# Is Black Face necessarily racist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 22, 2014, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660 "2014-04-22T05:39:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/161 "2014-04-23T07:29:22Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > \*If \*they’re painted to represent Black people (and I think they are, given the origins of the name “Morris”, but you may not) then there doesn’t need to be any further element of mockery. > > Because real-life Black people are _not_ coal-black. _Especially_ Moors. So it’s already an exaggerated caricature of Black people’s physical features. That makes sense, but the earliest descriptions of the tradition as ‘moriske dance’, even if they are making a link to Moors, are written descriptions of something already extant - writers of the time (and later) quite often mislabelled the origin of things that were new and/or exotic to them (I can find unrelated examples of this phenomenon if required). If we accept that, at some point in its history (but not definitely its origin), Border Morris _was regarded_ as some sort of mimicry of dark-skinned people, does that necessarily contaminate it for all time? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/162 "2014-04-23T07:30:33Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > If the producers of the Black And White Minstrels Show had decided (say, in 1976) to switch to navy blue face paint, or green or lilac (but with no other changes to the format, style, etc), would the show still be mocking/parodying black people? Yes > [@](#): > > What I’m asking is: is it the blacking up, or the musical style, mannerisms and choreography? > I suspect it’s a combination of them all Yep > [@](#): > > , but what I want to know is: what would have to be changed to make it not-racist? That particular show would have to have everything changed, including (especially!) the name. > [@](#): > > If all the Border Morris groups suddenly agreed to start using blue paint instead of black, is that the end of all controversy? For me, it would be - since the face-blackening is, as you say, the only relict of the origins. In that regard, it\* isn’t \*like the B&WMS. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/163 "2014-04-23T08:11:38Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > For me, it would be - since the face-blackening is, as you say, the only relict of the origins. In that regard, it\* isn’t \*like the B&WMS. I wonder if it would be like that for everyone though - the fact that these groups _once_ painted their faces black is out there and can’t be undone. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/164 "2014-04-23T08:11:42Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’d rather black people ‘represent’ black people. Failing that, I’d prefer the people doing it didn’t focus on one minor physical attribute, that _isn’t_ unique to that group, as a shorthand for an entire ethnicity.Distinctive costumes? A placard?_Tell_ them? > The white guy representing brown people would be wrong too. Since glow-in-the-dark people are fictional, there’s nothing wrong with that one. But we didn’t _have_ any black people. Once we got black people, we started casting them. And what costumes? Placards, really? The white guy representing brown people was representing his own racial group. He’s white by our definition, not white by the definition of the people who think Jessica Alba, Simon Peres or Adriano Celentano aren’t white. The glow in the dark dude wore more makeup than this one, since the local population wasn’t available in those colors (we do have people that white now, and we do cast them). ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/165 "2014-04-23T08:16:59Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That particular show would have to have everything changed, including (especially!) the name. Thing is, I watched (on YouTube) a few bits of the last ever B&WMS\* and I (apart from the face paint and the name) I couldn’t put my finger on anything else identifiably racially-typed. Without the name and the face paint, it would just be a bunch of barbershop types performing slightly camp song and dance routines. \*I realise it was stylistically different (and more stereotyped) in the earlier days of the show. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/166 "2014-04-23T08:28:13Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > If we accept that, at some point in its history (but not definitely its origin), Border Morris _was regarded_ as some sort of mimicry of dark-skinned people, does that necessarily contaminate it for all time? Not if all traces of racial mockery/caricature are excised AND real efforts are made to educate people about the origins/history vs the current state e.g a poster set up at performances. Then it becomes a teaching moment. Let me tell you, I’m no stranger to possibly-excuseable minstrelsy: here in Cape Town we have a thing called the [Coon Carnival/Cape Minstrel Show/Kaapse Klopse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaapse_Klopse) - in this case, it’s Coloured Capetonians (so, often former slave descendants) putting on a Minstel Show. And yes, there are all the arguments about heritage, culture, carnival and inversion being permitted forms of rebellion, etc. But ultimately, it’s a minstrel show, strongly influenced by non-indigenous American minstrelsy, and I, _as_ a Capetonian Coloured and descendant of slaves myself, find the whole thing an embarrassment at best. A horrible, unthinking, self-inflicted racist relict with no place in the modern world outside archival footage, at worst. