(15:23):
we're going to move on when for them it was like,
this is what I can see for now, and this
is what I know is working for me, and this
is how I'm choosing to move in the industry that
I'm in. And the question was more of how am
I going to have integrity about the work that I
(15:43):
do and continue to gain skills and then hopefully maybe
one day in the future, even if I'm not creating
a path for myself to move differently, then I'm creating
a path for someone else to move differently.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So when a black person is doing black face, where
they like still doing like the exaggerated caricature of what
like a black person is, was it like similar themes
as when a white person did it.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yes. Yeah, they were still hamming it up. They were
still blacking it up. They were still using that exaggerated dialect.
They were still enacting the character of that foolish, naive,
bumbling black person.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
It's interesting you said that the guy Bert said he
likes doing it in front of white audiences because it
gets he gets paid more. I do think we see
that not like literal black face, but like the exaggerated
caricature of black people and black people participating that for
white audiences because it is like good money at the
end of the day.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, And I think the other interesting thing to think
about in this conversation is how, yes, the black people
who were doing black face were still entertainers, There were
still gathering their skills, and they still set a foundation
for people who were to come. There's also an argument
that in doing that, they were creating more lanes for
black culture to make its way into mainstream popular culture
(17:15):
because menstreal shows were a popular form of entertainment. It
was a way that black music was able to be
put on a stage, and black entertainment was able to
be put on a stage before a lot of different
kinds of audiences because it wasn't just white audiences who
were watching black face performances either, it was also black audiences.
(17:37):
And there's also much ado that scholars have made over
what that actually meant for black people to enjoy and
laugh at and see white and black performers. What is
some of that I do some of that ADU is like, okay,
a kind of like psychoanalyzing of why a black person
would laugh at their own image being demean So, like,
(18:01):
what does it mean for black people to sit in
front of an audience and see this portrayal of them
that they know isn't true, but they're enjoying it.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Wow, this is literally nothing new in the sun. Because
I feel like people say that now, like how could
you laugh at all the share we laugh at? Yeah,
how can you laugh at media? How could you laugh
at insert whatever, like foolish character you see that's black?
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Like this is a bad representation for the race, right,
but like people like it, And it wasn't even like
that back then too, Like people like Williams M. Walker
were like, I'm doing a good job for my race.
And there's a comment that I don't know the origin
of the comment, but it said that Booker T. Washington
(18:44):
said that he was a fine man of the race
is basically what his comment was. Er Williams was, yeah,
which was funny to me, Like he was one of
the best representatives of the race. He did a really
good job at ving ane grow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I feel like the representation of it all, like that's
kind of like the peak that people say.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It's like, well, you're.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Getting representation, Like black people are on screen, black people
are on stage, black people are on the radio. This
is representation, like you should be happy. It's kind of
like a cyclical thing that we see, like kind of
no matter what iteration or whatever timeline we're in, or
whatever medium or whatever genre is popular that we're debating,
it's like, it's representation.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
The end of the day, it's representation. Yeah, And the
comment held a little bit more weight back then in
the early nineteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds, because it was
less representation exactly. There weren't that many people there so
to say, like, you represented us. Fine. It's kind of
like it's kind of one of those things we had
to get through to get to where we are today,
to where we can't complain about it, I suppose. But yeah,
(19:43):
I was thinking about the idea of the commercial viability
and success of the work that black people in blackface
were doing, and how it made it so that black
people were able to enter the mainstream. And I think
that's kind of a complicated conversation because what is the
value of black culture being in the mainstream and other
people being able to co opt it, to be able
(20:05):
to use it as they please, to be able to
make their own determinations over it. I don't think that
has a very straightforward answer, like, I definitely definitely acknowledge
the value of how black people did whatever was available
to them back then to be able to work on
their own art and then share and spread that art
(20:27):
and their love for it and create those foundations and
open those doors for future people. But I don't think
it's a wholly positive thing, like, not one hundred percent
to say that this made black people's culture be able
to be mainstreamed commercial viability basically is not the end all,
be all great thing. I think. Yeah, I agree, Yeah,
(20:51):
we got to go to a break, but we'll see
you again soon. In the conversations that we have about
the history of black face today, we're really trying to
get people who aren't black to just realize how bad
it is, and then we tell them to just not
(21:13):
do it or reprimand them for doing it. In the
flattening of history that we have to do to course correct,
I can't shake the feeling that we end up erasing
black folk's presence in that narrative. Black folks stories, black
folks control of their own narratives. I don't want us
to forget about their achievements, their art, and the foundation
that they laid. So I think in all of these
(21:35):
conversations that we have when these instances of black face
pop up in the media, kind of like you said earlier,
white people don't do it again. And it's a lot
of black people and quote unquote allies who are the
ones who are saying this about these instances. And I
(21:58):
do think that that flatten the history of blackface, like
there's a big batty in this situation, and it just
condenses the nuance of the conversations around blackface, because the
history of black people doing blackface is a long one,
and it's very evident that the impact that blackface had
(22:20):
on the entertainment industry in the United States is one
that is huge and it's long lasting. So I just
think we need to talk more about the complexity of
blackface and about the roles that black people had as
storytellers and as artists within that realm, and that they
weren't just these invisible, silent characters who are to the
(22:45):
side that white people were enacting their violence upon. That
there was agency that some of these artists had, that
they did have thoughts and feelings that they shared about
people who are about the about black face in general.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, I do think it's important to acknowledge the black
people's agency, but I will say every time one of
these instances happens in the news, I kind of do
not want to hear about the nuance about black face,
about black people doing it, because I can see it
quickly devolving into like how when black people talk about
slavery and then white people's first thing is like, well, yeah,
sold jass I was in slavery. There was a black
(23:23):
plantation on us too, so it was just like to
avoid all that. I don't think MSNBC should be like
expousing all the black black face actors, just because I
think it will just give white people too much length
to continue to do it basically like, well, actually, I
(23:45):
am participating in a long tradition, and you know they
had agency and I have agency, so fucky, I can
definitely see that happening.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, I agree with you. I wouldn't want it to
be like here there is there that rebuttal and oh
my goodness, that conversation around black people sell slaves too
is a whole thing. But I also think it's related
to like how there are so many people today who
(24:16):
feel like, well, racism doesn't present itself in the same
ways that it used to present itself, So it no
longer exists and we shouldn't be talking about it anymore.
