Talk about making a big fuss out of nothing. What I would be concerned about is that extremely Smart and capable black people are push to athletics and not given opportunities In areas where they could excel in
7
I'm a New Yorker for 18 years now , coming here from an European country. I'm a liberal, I cheer for Occasio Cortez, I voted for Obama, I hate this president's politics and still...I swear to God!! I don't understand all the apologies everywhere of individuals dressing up with all the way with a matching make up as a black person at some point in their lives. I don't get it.
I don't know where to start explaining myself.
Most of us, as children, as teenagers, dressed up as someone else. We wanted to look exotic, or to look like our heroes. I had dreamt of dressing up as a native Indian girl, my male friends probably wanted to impersonate a cowboy, or a Russian tank driver.. Should we be publicly apologizing for it now? Should we kneel and 'admit our mistakes'? That is so overboard for different groups fo feel offended that someone not from their race attempted to look like them during a masquerade. Next thing I'll see is Nathan's sueing dachsunds for their hot dog costumes on Halloween.
And for all individuals contempting other people's pics from the past; be sure that your albums are cleared from cigarettes, beer bottles,any ethnic elements that don't belong to your ethnicity, half naked children, inappropriate book titles.. And you don't even know which they they would be. Figure it out now.
25
I think we may have turned the corner on this kind of rant. Maybe the crazy abuse of the Covington boys did it. Better to find something better to rant about.
White people in general don't need and are not thinking of blackface, they get up and think about their money, jobs, family, etc.
When I was a kid hurling obscene abuse at the passing public was against the law. That's okay now apparently.
11
Colonial missionaries debated the percentage of salvation the African was equipped to attain, i.e. they argued how much human soul an African could have. Those percentages were grounds for pre-Civil War religious arguments for the Confederacy as protection of the weak "negro" soul from the godless North. They framed the settlement that gives us Congressional apportionment today, originally counting black citizenship for census but not permitting black voting. We white people have a history of torturing logic to mask the ethical horror we have long known colonialism, forced immigration, slavery, Jim Crow and mass incarceration to be.
11
> "Blackface is... an act of epistemological and ontological terror. In other words, blackface is a form of “white knowing” (in reality, of white unknowing)"
This reads more like something from a undergrad thesis than a well written piece in the NY Times. Maybe think it through a bit more and see if you can rephrase without the jargon? Just sayin'...
38
How can we discuss blackface for this long without anyone mentioning Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled”?
9
Any dummy who parades around in ANY face is just that,a dummy.
And people can be dummies without any hatred,bias,etc cannot they?
Remember the film "White chicks"?
Two Black guys who don white face and are at university,I dont recall anyone being upset by this or any editorials so lets all be adults and some person wearing a hood,whatever kind of face just laugh at them and dont give them the publicity they seek if theyre serious.
Imagine the firestorm if the movie "White men cant jump" was renamed "Black-Brown,Asian,Jewish,Muslim,etc,etc cannot read,write,jump,anything....."
There does exist a double standard at times in every country for everyone,so lets deal with it and move along.
9
Please don't lump all white people together. I'm white, and I can't even begin to wrap my head around the notion that an adult in this country doesn't understand - now or in 1984 - that dressing up in a Klan outfit is offensive. Clearly Mr. Northam knew this was offensive, but the culture he was in, and the culture in which he grew up - namely the redneck south - didn't care.
So please no more "white people" pieces. Unless you find it okay for people to write opinion pieces about "the blacks".
26
It seems impossible to contribute to this article with any perspective that exposes any weakness in the line of argument.
Anything along those lines gets censored, so why even bother?
If an echo chamber is what you want, that's what you get.
10
i get it, that i dont get it
8
This whole huge thing is ridiculous. Someone dressed in blackface 35 years ago as a student. The only reason this mob cares is because he is in the public eye and they can try to get him fired. This is not a teaching moment. No one is wearing blackface today. This was so very obvious that its just the mob trying to search and destroy. Burn this man down for a 35 year old mistake. He said the pics are not him, but he dressed like Michael Jackson. For get the lifetime of public service since then. Its mob rules from the safety of home. Disgusting.