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/167 "2014-04-23T08:32:49Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > But we didn’t _have_ any black people. _No_ Black people in Spain? Colour me :dubious: > [@](#): > > Once we got black people, we started casting them. Good for you. > [@](#): > > And what costumes? I don’t know, what Black people were they portraying? > [@](#): > > Placards, really? Yes, really > [@](#): > > The white guy representing brown people was representing his own racial group. Then he shouldn’t need any makeup, should he ? > [@](#): > > The glow in the dark dude wore more makeup than this one, since the local population wasn’t available in those colors (we do have people that white now, and we do cast them). Wait, you meant an albino? Or a Nordic type? _Not_ literally a glow-in-the-dark person? That’s a fucked-up term for a pale white person. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/168 "2014-04-23T08:48:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > _No_ Black people in Spain? Colour me :dubious: The first time I saw a black person in person was in Dublin, in 1983. The first time I saw a black person in person in Spain it was a tourist in Madrid’s airport, in the mid-1990s. The first time I saw a black person in person in my home town it was in 1999, a vendor in the weekly street market. For a long time we were mainly recipients of “tertiary migration”: foreigners would go to Madrid, Barcelona or the plastic sea of Andalusia, from there to provincial capitals, from provincial capitals to smaller towns like mine. The immense majority (and by “immense” I mean over 99%) of the black people in Spain are immigrant or the minor children of immigrants. > [@](#): > > Good for you.I don’t know, what Black people were they portraying? All black people, although the clothing tends to be “orientalist” (think “1001 nights”), so if they hadn’t worn makeup they would have looked just like the people representing the Med and Middle East. > [@](#): > > Then he shouldn’t need any makeup, should he ? Theater makeup, to make his face more visible from afar. > [@](#): > > Wait, you meant an albino? Or a Nordic type? Nordic, and I don’t mean Aretha. Blonde wigs for anybody who isn’t one. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/169 "2014-04-23T08:54:10Z")
Agnetha, not Aretha! For many Spaniards, Agnetha was the first news that “there are brunettes in Sweden”. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/170 "2014-04-23T09:16:03Z")
Again, “glow-in-the-dark” is a messed-up term. So, this was like a parade-of-nations thing? So, the Eastern Asian people, did you paint them yellow? Were they given slanted eyes? Buck teeth like Micky Rooney? Were the Native Americans painted red? So why were the Black people…black? It’s not a common skin colour in Africa, I can assure you. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/171 "2014-04-23T09:40:30Z")
SO we cannot decide easily (even in this group) what forms of behaviour are racist and which are not. Maybe we should just all go to IMHO and emote? The reality is that some racial reference will always be present in various aspects of society and it is a choice down to the individual whether that is stigmatised in any way. Additionally, rights of different groups need to be weighed against rights of other groups. If we are faced with a group of Morris traditionalists who wish to black up and another group who are against any such imitative or declaratory behaviour, how are we to decide what is right and what is wrong? We cannot even decide that here, let alone in society which is generally less rational than here. All such conflicts are a continuum. My view is that at the extreme ends this behaviour should not be banned and that it should not pass without critical comment. In between then there iare gradations of acceptability to different people and different groups. Context will always be important. If the coconutters do their dance in low density Afro-Caribbean Lancashire, the context would be different from doing it in Electric Avenue. Using one word (racist) to describe bejaviours that run from actions that are illegal, dangerous and personally threatening all the way to actions that are moderately distasteful or not even distasteful at all seems to me to be sloppy use of language. If racist is to mean something, then it must mean more than 'behaviour I don’t like"! And as to suggestions above that any discussion of race, culture, ethnicity, geography, genetics and so on is always going to be racist, there goes any rational discussion of the matter. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/172 "2014-04-23T09:51:47Z")
