So you’re a friend of Dorothy? 
the makeup department there should get some awards.
A quick thing: I’m young and white, and I had to do a lot of research on my own to realize just how f’d this country has been to black people, historically. If you haven’t done any research, then you have no fucking idea, because, guess what – white people have controlled the American narrative for 400 years. Yea they teach racism with some combination of slavery/Harriet Tubman/Lincoln/MLK/Civil Rights Act/Civil War, but that’s like describing a firetruck to an alien as being a long red rectangle that moves. You’ll never know why it exists, what it does, or how it functions, and you’ll never be able to put out a fire with that information alone.
For light reading, check out this article on American lynching. Rough summary: From the 19th century to 1968 around 3,500 black people were lynched – aka brutally murdered by a ruthless mob. Photograph postcards of white spectators at the lynching were a multi-million dollar industry, a souvenir to send home. Also, parts of the bodies were sold as collectors items.
After slavery “ended” black people had to band together in communities because Jim Crow/separate but equal laws meant their schools sucked, their infrastructure sucked, their doctors sucked, everything sucked, and there were not enough jobs/careers to go around, so these communities were sick, poor, and with no way to improve their conditions. And now imagine that if you pissed off the wrong white person, you could be burned alive, torn apart by horses, castrated, disemboweled, tortured for hours, etc in front of a white mob audience on the courthouse lawn in some cases.
(Remember this isn’t ancient history, the last recorded lynching was 1968 – within your lifetime!)
Imagine, also, that in these black communities they developed their own forms of art and culture, based loosely on the art and culture their ancestors were kidnapped from, like blues and jazz. And imagine the white people – who enslaved you, then forced you into systematic poverty, and terrorized you to not improve yourself under the threat of violence – taking the art forms you developed, straight up stealing them, and mocking them in front of a white audience.
(My grandmother is 99. This happened in her lifetime.)
Also, imagine the greatest artists your community has produced, the absolute geniuses, the generational talents that will be remembered for centuries, only being able to support themselves financially by playing at a plantation-themed nightclub (the Cotton Club) complete with servers dressed as slaves.
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Now, how does this affect us today? I just described things 50-100 years ago, shouldn’t it have gone away?
Well, if a community is forced into systematic poverty for 400 years, and forced into the worse conditions a country can offer, with the omniscient threat of violent death if you step out of line… do those things go away after only a generation or two? There are people alive today whose grandparents benefited from American slavery, there are people alive today who remember lynchings or participated in race riots, and there are people who, if they try hard enough, can remember when blackface was an amusing diversion, before racism even existed (you know, before it was acknowledged to exist).
My point is that many inner-city black populations to this day have some of the highest crime rates, highest poverty rates, and lowest education rates in the country. And yet first generation West African immigrants are one of the richest and highest educated immigration groups. Are they genetically inferior, or did 400 years in America fuck them up something awful?
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Point being: Yea it’s fucking offensive. And White Americans don’t get to choose when it isn’t. And ignoring that it is offensive, and declaring racism as “over”, only lengthens how long it will be offensive, because it’s only further ignoring our complicated racial history we’ve never owned up to.
Rober Downey Jr got an Oscar nomination for his blackface appearance is Tropic Thunder, but that was (intentionally) a very weird circumstance and basically a meta-commentary on the issue.
Why do I hear that line like it’s the line from Angel Heart: “We ain’t all Baptists down here”?
You know nothing, Jon Snow.
I would, but then I’d be called racist for coloring you.
Seriously, using blackface in comedy involves walking a fine line. Robert Downey Jr and Dan Akroyd got away with it in part because they weren’t playing black people, they were playing ridiculous white people pretending to be black within the context of the story (and because both roles were paired against actual black people to highlight how ridiculous the pretense was). Without the heavily promoted underlying message of “this man is an idiot who is not intended to represent actual black people” it’s a much dicier proposition (as Ted Danson found out to his cost).
And Fred Armisen was being made up to look like an actual person (Obama) as close as possible and not some weird generic golliwog caricature like the minstrels used to be. While it’s not ideal one has to accept that SNL has a limited cast to work with.* (The real racism point is more likely to be in the perennial “why doesn’t SNL have more black comedians in its cast” question).
Anyway, it’s a good thing that the black-and-white minstrels shows are a thing of the far distant past. Why, we haven’t seen one on television since 1978.
*I’m vaguely remembering an SNL opening sequence where they were “auditioning” various cast members to replace Phil Hartmann as Bill Clinton, and the last one was (IIRC) Tim Meadows who started out “My fellow Americans, I…I’m not going to get this, am I.” “No.”