26
Written in an out of touch, dense academic style. Why? Unreadable
18
And despite living in a totally racist country, the author is nevertheless a professor of philosophy at Emory University. It's impossible to prove a negative, but what might Professor Yancy's life have been had he been born in sub-Saharan Africa instead of the United States? If you had dark skin pigmentation and a little talent and drive, this country has bent over backward to give you an initial hand-up and a solid tailwind for the past fifty years. It's time to grandfather affirmative action and let people compete on the basis of their qualifications alone.
18
I come from a country with basically no black population. We do have our racism but it's nowhere close to anything the US has even now.
So all this noise around blackface seems kinda stupid to me. Sure, it can be used to denigrate black people and historically had been used for this.
However, wearing a blackface to impersonate Michael Jackson at a party? I just fail to see any racism at that.
14
For those who insist that the authors writing is to intellectual or academic to be clearly understand let me break the article down for you in as few words as I can. Blackface and other racist constructs (crack babies, welfare mama, thug, lazy, etc. etc.) say something about the white people who do and say these things not about black people themselves. Whiteness has to justify and make excuses for itself because when you look at the various cataclysms visited upon non-European cultures you are horrified. So to justify why it wasn’t “that bad” you have to distort that oppressed group (using Blackface) making them so horrible, ugly, grotesque that the actions and attitudes of white people, past and present, are mitigated and even justified. White people see themselves as inherently good and will go to great lengths to keep that narrative alive despite historical facts that contradict this self assessment. So blackface has everything to do with the psyche of white people and their difficulty with seeing themselves warts and all and owning the horrors as well as the good. White people authored the Declaration of Independence AND committed genocide, enslaved millions of Africans, as well as committed various other atrocities. Until white people can reconcile all the parts of themselves and their history by doing the difficult internal work necessary for true change, Blackface and other racist activities will continue to come up as a way to justify the past and present.
13
According to this professor, being born black in "white" America is a terrible thing. In fact, the only thing that could possibly be worse is to be born in a place like the Congo, where life without the stain of white people tends to be short, brutal and unrelentingly violent. Think about that for a minute, professor, before you try to shame white America.
25
I’m sorry for being white, I’ll convince my dead ancestors to fess up aldo and say they are sorry too. Now will you stop telling me how bad I am.
While you are at it tell me what is black face? It was never a topic of conversation or practice in my experience.
23
Racism against black people isn't the only form of racism in the world. Beyond the racism of Nazi ideology against Jews first, then Gypsies, then Slavs, and onward, there is racism within the same color, even religion, as exists today in the Middle East, of which ISIS and al Qaeda are the worst, but hardly only, examples.
I agree that black face is wholly offensive, but how far back are we going to look to condemn people who, in their youthful ignorance, wore it? How long ago, on TV, was blackface present? Should anyone who ever watched such a program in the 50s, and I'm not sure when it stopped, be guilty?
Apologies are necessary, and what has been learned since. But, at the same time, this country will never move forward if all whites are tarred and feathered for what is often called institutional racism, or inbred racism. This will only make things worse. Just as it's unfair to assume that most non-Jews are anti-Semitic, or many African Americans as well.
Just as the Me Too movement is catching many in its net, condemning racism should include all forms, not just white on black.
15
I'm white, and I don't need black face.
Now please explain why you can tell me what I need because I'm white, but if I tell you what you need because you are black...outrage!
Thanks very much.
18
Looks like Northam and the AG in Virginia got away scot-free from their little experience with blackface.
I have to admit, I did learn how to do the Michael Jackson moonwalk back in the 1980's and never objected to Michael's transition to a white guy.
But what happened in Virginia is amazing. Democrats have simply washed their hands of the black face and moved on...
5
Welcome to the New New York Times -- all culture-war, all the time.
25
Ok, folks let's get down to basics.
This column is either a hoaxer's triumph, or a not-very-subtle parody. Right? If I'm wrong, I'm going to throw up.
22
What year is it?
When was blackface last considered acceptable?
Why was this essay written?
Will we ever be able to say we've come a long way on race?
9
Not buying it. Just more white shaming. Neither whites, nor any other race of people are parasitic by nature and the author is not saying anything of any substance with this piece, other than revealing his own racial bias. Quite honestly, I am surprised it was published.
22
Black and white are the poles of “Planet Racism” and polarization is a leading social trend in our desparete new world.
2
What on Earth are you talking about?
11
Our American whiteness, via
Our blackface
Our shame
My responsibility.
1
I'm Whitish and I've never worn blackface but I just don't get the outrage over people wearing blackface. If I went dressed as Spike Lee, would that be so terrible? Why? If I dressed like a woman and wore a padded bra, would that be terrible. People may reply, you just don't get it. I think I do get it. Some people just want to be outraged and offended. Blacks are somehow being victimized by non Black people darkening their faces to wear costumes for Halloween. I guess the Wickens must really be offended by children dressed as witches with black pointy hats and brooms. The disabled and people with life changing injuries must be offended by people dressed as Frankenstein's monster. I'm offended by everything, so what ever you are doing stop it and apologize. Everybody, stop whatever you are doing and apologize.
14
Stereotypes are racism. Judging persons based on their skin color is racist. How hard is that?
2
I don't think that I need blackface.
2
Consider the inverse of Blackface (which is not Whiteface). Because of slavery and its Jim Crow aftermath, both essences rooted in segregation, blacks were not allowed to speak for themselves. On stage that meant white Othellos and minstrels in blackface, and hyperbolic dramatic or comedic corruptions of being black. But in real life it meant that whites spoke for blacks. From the Massa' to the slave broker to the preacher to the lawyer, it was not people explaining themselves and their lives. Whiteface is when the dominant race 'Whitesplained' blacks to other whites and to those same blacks who, it was Whitesplained, were incapable of speaking, acting, or thinking for themselves. This concept was reinforced by the cultural impact of Blackface. Dred Scott's case was argued by a white lawyer on each side before white justices. That is Whiteface.
It is still pervasive in our society today, though less universal. Today many blacks can and do speak for themselves. But most institutions are still white dominated, and we all to often see white faces Whitesplaining what 'the blacks' are thinking, feeling, going through. Such whites suggest they are the experts ("Whitesperts"?), so that is why they know best. You do not have to be black to get it, but you need to know what you don't know and let others speak for themselves.
5
How insightful; really enjoyed this article, in spite of the ugly topic.
4
Everywhere I turn I see a story about the problem of ‘whiteness”. As if all whites are in on a grand conspiracy against blacks, all whites are evil racist, soon etc.. If articles where to blanket any other race with the a similar indictment all would call foul. Obviously many have made bad decisions in their past, black face being one, somehow in this current climate there seems little room for forgiveness. One thing that needs to be remembered is that slavery has been abolished, leaps and bounds have been made in civil rights. Much of this progress was made possible because many whites knew it was the right thing to do. There still are many genuinely good white people working side by side with people of color.
12
OK, but a bit too much academic jargon for a Times piece. Not saying dumb it down, but use everyday language of the non-academic world. I can read academic jargon, and find it irritating. It's the main reason I didn't go into academia (it was particularly dreadful in the late 1980s). Now, as to the thesis. Yes, all valid points, and the folks objecting here don't understand, don't care, or are not thinking quite deeply enough about the core issue to grasp what the writer is saying. But isn't white exploitation of non-white peoples, which is admittedly the most prevalent case in the western world, over the longest time horizon and the greatest number of people, of man's inhumanity to man....isn't it just the way humans have always treated each other, and always will treat each other? Yes, it is. Is blackface the worst crime white people have ever perpetrated against black people? No. Is it the worst crime white people are currently perpetrating against black people? No. Is it stupid and offensive and cruel and mean-spirited and, even when thoughtless, wrong? Of course. Of course it is.
3
If the United States is such a repressive country, full of such vile white people, so uniquely full of hate, why is so much of the world, including people of color, trying to come here? If non-white people are more humane, why wouldn't any sane person of color, looking for a new home for whatever reason, choose to come here? And yet they do. It's because, although deeply flawed, America and Europe base their societies on Enlightenment ideals that work and are good for everyone. We sure do mess it up a lot. People can be jerks. But America is trying (well, there's no accounting for Trump, but maybe some people stay home because they're tired of being called parasites for what other people did who happen to share their skin color). I think we should stop this. I think identity politics are tearing this country apart. I'm a liberal. I've voted a democratic straight ticket every election of my life. I've never felt as much disgust for a human being as I feel for our current president. Just the same, this sort of thing is driving people like me away in droves. I campaigned for Obama. I campaigned for Clinton. I fear I may sit home and cry through 2020. The insane right has indeed "owned" the libs by watching us eat our own through this extremism.
17
Blackface humor, including minstrel shows, were built on humor and jokes. But while the jokes were largely seen as amusing exaggerations, they were built on ugly racist assumptions. The jokes were understood as exaggerations of traits and behaviors the audience really did believe in. And those traits and behavior patterns were seen as profoundly different from those of the white people in the audience.
Blackface entertainment was mockery and disrespect. It was all about the assumed distastefulness, weakness, and stupidity of the Other.
All of this is sometimes but is not always true of more recent examples of blackface. There is plenty of racist thinking today, especially but far from exclusively in the south. But I don't think we can assume that all of the more recent examples of blackface were built on a foundation as ugly as in the more distant past. In many cases, I think the young people in blackface were rebelliously expressing their stunning lack of empathy and self awareness.
Many white people still can't understand or relate to how black people feel about blackface. And many, especially those who are young, don't grasp the historic depth of revulsion against black people in this country. The sting of racism is felt far more deeply and it is forgotten far more slowly by its victims and their descendants.
4
Philosophers need to stop trying to angrily define culture and leave that up to the moms and dads sitting around watching our kids play together.
Heck, leave it up to the kids. They seem to have no problem whatsoever.
If only it were that easy...
3
This article is Exhibit A on why the left has alienated many white voters who might otherwise support a social justice agenda. In the most annoyingly (and condescendingly) academic language possible, Prof. Yancy makes the unremarkable and common-sense argument that, historically, white people have used blackface to mock and belittle black people in order to establish that white people are superior. Yes, I get it, and I don’t even have a Ph.D.
So does Prof. Yancy really need to devote a whole column to discussing blackface as a white “consumption ritual”? What does that even mean? Does Prof. Yancy realize how stupid stuff like that sounds to folks outside the Academy? If the left just talked about things in plain English, without resorting to ridiculous academic language and metaphors, their ideas would be both better received and better understood.
28
"On this score, American whiteness embodied and embodies an epistemological and ontological divide that it takes as “normative,” as “common sense.”
Huh? Are we supposed to take this stuff seriously?
11
Blackface is a product of a long history of whiteness and its attempt to make sense of itself through both the consumption and the negation of black humanity. It speaks to the parasitic nature of whiteness and its need to “feed.”
Seriously? The parasitic nature of whiteness...
11
There is a set of Australian programs, in part commissioned by HBO in the US, that incorporate blackface.
'Summer Heights High"
"Jonah from Tonga"
"Angry Boys"
All centring around a comedian impersonating different characters. Most characters are white, some Asian and some black. It has a MASSIVE following all over the world. Wikipedia them and you will see how widely they are distributed. Many major celebrities has expressed fandom of the shows. Many American comedians as well.
But here's the thing: these are done by an Australian comedian. There was never outright mass slavery in Australia and while there is a black indigenous population, we accept that there are very different cultures at play. There is respect around that now.
But in America, there is a history of blackface being used to denigrate and demean. And therein lies the rub. White people could wear blackface and have no ill will at all. In fact, in Australian there has been a problem of random people using blackface to idolise their favourite black sports people to the chagrin of the international social media crowd. But in America, I do accept that many African Americans lived through incredible civil rights injustices, their families are only a few generations removed from slavery - it makes sense that it is too soon.
4
I'm reminded of the way the Spartans (reportedly) would get their Helot slaves drunk and then exhibit them to their children. The existence of the Helots made Sparta, including its militarism, possible. But that was too terrifying to admit. Instead, Spartan children were taught to loathe and mock the people on whom their privileged lives depended.
3
Or maybe white people used blackface to make fun of black people because it made them feel less guilty about the way they treated black people.
7
Wow, that's deep. Or maybe it's just a bunch of psychobabble. Either way, I have no idea what he's talking about.
22
Black people pass for white all the time, even today.
Blah blah blah. The author wants to make a few incidents of blackface decades ago into a common practice today that all white people are just itchin' to do when the mood suits them. I've got a can of blackface makeup in my bathroom closet right now. I can't wait. I'll wear it for Mardi Gras!
16
A blackface is the ultimate racist joke.
1
Why Black People Need Racism
Without racism, black people would have nothing and no one to blame for their marginalization in life.
Why is the second sentence any more offensive or racist than the first sentence? Both are written in the safe space of the NYT opinion pages.
What are the NYT rules for discussing race? If a white author were to describe black people in the manner presented herein by Mr Yancy, would the editors publish the piece as written? I hope not. Our country doesn't need such bilge from either black or white contributors.
The issue is not blackface.
The issue is not that white racism doesn't exist.
The issue is not that black racism doesn't exist.
The issue is not that blacksplaining is not offensive.
The issue is not that whitesplaining is not offensive.
The issue is sweeping denigration of all people of a particular race, religion, gender or whatever.
When whites indulge in such bilge, they are properly castigated and banned from the NYT opinion pages.
When blacks indulge in such bilge, they are given front page space by the NYT editors.
What's next?
34
@TDurk I appreciate your common sense, it makes me feel relief. I hope that The New York Times takes your words seriously. Thank you.
9
I flat out cut off a member of my immediate family for referring to immigrants as "vermin." Now, I read an esteemed professor referring, in the esteemed NYT, to an entire race of people as "parasites." I think it's time for me to cut off the NYT.
21
Next up, a nice opinion from a Muslim, about what Christians really think. Or from a white person telling black people who they really are. Or from a homosexual telling heterosexuals about what their sexuality is like.
These types of articles are silly.
25
Why is it so hard to understand the concept of denigrating a culture or race ? It was acceptable and perpetuated by America in its time 0because it WAS acceptable therefore perpetuated. (Hitler did the same thing to Jews and had he won WW2 , it would be world standard). A lot of unlearning needs to happen and new learning with it.
3
Is it possible for a sensible black person to not write about blackface and racism? Rise above your limitations, black intellectuals. You tell us that you are not bound by your color, but your minds are shackled by racial stereotypes of your own making.
18
Earth to NYT (and the author of this ridiculous piece): 99.999999999% [add more zeroes] of modern "white" Americans have absolutely NO experience of blackface whatsoever. How this author and NYT conclude that we "need" it is beyond comprehension.
26
George Yancy is just as racist as David Duke. Ooh baby I can taste those low expectations.
16
people need to get a life. I was raised in the south when all were Democrats and i remember when blacks could not eat in a restaurant, they had to go to the back door and order, could not stay in a hotel, could not use gas station restrooms, had to drive through black neighborhoods and someone that would rent them a room when traveling.
I don't know any white people that are racist. the country has better race relations that portrayed by the Media, the victim parasites and the fake hate crimes.
Funny now that the South is the land of opportunity for Blacks.
3
As James Baldwin so aptly put it the documentary, "I am not your Negro", If you feel that you must call me 'Nigger' then you must ask yourself why. What it says about whiteness as Professor Yancey points out speaks volumes about the need to convince themselves that their sense of class and ethnic superiority is based on merit or on some other innate quality that only they possess.
6
There are a lot of African Americans who are die hard, unrepentant Redskins fans. For the record, Red face is just as ugly and demeaning to American Indians as Black face is to the African American community.
Therefore, until our society rejects all racial masking we’re not going to get anywhere.
10
Professor Yancy is obviously very accomplished, even a virtuoso, in academic jargon, However, this whole topic was handled more simply, clearly, succinctly, and with unsurpassable moral force a generation ago by James Baldwin when he straight-forwardly asked white America "Why do you need a N-----?"
His question still stands.
4
I am appalled by Yancy's demonization of a group of people based on their skin color. How is "whiteness" essentially connected with some "colonial expression"? Not every white person is a colonizer or descendant of some colonizer; and even a descendant is not morally responsible for their ancestor's actions. Maybe there is something with a structure that Yancy wants to refer to, but, if he calls it "whiteness," then he ascribes it to all white people (an "arrogant white race").
There was an article a few days ago about how Pam Northam was criticized for asking visitors to the governor's mansion to imagine what it must have been like to be a slave, and for handing out samples of the sort of cotton they picked. This is, to my mind, an illustration of the absurdity of current discussions of race. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/pam-northam-cotton.html Ms. Northam is criticized for encouraging people to consider how others might feel, and Yancy is given a forum to make these attacks.
This is a reprehensible piece.
