Poll: Have You Ever Worn Blackface?

On-target SNL skit from last night: State Meeting - SNL - YouTube

No, it is the utter silliness of reversing the order of the two words and then asserting that it is an important and meaningful difference.

Social norms, idioms, and human language in general do not follow computer logic, and expecting them to do so is, what’s the phrase, “utter silliness.”

You wouldn’t be in trouble about just a white sheet, but it AND a pointy white cone hat would make some problems for you.

Maybe I’m being a fart of oldness and can no longer understand the kids of cool.

Also, avoid waffle cones.

Other than Mrs. Beaver in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Halloween and stage costumes were as Caucasian as I am, AFAIR.

My problem with the question is the change of definitions that we have had in the past two weeks. Putting makeup on your face to darken it to impersonate a black person as part of a costume is not “blackface.” Blackface has/had a specific definition.

The guy on the right is dressed in blackface: Blackface - Wikipedia

I voted yes.
I once was Balthazar (the black wise man) ad my mom used burnt cork to darken my face. Ditto in first or second grade when dancing an afro-Peruvian dance. Not strictly blackface, maybe.

Here in Peru, there are a number of places that have a traditional “Danza de Negritos” (video) in which dancers, of Andean descent, wear masks ad costumes representing black men. These dances come from colonial times, nobody considers them insulting or racist.

I have had similar conversations in real life about blackface, white folks using the word nigger, why it’s wrong to consider all black folks to be criminals, etc.

It was really fun when after Chris Rock did his nigger vs black people routine a number of my white friends felt it was important to let me know that they consider me to be a black person and not a nigger…then they proceeded to tell me what they thought of niggers. There was a lot of enlightenment to be had that day.

I imagine women deal with similar issues with the #MeToo movement. As soon as you highlight the problem it feels like everyone goes to work trying to redefine the line between acceptable and unacceptable instead of taking a step back and asking “Am I part of the problem?”

I once went to a costume party dressed as someone who was born a poor black child, but it it didn’t require darkening anything.

I remember a Halloween party at a local bar in Virginia in the late 80s ar which a guy I knew went in blackface with a big afro wig and spent the whole night talking in an exaggerated Amos and Andy voice. I remember thinking it was pretty fucked up, but other people thought it was hysterical.

I was a theatre major in college. A few years after I graduated, one of the plays on the roster was For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide (When the Rainbow is Enuf). I don’t what they were thinking. My college theatre department was pretty much all white. I wasn’t a student at the time, so I wasn’t privy do the discussions and rumors around this decision, maybe they thought they were opening up some opportunities for African-American students. They may have engaged in some outreach to encourage them to audition. But if they did, it didn’t work. So they ended up performing this show with an all white cast. I believe they darkened the skin of the actresses and cornrowed their hair.
I really don’t know what the fuck they were thinking. That work is more than a play with black actresses, it’s an exploration of African-American experience. It was a disturbing decision.

Oh , the red-brown body paint. When I was in college most of us theatre students got jobs at one of the historical outdoor dramas performed throughout the South. Most of those plays had a plot line featuring European settlers and Indians. The actors portraying the Indians were required to wear a red-brown body makeup called, IIRC, Texas dirt. This caused a lot of backstage drama because

  1. Everyone hated to wear it.

  2. Although the actors were all Caucasian, some of them had a darker natural skin tone than others, especially once the summer suntans appeared.

So some actors felt strongly that they didn’t need to wear the body make-up. Other actors felt strongly that if they had to wear it, everyone had to wear it. Conflicts ensued.

So provided I whiten up to become Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust I’m golden to darken up to cosplay Hendrix. :wink:

As to OP, no never blackface… covered in mud once for a performance of an excerpt of Monty Python’s Holy Grail. :cool:

What if I printed up a picture of Tina Turner for a play and wore that with fishnet and a sequin dress and sang “private dancer”?

ok…what if people thought it was funny?

I may need to change my poll answer.

There’s a CNN poll showing a third of people think blackface is okay if it’s a Halloween costume. That seems to be the sole exception. Can’t find the link to it now, but it was a week or two ago.

EDIT: Found it.

For Halloween in grade school one year, I was a hobo. My blackened face was just to appear dirty from traveling with the trains. :slight_smile: