WEBVTT - Bona Fide Blackface 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:15.520 On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.239 If you've listened to some of our previous episodes, like 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.439 the other other Magical Negro or we might regret this 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.040 episode later, then you know a little something something about 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.279 menstrual shows and Vatteville. And if you haven't, well, then 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.120 go back and listen to those episodes. But anyway, menstrual 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.680 shows were theatrical performances where actors got up on stage 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.360 and literally fixed their faces to become gross caricatures of 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.800 black people. One of the key visual components of the 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.760 menstrual show blackface. Actually, let me just read this description 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:54.600 from this eighteen ninety three compilation called the Menstrual Show 0:00:54.920 --> 0:01:00.440 or Burnt Quirk Comicalities. In the matter of making up 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:04.160 the face, use only the best prepared burnt cork, which 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.679 can be obtained from any dealer in theatrical face preparations. 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.160 Moisten the hands with water and take a small quantity 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:13.360 of the quirk, rubbing it in the palm of your 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.560 hand until it becomes a thin paste. Then apply to 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:20.200 the skin. When it dries, brush the surface gently with 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.559 some soft substance, and removing the cork. Use only cold water, 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.600 a large sponge, and a soap that gives a generous lather. 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.560 Thanks to the enduring presence of white folks doing blackface 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.080 in the twenty first century, many folks who never got 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.959 a black face minstrel c one oh one in school 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.640 are well aware of the history and problems with blackface. 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.080 A viral video showing teens in a Cedar City Walmart 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.840 dressed in costumes and in blackface. 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.600 On blackface is back on the job after a first 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:59.000 grade teacher was photographed in blackface at a Halloween party. Flatful, Katie, 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.120 I was so sick of these news stories, not because 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.840 I was shocked, but because it was exhausting seeing all 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.880 the hoops folks were jumping through to calculate the value 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:10.919 of being well intentioned and white. 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.840 I think blackface is like a ray of passage for 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.640 white people actually, so we should give them. 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:21.639 Some grace hot take. But all these examples we have 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:25.280 of blackface today show just how deeply entrenched the practice 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:29.320 is in US culture. It didn't come from nowhere, even 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.280 though some folks would have us believe the blackface offenses 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:34.840 are innocent gaps, divorced from any context. 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.560 Right, And let's not pretend that we're that far removed 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:40.839 from a time of blackface performances. 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.320 Were hard for the course only a century ago. Really, 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:45.919 and as much as some people want to say that 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.639 it's an obsolete practice from a bygone era, we are 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.000 very much not over. It ain't nothing changed, but the 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.679 day and the technology and black stories are very much 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.480 a part of the history of blackface. I'm Katie and 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:06.560 I'm Eves. Today's episode bona fide blackface. So let's back 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:12.040 up a little, yes, and talk about the birth of blackface, 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:18.600 a curse creation. Honestly, Yes, in Shakespeare's plays. In medieval Europe, 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:23.560 blackness was associated with evil devil characters were blackface. But 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.639 the exact origins of blackface as a whole are debated, 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.080 but it definitely has roots in anti black acts that 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:34.359 were pervasive before the eighteen hundreds. Blackface minstreul sy, though, 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.400 is a distinctly American tradition that caught on in the 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.600 early nineteenth century. Thomas Dartmouth Rice is considered the father 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:42.440 of menstrul sy. 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:45.760 I feel like father is a little too pleasant of 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:46.559 a term. 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.800 Let's call him the problematic patriarch. Then, sure, that's better. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.320 He did a one man show where he blacked up, 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.400 dressed in shabby clothes, wore a wig, and danced and 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.840 sung in a deceitfully clownish caricature of a black person. 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.000 He called his character Jim Crow, and it became an 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.320 archetypal character in menstrual shows in the US and written 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.320 jump Jump, Jump, Jim Crow. 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:14.200 Take a little twirl and around you go wide and 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.480 white your talk as a camomen you jump. 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.560 Tim Rice wasn't the first person to dawn blackface and 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.440 do a little demeaning song and dance, but he did 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.800 popularize the act shows where white audiences watched white men 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.120 with their faces painted black with burnt cork caught on 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.400 like wildfire. The performers got up on stage literally acted 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.440 a full pretended to be cowardly and cow towing, and 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:45.840 put on an exaggerated dialect. White audiences laughed, rinse, repeat all. 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.440 This was happening in the South and Northeast United States 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.839 by the early eighteen thirties, while black people were still 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.799 enslaved and the Civil War wasn't yet on the horizon. 