24
Undoubtedly all or nearly all blackfacing degrades Black people and is intended to do so. There may be exceptions or not. But there is something wrong with the pomposity, vicious language, and false profundity of Yancy's piece. Eliminating white people-- most of whom have less 'privilege' than would fit into Yancy's shirt pocket and are not well-stocked with champagne corks-- would seem to be the only conclusion Yancy's prose allows. It's bad philosophy as well as bad politics.
19
One thing is for sure, white people are sick and tired of having to deal with racism. Their own racism.
I can tell by the numerous comments here making light of the practice and telling others how they should feel about it, that we will be reading articles about this well into the next decade.
This is why we can't have nice things: we as white people can't absorb, unpack, analyze and be affected by an analysis of racism by our fellow citizens of African descent without trying to center ourselves in the story.
That's the problem.
Take people at their word when they tell you they don't like how they are being treated and adjust your behavior. Or don't get angry and defensive when someone calls your behavior racist. But white people don't get to decide how their actions make someone else feel.
137
Well said! Thank you.
12
Except I’ve never done blackface. Why is this my problem? Because I’m white? Are all people who share a skin color collectively responsible for the actions of individuals who have the same skin color? Do you really want to go down that road? Hint: it doesn’t lead to racial harmony.
24
@JLC: Calling somebody a racist is not a feeling. It's a judgment.
9
When a philosopher poses something as an epistemological barrier we need to listen carefully. And I do. But I fear I have not broken through to the real point Prof. Yancy is making, which incidentally seem very close to James Baldwins similar appeal to ontological attentiveness. There are two reasons the necessary insight eludes us: 1) Yancy and Co. are really talking about the awful feeling when someone who thinks they know you disparages the false image they have created of you. 2) Some deep epistemological category is absent from the the aperceptive framework; whites never will understand. In the first instance comprehension can be gained either by analogy or even empathetic identification. In the second, Yancy doesn't even want us to understand, rather his main point is that we never will and can't. If it's the latter, but he's unwilling to fully say it, then he needs to recognize that this racism is a shared barrier. I think a third thing going on here is emotional resentment that's being presented as an intellectual conundrum. I'm a white who really admires black entertainment. Sometimes I make gestures with my fingers as if it were me playing Bird's saxophone. I know it's not the same thing, but I believe Jolson was doing that too. So I have to wonder whether Yancy's just insisting that we throw out the baby with the bathwater. In this case the baby is the immense creative power of the American black/white synthesis.
3
Alot of people commenting here seem to be having some serious problems adressing Mr. Yancy's main point - that black personhood, and the black body, have been so denigrated and violated in our cultural experience that most "whites" have internalized the idea of black as inferior.
The denial of most of the white populace to this reality only proves his point. We whites have created, over the past, a seperate degraded identity for blacks (and the identification of white as superior).
I understand all the protests that we've come a long way in accepting new identities for black people, but the underlying fear and confusion of the black body persists. This subtext has been the American experience of race from our beginnings as a country, and it can't be negated due to our wishes for a new reality. We need to learn to adjust our assumptions of black identity and examine our (barely) subconscious fears.
9
A lot of commenters here seem quite upset by this article and are taking the professor's words very personally. Why do we white Americans feel such fear and resistance to owning the legacy that was created by racist acts such as those described here? Maybe my ancestors or your ancestors didn't put on blackface. Maybe they weren't even in the country yet. But as white Americans in 2019 we still benefit from the social infrastructure that arose from those oppressive practices, whether we like it or not. That doesn't mean we personally created the problem, but it does make it our responsibility to right the ship.
Of course blackface is a white problem. We can't erase its negative impact on American culture until we reckon with the damage that came from those awful stereotypes and uncover the remnants of them that still persist today. We can only do that by examining ourselves, identifying our own biases (very difficult) and acting to remove cultural and institutional biases from our society.
16
Blackface is a form of appropriation - a way of saying visually and viscerally - I am showing the world that your history, the wealth and humanity our country stole from your ancestors, and the very people you are today - are all a joke. Watch us laugh. We could care less.
It's the same fulsome revival, during these Trump times, of the right wing determined to show they are so against political correctness that they joke, publicly, about lynchings and slavery.
What it comes down to - for the jokers and the people who laugh at their sick jokes - you're slumming in the depths of racism, and decency demands that you stop.
10
Any time we see any group of people vilified, scapegoated, and referred to with dehumanizing terms such as parasitic, we need to remember the holocaust and we need to remember the broken families at our own border. This is no way to speak and no way to think. It is unAmerican, uncivil, indecent, and dangerous. I wish I could be surprised to see it printed here.