I just I don't think that it should be presented
necessarily at the same time we're talking about these But
I think in general, just having a larger view of
(24:41):
blackface and how it operated is beneficial.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, because like I think now, when you say black face,
it's seen is like wholly negative, yes, wholly just like
bad bad. This is what white people did to us,
and they're making fun of us. But you know, like
you said, black people did it too, and they chose
to do it like they weren't.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Being forced to Well.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I guess capitalism. Yeah, capitalism will force you to do
a lot of strange things.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
It sure will. And I think force is an interesting
word to use, actually, because that did that was a
way that some people viewed black people's work and doing
blackface minstrreulcy, like they were forced to do it, like coerced.
They were coerced. Yeah, And I think a better word
is just compelled sometimes because of things like capitalism, racism,
(25:41):
their economic status, whatever their social status was at the time,
having a family, all of those things could have made
a person more compelled and compelled to the point where
they had to do it to be able to survive.
There's a difference between I think being four to and
compel to, but sometimes that that line is pretty thin.
(26:04):
Yeah and blurry, yeah and blurry. So all this said,
blackface has its hooks in American culture and it's not
so easily shaken.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
It's time for role credits, the segment where we give
credit to a person, place, or thing we encountered during
the week. Ease, who are what would you like to
give credit to?
Speaker 1 (26:28):
This week? I want to give credit to black historians.
It is the beginning of Black History Month, and there
is a lot of a do around Black history this month,
of course in the United States specifically, so I just
wanted to shout out black historians for all the work
that they do digging through the archives, being able to
(26:50):
dig up the stories so we can even share them
through this month. Doing the good work of highlighting the
things that need to be highlighted throughout the year and
every year. It's really important work and a lot of
the stories that we share on this show that I
care about all of the people that we learn about
when be possible without the work of black historians.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
I'm sort of like, kind of related, what is it?
So I don't think this person would call themselves a historian,
but they will call themselves a journalist. But there's this
book out called Madness, which is about a segregated like
mental institution in Crownsville, Maryland, and the writer Antonia Hilton,
is who I would like to give credit to you.
(27:32):
This week I went to see her at the Carter
Center in Atlanta, and it was like a really good
book talk, Like she's a debut author and it was
just like a masterclass on how you do a book talk.
I've like I was blown away truly, And she's a reporter,
so she's really good at speaking. Like I said, it's
she's her first book. She's a debut author, so she
still had that like excitement of like people coming to
(27:54):
see her, Like you know how some people will be
like here here, Nigadam when they sign in your book.
But she was like very happy that everyone was there,
like very personable, told great stories. And what I like
about nonfiction books and nonfiction book talks is you can't
spoil the book, Like the more you talk about it
the more I want to read it more, because of
course you can't like get every detail into your hour
(28:16):
and a half talk. So yeah, I'd like to give
credit to Antonia Hilton. She has madness out in the
world right now. It's a really important story that not
a lot of people were looking at. And yeah, I
think it has a potential to shake some shit up.
And I think that's what good writing does, like when
you're uncovering history and putting stuff on the forefront that
a lot of people were trying to hide. And with that,
(28:39):
we will see you next week.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Bye y'all. Bye. On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio
and Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves
Jeffco and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by
Tari Harrison. Follow us on Instagram at on Theme Show.
You can also send us an email at hello at
(29:02):
on Theme dot Show. Head to on Theme dot Show
to check out the show notes for episodes. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is my
(29:31):
best friend sleep Adieton and this is my best friend
man Tan and we are to realco
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