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.280 These shows were part of the entertainment industry. Sure, but 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.240 I don't want to make it seem like it was 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:05.640 just for funzies. Performers like Rice were not sweet summer children. 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.480 They knew that they were inflating the value of the 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:12.040 currency of white supremacy and at the same time making 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.720 actual money. Think of seeing the sheet music, the prints, 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:20.000 the shows over and over and over, the mere exposure 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:24.279 effect that allowed white folks to sell the racial inferiority 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:30.400 of black folks in the neat little package of entertainment. Katie, 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:32.120 what do you think the average person in the US, 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.760 who pays attention to current events and has a standard 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.520 interest in American history knows about blackface. 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.359 I think they know that black people get mad whenever 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:46.920 they see a white person doing it. I think they 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:52.240 know that, like, if you get caught doing it, you 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:53.360 could get in trouble. 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:56.320 Which keeps a lot of people from doing a lot 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.680 of things solely the fear of repercussion. Yeah, without any 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:07.680 integrity behind it me. But yeah, several years ago, the 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:12.200 media was ablaze with regular folks and celebrities getting outed, fired, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.240 and defended for wearing black face. You know that reckoning 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:18.760 that came along with the Black Lives Matter wave. 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:20.440 Oh, I know, true, I know. 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.080 But now that blackface has kind of had its time 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.320 to shine in the news cycle. Conversation about it really 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.840 mostly rears its ugly head around Halloween, when the blackface 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.680 brigade is itching to break out the oily face paint. 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:34.880 Folks have learned to keep their misdeeds on the low 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:36.279 a little better now. 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.640 Mm hmm. Blackface was born of white folks, racism, and 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:43.240 tired imaginations. True, it was about how white people co 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.000 opted black stories and impersonated black folks, but it was 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.200 also about how black people subverted those narratives and constructed 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.280 their own. I've been thinking about blackface in the black 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.160 imagination because back in the mid to late eighteen hundreds 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.480 black performers performed in blackface. Some of those performers had 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.080 even been enslaved in the past and began making the 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:08.680 rounds on stage, compelled to entertain again in a different setting. 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.840 And black performers work in the early days of minstrelsy 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.640 gave them experience in theater that cleared a pathway for 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:19.520 many performers to come According to author Henry T. Sampson 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:23.040 in his book Blacks and Blackface, most of the leading 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.560 black comedians from the mid nineteenth century to the early 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:30.320 twentieth worked in blackface. Sampson says this about those early 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:34.920 black performers who wore blackface. These black singers, composers, and 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.920 dancers brought an original vitality never before seen on the 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.200 American stage. They brought a great deal that was new 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.720 in dancing, including the buck and wing, the stop time, 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.960 and the Virginia essence, which constituted many of the fundamental 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:51.880 steps in American jazz dancing. 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:54.400 Let me find out what the bucket wing is. So 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:55.520 I feel like I'd be good at day. 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:56.840 You probably would. 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.240 So what you're saying is they were our who innovated 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.680 and who were worthy of acclaim that they only really 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.320 got from white audience based on the performer's ability to 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:07.960 make them laugh. 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.720 Yeah, they were busting their chops working to gain skills 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.880 in the craft. But to white audiences there were still 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.800 like specimens in a menagerie, or maybe like seeing white 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.160 folks performing black face was like seeing lions in a 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.880 zoo in the city, and then seeing black folks performing 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:26.400 black face was like seeing lions with their pride in 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.720 the savannahs. White performers were making more money than the 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.520 black ones, and there were still way more white folks 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.640 and black face than there were black folks. But black 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.720 folks were limited in the jobs they could get that 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.560 would make them decent money, and this was one option. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.400 So in this history, black people weren't just this like 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.240 invisible force, providing fodder for a white ridicule propelling white 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.520 folks to new theatrical heights. They weren't these powerless, silent 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.160 entities relegated to tucking their tail between their legs as 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.880 they took a psychological beating. The history of blackface is 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.760 not just about the unrestrained power of white people to 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:08.440 tell stories, i e. Lies about black people's lives. As 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.240 we set back with our arms folded. Black folks were 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:15.080 the storytellers too. Watch this pawn shot foot and nothing 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.280 in there with some guitars and banjos and saxophone and 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.400 guitars and van Jules and saxophones, stealable. 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:22.199 What are you talking about? 