Blackface - The Third Rail

Blackface is a touchy subject because white performers painted their face black and acted like stupid but happy go-lucky black people who were just glad to even be slaves. It was comedy - white people came to laugh at at all the stupid "negroes" and it served to propagate the stereotype of black people of the time. If you ever read this board you will see many white people still see blacks as being inferior.

Why was Beyonce in blackface? I have no idea. Did she just make her skin darker or was she in "vaudevillian blackface"? I don't see how that would translate into her being racist towards Africans, just African-Americans. Maybe she was doing this as some sort of protest i.e. she feels people only see her as a black performer, so she'll give them what they want?

Anyone using blackface as comedy is in very poor taste considering the history behind it.

Here is the article so you can read for yourself:

http://jezebel.com/#

!5766257/beyonces-face-voluntarily-darkened-for-fashion-shoot

If you really want to know, I recommend reading Eric Lott's Love and Theft, Robert Toll's Blacking Up, and William Mahar's Behind the Burnt Cork Mask. If you don't like reading, I highly recommend Spike Lee's Bamboozled, a terrific contemporary re-imagining of a minstrel show. Spike Lee does a phenomenal job of giving a flavor of what I expect were the appeals and the devastating consequences of blackface and minstrelsy, and the ending sequence draws on many historical images of blackface in a montages (which you can find on YouTube).

Honest Asker wrote:

Why is it the third rail of racism?

"third rail of racism"?! You make it sound like all racism is fine and good except for this nasty little angle! Isn't racism as a whole a "third rail"?

The what now wrote:

"third rail of racism"?! You make it sound like all racism is fine and good except for this nasty little angle! Isn't racism as a whole a "third rail"?

Personally I agree, but I think you are wrong when figuring in the entire population.

Lets say you are at a party. A few racist jokes might get a laugh, but if you were to parade out in blackface, I bet you'd be shunned and ridiculed.

I guess I feel like there are many things going on in our society - against African-Americans and other cultures, too - that seem par for the course, but blackface seems to get a pretty strong reaction.

Maybe I am wrong. I just think that when someone dons the blackface, the media goes crazy.

Well said.

The what now wrote:

Honest Asker wrote:

Why is it the third rail of racism?

"third rail of racism"?! You make it sound like all racism is fine and good except for this nasty little angle! Isn't racism as a whole a "third rail"?

It's not black and white, but shades of gray.