I’m pretty sure we’ve done this lots of times on the dope. My answer remains: in the abstract, painting yourself black for any reason other than to caricature black people is not racist. And trying to genuinely look like a black person (i.e. with brown tones) for a costume, or whatever, is not in itself racist either. However, it’s necessary to be aware of the history and the connotations of a particular look in a particular society. Due to the history of the US I would advise against doing either of the above things there (outside of film and TV). ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/173 "2014-04-23T09:58:16Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I’m pretty sure we’ve done this lots of times on the dope. > > My answer remains: in the abstract, painting yourself black for any reason other than to caricature black people is not racist. And trying to genuinely look like a black person (i.e. with brown tones) for a costume, or whatever, is not in itself racist either. > > However, it’s necessary to be aware of the history and the connotations of a particular look in a particular society. Due to the history of the US I would advise against doing either of the above things there (outside of film and TV). I can go with that. How do you feel about the apparent flexibility of the word ‘racist’? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/174 "2014-04-23T10:20:04Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > in the abstract, painting yourself black for any reason other than to caricature black people is not racist. Agreed. See my example of Kali, who is sometimes represented as black (sometimes blue, which is, of course, smurfist. :)) > [@](#): > > And trying to genuinely look like a black person (i.e. with brown tones) for a costume, or whatever, is not in itself racist either. This is where we differ. If it’s a White person doing it (or an Asian, whatever), it _is_ inherently racist. That’s my opinion. Note I’m not talking about an elaborate latex mask a-la _Mission Impossible_, here. That’s OK in a theatrical (or even pageant, **Nava** ) context. _Just_ painting yourself brown as shorthand for “Black person” _isn’t_. It’s not _just_ lazy reductionism ( **reducing everything essential about Black people to their skin colour is, IMO, racist in-and-of-itself** ), it’s ignorant of the rich variety of Black skin tones (and how many non-Black dark-skinned peoples there are), and lastly (but not least-ly) it’s also got a really, _really_ bad history, which you _can’t_ just ignore. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/175 "2014-04-23T10:24:49Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > it’s also got a really, _really_ bad history, which you _can’t_ just ignore. In the US. Other nations are excused. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/176 "2014-04-23T10:31:44Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > In the US. > Other nations are excused. Bullshit. [Pure](http://www.nugrape.net/minstrel.htm), [unadulterated](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_and_White_Minstrel_Show) bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/177 "2014-04-23T11:06:23Z")
…and that’s just actual Blackface. When you jump to looking at European artistic representations of Africans, it gets worse. Everything from _Tintin in the Congo_ to Gollywogs… ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/178 "2014-04-23T11:09:59Z")
Although other nations are not excused, there is a difference in context between the USA (where minstrel shows originated and whose shadow falls heavy on the country) and other countries where it is distasteful but not so historically resonant. History is important and history holds the USA to account in its domestic politics for longer and deeper than many other countries. There is a serious difference in the experience of Afro-Carribbean populations in the UK and those in for instance, the UK. Every Afro-Caribbean here chose to live in the UK (or their ancestors so chose) - we are now in the fifth generation of mass flow of immigrants from the West Indies. Although the UK was a major mover in the Slave Trade originally, it withdrew early and slavery was never legal in the UK itself. There is no history of Jim Crow Laws here, only of levels of interpersonal discrimination common in any mass immigration (it happened to the Irish in the generations previous to the Caribbean immigration.) Such people were never valued a 3/5 a white man here! All of this is context. ---
**Author:** ![ctnguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@ctnguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ctnguy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/179 "2014-04-23T11:26:10Z")
If you’re looking at the history of British attitudes towards Africans, you can’t consider only Afro-Caribbean people in the UK itself. You also have to consider the whole history of British colonialism in Africa. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660/180 "2014-04-23T11:30:09Z")
I’m not talking about the history of the treatment of Blacks, I’m talking about Blackface and Minstrelsy itself. It’s not just a US phenomenon, and has been in place in non-US territories like the UK, Australia and South Africa just as long as in the US. And the treatment of West Indians is irrelevant, since the Blackface under discussion was usually mocking _American Blacks_. I could go into whole reams about Australian representations of Aborigines as a separate sort of Blackface, or the Moor’s Head as a heraldic theme, etc. But for the purposes of this discussion, to say that Minstrelsy-type Blackface is just a US problem historically is, like I said, just bullshit. tl;dr: why is it OK for Brits to mock US Blacks, as you seem to be saying, **Pjen**? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-black-face-necessarily-racist/686660.md?page=10)