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.000 The warning then started to watch them on tell you 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:39.080 more after the break. Billy Carsands, Dewey Pig, Meat, Markham, 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:44.680 John Mason, flornoy E Miller, Bert Williams. There were a 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.959 bunch of black performers who did blackface. Some of them 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.880 figured they might as well get a book, some experience 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.000 and some recognition by blacking up and capitalizing on the 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:58.360 spectacle that white folks had created. Actor and composer Eddie 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.240 Green worked in film and on radio shows like Amos 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.199 and Andy and Duffy's Tavern. He sometimes were a blackface 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.800 and a black post. He wrote. His daughter, Elva Diane Green, 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.240 said this, the book I have written about my father 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.319 has been a hard seale to some blacks today because 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.280 of the era in which my father lived. Some people 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.440 do not see and do not want to see the 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.120 relevance of yesterday's all black cast movies or old time 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.559 radio or vaudeville as it applies to progress. As for myself, 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.360 I understand seeing my father and blackface has taken some 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.640 getting used to. It's still kind of embarrassing to admit 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:39.240 my father was a blackface comedian. And if I am embarrassed, 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:40.920 what do I expect from others? 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.400 So everyone wasn't really writing for it at the time either. 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:45.840 I'm guessing you. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.480 Would guess correct, because some artists talked about how they 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:51.720 would take no part in it, how it was low 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:55.000 tier performance, and some critics said that black folks doing 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.560 blackface was an affront to the race working backward. But 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.440 take Bert Williams and George Walker. 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:06.040 Good Morning, Going hung by Williams Walker. 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.839 They were a comedy team that did really well for themselves. 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:14.080 They performed in blackface and called their duo the two real. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.000 Coons Gangay, that's me and you girl. 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:24.240 Walker said this about their act. We thought that as 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.640 there seemed to be a great demand for black faces 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.160 on the stage, we would do all we could to 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.400 get what we felt belonged to us by the law 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:35.240 of nature, and they profess to be pro black child. 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.920 Walker also said this, over and behind all the money 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.240 and prestige which move Williams and Walker is a love 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:45.240 for the race, because we feel that, in a degree 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.560 we represent the race in every hair's breadth of achievement. 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.480 We make it's to its credit. For first, last and 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.480 all the time, we are Negroes. And Bert Williams was 0:11:56.520 --> 0:12:00.880 a pioneering entertainer and super successful comedian. The Silent Lost 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.040 film Dark Town Jubilee Darren Williams marked one of the 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.720 earliest appearances of a black comedian in cinema. His work 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.760 poked fun at white caricatures of black people. He was 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:15.520 not simply an agent of white supremacy. So I think 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:20.880 the element of black performers doing blackface, it wasn't even 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.880 just about them wearing blackface too, Like they did blackface 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.400 through audio work as well, in terms of the types 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.600 of dialect that they would put on. They did blackface 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:31.640 on the stage, and once the screen came around, they 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:35.680 would do it on the screen as well. But performing 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:40.199 a blackface the interesting thing about it is that they 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.760 were still performers who were working on their craft, who 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.800 were interested in getting better at acting, and they chose 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.040 blackface as the avenue for them to do so it 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.560 was a more accessible avenue for them to be able 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:54.679 to get work. So they were like, Okay, this is 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.960 my lane. This is a kind of entertainment that's popular 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.840 right now, and it's something that I can use to 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.760 get my skills up. And at the end of the day, 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.640 their work was foundational in terms of early black theater 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:13.160 instead of foundation for future actors and for future entertainers 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:15.319 to be able to get their feet in the door 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:15.720 as well. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.840 Yeah, I wonder like if they felt like typecasted ever, 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.520 Like you start doing black face hoping that you can 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:24.400 not do that anymore, and you can just be an 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:26.480 actor on your own merits. It kind of reminds me 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.800 of how this conversation about black men in Hollywood having 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:31.520 to wear a dress. 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:34.400 It's like, oh, they make you wear a dress. 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.440 And they won't let you move on if you don't 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.800 like wear a dress first, or you get typecasted, you're 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:42.000 like always in a dress. People who refuse to address 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.760 all the conversations that go on with that emasculation of 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.440 black men and the masculinization of black women. And it 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.440 does seem like it is more accessible route for people, 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.200 like you see people doing sketch comedies for free on 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:57.880 YouTube and TikTok. There's just like so many like media 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.360 Big Woman's House where the joke is a, oh, there's 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.400 a man in address here. So I wonder if was 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:04.760 it a similar industry that was set up. I'm gonna 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.560 just do this for a minute and then I'm gonna 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:09.600 get out and put it on his black face, and 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:11.480 then I'm gonna be a real actor. I'm gonna be 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.160 really on the stage perfecting my craft. Or did they 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.600 get stuck in that or did they prefer that and 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:18.280 not want to leave. 