Hey America, Why the Blackface? It’s History Repeating Itself.

By Ron Manns

It often times appears that we only acknowledge history when it is convenient for us otherwise we pay no attention to it even when it is happening directly in front of us.  With the recent revelations of top tier politicians being captured in blackface, America’s protectors of the innocent are all up in arms claiming to care, if it wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable.  I say this because there is a history and while it was occurring in prime time very few if any complained as loud as they protest now.  Lest we forget.

There was something called minstrel shows which has its roots in guess where, you got it Virginia.  These shows were a popular form of entertainment beginning in the early 19th century and featured comic skits, variety acts, and music performances, among other things, that depicted white people wearing blackface showcasing blacks often as uneducated, lazy, superstitious, someone to laugh at and not ever to be taken seriously.  America enjoyed these shows up until people began to finally take the Civil Rights Movement seriously which cover the dates of 1919 til the 1960s but by then the damage had already been done.

I truly believe that the “real” damage was not brought about by white people in blackface; however, I think it truly began to take root when there were African-American performers and all-black minstrel groups that formed and toured, making it seem acceptable.  Of course those African-American performers and all black shows were under the direction of white people which may have made it even more acceptable and may have led to Columbia psychology graduate, Frank Brunner’s surmising that the Negro mental capacity is lacking in honor, integrity, is lazy, untidy and incapable of working long term on details back in 1912 or an English psychologist, Raymond Cattrell speculating that of all the races the Nordic race was more evolved in intelligence and stable in temperament.  He also said that the lesser races should be controlled by birth, sterilization or placed on reservations or in asylums and that after they have had their turns, should be euthanized. He wrote and spoke on this approximately twenty-one (21) years after Brunner. 

It is believed that one or both of these, Frank Brunner’s or Raymond Cattrell’s idea, were sanctioned by the United States Congress, cooped by the Klu Klux Clan, and adopted by the Nazis to justify their extermination of the Jews during the Holocaust.    We will never truly know for sure because those still surviving will never openly admit it nor will our history ever be corrected to reflect it but what we do know is as long as those of us who have the power to prevent the repeating of history refuse or fail in showing just how important all cultures and races were to the building of this nation, history will keep reminding us that we are truly who we choose to be and never who we really are or could be.

In my possible meaningless opinion, Dr. Martin Luther King, the recognition of the Civil Rights Movement, and Brown versus the Board of Education made America stand up to history and realize change that dispelled the Brunner and Cattrell ideas.  Sidney Poitier, in successful films like: To Sir, with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner made Hollywood take notice of the talent and intelligence of Black America.  After these events there were becoming a growing population who finally understood the value of people who do not look like them and even though there are those who still exist that just can’t bring themselves to believe that Brunner and Cattrell was wrong, the many far outweighs the few. 

We all bear some blame for the now re-occurrence of the blackface and until we all take ownership of the portion for which we are responsible for, things will never change or get better.  We are so quick to blame others as long as we can do so to keep the focus off ourselves but this serves little purpose because history doesn’t play that way.  The part that African-Americans should be playing is doing all that they can as individuals to show the world that we are not lazy, untidy, uneducated or lesser than any other race and the same must be said for all other races as well.  The best way to do this is stay true to you, whatever dream you dream, whatever hope you hold, follow those dreams and hold on to that hope that you can indeed be who you wish to be.  Our only true limitations are those we place upon ourselves and no one excluding God Almighty can stop us from achieving any goal we set for ourselves. 

If you choose to wear a blackface when you are with friends and family don’t cry foul when it comes to light and I disagree with that choice, man up, woman up and take full responsibility for the choice that you made because no matter what, the final choice to that decision was never society or peer pressure, it was you and you alone.