A friend of mine actually has.
Well, not really. Her idea was to go as her boyfriend’s shadow and mimic his moves. But painted all black, with blue eyes and clear caukasian features, she got quite a few nasty remarks.
I don’t think the OP is really interested in learning why minstrel shows were so offensive, but I recommend those who are to watch Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled”. It’s not the most perfect movie in the world (it’s got the same crazy-ass ending that most of Lee’s movies seem to have), but it’s quite educational. Especially the montage at the end before the credit roll.
Your fucking racism aside, yes, black people still carry the embarrassment of minstrelity and racial stereotypes with them. The discomfort explains everything from why David Chapelle bailed on his show to why some black folk are wary of socializing in predominately white crowds.
Some of it is internalized. I remember as a teenager reveling in my newly found class clown role, and a black “friend” calling me up on the phone to inform me that I was only being the white people’s buffoon and that I needed to stop. (I didn’t.) Another time, a black substitute teacher singled out all the “bad” black kids in class, telling us we were nothing but a bunch of Sambos and Jezebels, while ignoring the equally bad white kids. My parents, who love them some Tyler Perry in drag, won’t watch certain comics because they engage in “tomming”–buffoonish behavior associated with stereotypical minstrel-like comedy. Comics/actors who bug out their eyes, swivel their necks, use a lot of profanity and slang are “toms”. I agree that some folks need refinement in their stage acts, but funny is funny. I don’t care what you do with eyes. (And my parents loved Richard Pryor…who had the buggiest eyes in the universe.)
Some of the discomfort comes from a very real place. Like whenever you hear white folk mimicking black people using very broken AAVE. Or when I tell white people I can’t dance and they accuse me of lying (black folk seem to be able to take one look at me and know I’m telling the truth.) Or when I see Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s smiling at me in the cereal aisle at the grocery store. Or when I turn on the TV and I see yet another black man putting on bad make-up and clothes in an impersonation of a black woman and everyone is ROTFL. And yes, seeing folks in blackface. It’s not that any of these things are a big deal in isolation. But they build up over the course of a lifetime and make people sensitive.
Back to the OP, please take a look at the pic in this article. Does dressing up, and, yes, putting on blackface to look like Mr. T., on Halloween mind you, make someone a racist?
Do you really think the guy deserves the media lashing he’s been getting (let alone his job now being jeoparidzed)?
I can’t speak for the USA but I’m at a loss as to how a white person would dress up as Mr. T without darken their skin with makeup. I don’t see it as big deal but then I don’t know the intent behind his costume and that counts for a lot.
I remember the Father Ted episode where the rugged island priests dressed up as the three degrees complete with makeup. Is that racist? In order to look like a character one has to look like a character so if that means putting a cushion up your jumper or wearing a wig then…fine? changing the colour of your skin…not fine?
I’m not prepared to call him a racist, but one has to be oblivious to fail to understand the revolting history of white people putting on black makeup for the amusement of others.
I don’t think he deserves lashing, but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t expect lashing when they do stuff like this.
Not to speak for all black people…but I wonder if some of us look at something like this and wonder why white people can’t just use their imaginations like we do when we play “dress up”. For instance, if I had to pick someone to imitate in a fangirl type of way, I’d go with David Bowie. Ziggy Stardust Bowie, all the way glam. I’d get me the right kind of wig, the right platform boots, the perfect leotard, and a bright red guitar to complete the look. I’d do my face with the right make-up. But I wouldn’t touch my skin coloring. If someone needs me to lighten my skin before they can see that I’m Ziggy Stardust, I have failed, failed, failed!
The guy didn’t need to darken his skin to do Mr. T. A black mohawk, gold chains, suspenders, repeatedly saying “I pity the fool”…those are the clues that scream “Mr. T.” If you need the brown skin to make it come together, then you’ve failed IMHO.
Actually one just has to be oblivious to the fact that it’s 2013. Does Mr. T even dress like Mr. T anymore?
Seems like the definition of blackface has expanded a lot, and fairly recently. As monstro said, there’s a big difference between this and this, and yet there was a big uproar over whatsherface wearing “blackface.”
While it’s true that the was (as far as I know, anyway) no major outcry over Darrell Hammond or Fred Armisen wearing tint, that’s becoming the rare exception rather than the rule.
No, when ass-kicking is involved, the term is Israeli.
Well, James Byrd was pretty much a lynching, in 1998.
I’m pretty sure the humor inherent in that scene is BECAUSE it’s an incredibly racially insensitive thing to do and the priests are idiots for not knowing this.