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.360 I think that a lot of them would have said 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:23.360 they wouldn't have preferred it, but that it was an 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:25.760 avenue for them. But there were people, and I think 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.440 it was Bert Williams. Please correct me if I'm wrong 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:31.720 anybody who knows, but Bert Williams who said something about 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:35.400 I kind of would rather do blackface or do this 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:40.400 kind of performance in front of why audiences because the 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:45.280 opportunities that were available to him within black performance weren't 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.320 as like lucrative, or there weren't as many of them. 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.040 But I think a lot of people ended up doing 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.520 it throughout the entire course of their career. And then 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.120 there were some entertainers who didn't do it for the 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.600 entire course of their career, Like there were some entertainers 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.520 who moved on to doing radio work after they did 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:06.960 scream work, like Eddie Green I think was one of 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.320 those entertainers. I think it was kind of hard to 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:12.400 make that decision, like we would think about it today, 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:14.720 like how long am I going to be doing this 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.080 thing until I move on to something else. I do 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:18.840 think in a way, for people who work in the 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.000 arts and entertainment, it's kind of a privilege that we 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.240 have in contemporary times to be able to think how 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.400 we're going to move on when for them it was like, 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:29.600 this is what I can see for now, and this 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:33.520 is what I know is working for me, and this 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.240 is how I'm choosing to move in the industry that 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:40.880 I'm in. And the question was more of how am 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.280 I going to have integrity about the work that I 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.560 do and continue to gain skills and then hopefully maybe 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:48.680 one day in the future, even if I'm not creating 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.440 a path for myself to move differently, then I'm creating 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.240 a path for someone else to move differently. 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.760 So when a black person is doing black face, where 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:00.480 they like still doing like the exaggerated caricature of what 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:05.880 like a black person is, was it like similar themes 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:07.520 as when a white person did it. 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.440 Yes. Yeah, they were still hamming it up. They were 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:15.360 still blacking it up. They were still using that exaggerated dialect. 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:20.240 They were still enacting the character of that foolish, naive, 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.240 bumbling black person. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.920 It's interesting you said that the guy Bert said he 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:37.680 likes doing it in front of white audiences because it 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.720 gets he gets paid more. I do think we see 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:44.440 that not like literal black face, but like the exaggerated 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:48.920 caricature of black people and black people participating that for 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:52.160 white audiences because it is like good money at the 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:52.760 end of the day. 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.440 Yeah, And I think the other interesting thing to think 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:59.280 about in this conversation is how, yes, the black people 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:02.160 who were doing black face were still entertainers, There were 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:04.600 still gathering their skills, and they still set a foundation 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:07.639 for people who were to come. There's also an argument 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.480 that in doing that, they were creating more lanes for 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.760 black culture to make its way into mainstream popular culture 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:21.439 because menstreal shows were a popular form of entertainment. It 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:23.720 was a way that black music was able to be 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:26.639 put on a stage, and black entertainment was able to 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.600 be put on a stage before a lot of different 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.520 kinds of audiences because it wasn't just white audiences who 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.880 were watching black face performances either, it was also black audiences. 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.680 And there's also much ado that scholars have made over 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.480 what that actually meant for black people to enjoy and 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:50.280 laugh at and see white and black performers. What is 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.760 some of that I do some of that ADU is like, okay, 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.119 a kind of like psychoanalyzing of why a black person 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:01.600 would laugh at their own image being demean So, like, 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.639 what does it mean for black people to sit in 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.040 front of an audience and see this portrayal of them 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:10.280 that they know isn't true, but they're enjoying it. 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:12.920 Wow, this is literally nothing new in the sun. Because 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.000 I feel like people say that now, like how could 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.800 you laugh at all the share we laugh at? Yeah, 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:19.760 how can you laugh at media? How could you laugh 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.840 at insert whatever, like foolish character you see that's black? 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.240 Like this is a bad representation for the race, right, 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.119 but like people like it, And it wasn't even like 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.440 that back then too, Like people like Williams M. Walker 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.520 were like, I'm doing a good job for my race. 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.960 And there's a comment that I don't know the origin 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:43.600 of the comment, but it said that Booker T. Washington 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.840 said that he was a fine man of the race 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:50.439 is basically what his comment was. Er Williams was, yeah, 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:52.000 which was funny to me, Like he was one of 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.320 the best representatives of the race. He did a really 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.320 good job at ving ane grow. Yeah. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.280 I feel like the representation of it all, like that's 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:00.960 kind of like the peak that people say. 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:02.919 It's like, well, you're. 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.240 Getting representation, Like black people are on screen, black people 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:06.840 are on stage, black people are on the radio. This 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.480 is representation, like you should be happy. It's kind of 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.159 like a cyclical thing that we see, like kind of 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.520 no matter what iteration or whatever timeline we're in, or 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:20.200 whatever medium or whatever genre is popular that we're debating, 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:21.400 it's like, it's representation. 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:23.600 The end of the day, it's representation. Yeah, And the 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.080 comment held a little bit more weight back then in 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.879 the early nineteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds, because it was 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:33.080 less representation exactly. There weren't that many people there so 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.479 to say, like, you represented us. Fine. It's kind of 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:37.560 like it's kind of one of those things we had 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:39.280 to get through to get to where we are today, 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:43.840 to where we can't complain about it, I suppose. But yeah, 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.200 I was thinking about the idea of the commercial viability 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:50.560 and success of the work that black people in blackface 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.720 were doing, and how it made it so that black 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.440 people were able to enter the mainstream. And I think 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.040 that's kind of a complicated conversation because what is the 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.800 value of black culture being in the mainstream and other 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.840 people being able to co opt it, to be able 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:07.480 to use it as they please, to be able to 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.399 make their own determinations over it. I don't think that 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:15.040 has a very straightforward answer, like, I definitely definitely acknowledge 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:20.440 the value of how black people did whatever was available 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.320 to them back then to be able to work on 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.200 their own art and then share and spread that art 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.639 and their love for it and create those foundations and 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.680 open those doors for future people. But I don't think 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.480 it's a wholly positive thing, like, not one hundred percent 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:42.040 to say that this made black people's culture be able 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:46.960 to be mainstreamed commercial viability basically is not the end all, 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.800 be all great thing. I think. Yeah, I agree, Yeah, 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:52.560 we got to go to a break, but we'll see 0:20:52.560 --> 0:21:04.600 you again soon. In the conversations that we have about 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.199 the history of black face today, we're really trying to 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.280 get people who aren't black to just realize how bad 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.040 it is, and then we tell them to just not 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.919 do it or reprimand them for doing it. In the 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.000 flattening of history that we have to do to course correct, 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.400 I can't shake the feeling that we end up erasing 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:26.160 black folk's presence in that narrative. Black folks stories, black 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.760 folks control of their own narratives. I don't want us 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.840 to forget about their achievements, their art, and the foundation 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:35.680 that they laid. So I think in all of these 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.080 conversations that we have when these instances of black face 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.800 pop up in the media, kind of like you said earlier, 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:47.320 white people don't do it again. And it's a lot 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:52.119 of black people and quote unquote allies who are the 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:58.600 ones who are saying this about these instances. And I 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:02.480 do think that that flatten the history of blackface, like 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.680 there's a big batty in this situation, and it just 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:12.320 condenses the nuance of the conversations around blackface, because the 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:16.680 history of black people doing blackface is a long one, 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:20.840 and it's very evident that the impact that blackface had 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.160 on the entertainment industry in the United States is one 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:28.960 that is huge and it's long lasting. So I just 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:31.800 think we need to talk more about the complexity of 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.880 blackface and about the roles that black people had as 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:40.639 storytellers and as artists within that realm, and that they 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:45.760 weren't just these invisible, silent characters who are to the 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:50.119 side that white people were enacting their violence upon. That 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.960 there was agency that some of these artists had, that 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:57.520