3
"the parasitic nature of whiteness" - this is great! This should be the headline.
7
That America has yet to go through a truth-and-reconciliation period on genocide of Native Americans, slavery and the subsequent persecution of Blacks under Jim Crow, and now forcible separation, imprisonment and sexual molestation of brown kids, is a continuation of her original sin.
6
What planet are liberals living on, all we do is interrogate white racism. This paper can't shut up about it, nor can any other liberal. If we didn't interrogate white racism all the time, I don't think a 30-year-old picture in a yearbook would create much of a stir. It is utter nonsense to attribute racism to whiteness and to talk about a history of whiteness, the idea itself is a form of racism. Racism is about power, who has it an who doesn't
Much of what African Americans attribute to racism, police violence and persistent inner-city poverty aren't about racism at all, they are about a class war that the 1% have been winning for the last 40 years in part because of our racial divisions.
Reconciliation works both ways. Most Whites have admitted to American racism of the past and in the present and want to help make things better in the future. Few Blacks, in the media at least, are ready to forgive. Instead they insist on using every racial incident no matter how trivial to rehash and relive the past. This is the second time in 6 months that we have had to talk about blackface. The first was when someone on TV said it was alright to where blackface for Halloween. These aren’t teachable moments they are trivialities!
Why don't we interrogate African-Americans complete inability to get over the past, and build a better world, one where no one considers anyone's skin color. Until nonsense like this article stops, I don't think we will ever be able to move forward.
81
Fully agree with these points. I am 70 years old. We were taught in school (elementary, high school, and college) regarding the historical issues of slavery and reconstruction. I lived through the modern civil rights era in the 50s and 60s. Those in my generation knew of the wrongs. Many of us tried our best to support those that worked to find legislative solutions and did our best to be advocates in our professions. Yet today some people, younger, act as if this never occurred. It did. Maybe the more modern generation has had less of an education? Not sure. I do know some stories must always be retold for newer generations. But please do not act as if prior people of good will did not understand all of the issues faced by blacks as a result of racism. To do and act otherwise is simply ignorant.
Reconciliation? Great, but as pointed out it takes both parties to honestly take part....and both parties to honestly try to move forward constructively.
25
@Benjamin Greco
Well Ben, you don't get to be the sole determinant of what is trivial. I find America's willingness to elect a self-admitted sexual assaulter a clear indication that a clear minority of voters (3 million short of half) don't value my humanity.
People who use blackface as humor clearly don't value the humanity of those who have survived hundreds of years of enslavement, murder, rape, assault, threats and intimidation and denial of civil rights and humanity.
If you don't get it, no one will make it possible for you to see it. That doesn't mean the rest of us don't get it.
This isn't trivial to people who believe what Christ said. This isn't trivial to most people who believe denigrating others for our own petty needs is destroying our own humanity.
36
@Benjamin Greco
African American elites, regardless of their status, will never give up the cudgel of "Racism, white priveledge...etc"
Why would they? It will never be to their advantage. Permanent victimhood has great value, always will. I can't blame them, they should wring out every drop of benefit they can, until they can't. For blacks to construct an identity outside the historical racism that permeated and persists in this society would require them to be far stronger and tougher than they are.
15
The problem is, somewhere, we stopped being funny. Now, I don't wear Black face. I don't know why I would. But, if somebody else does, especially if it is without malice, so what?
I do, however do Black speak. I'm not that good at it, so I won't do stand up. There are times when it is funny, in a safe venue. I will spare you my routine.
There is a guy, Craig Shoemaker, that does it very well. You can find him on YouTube. It might not be appropriate for the family at Thanksgiving, but, at the privacy of your computer, I would be surprised if you didn't hurt yourself laughing. 1626.
3
In my opinion this whole issue is overblown. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill! The idea that all white people should bear the burden of racism is as illogical as catholicism's concept of original sin.
I am a 63 year old caucasian American. I have never owned a slave. I have never advocated for white supremacy. I am not a racist. I do not feel any need to apologize or atone for the transgressions of others, particularly those who are long dead.
As for reparations? Never.
19
A lot of people are being misled by, and hating on, the phrase "the emptiness of whiteness, the hollowness of its being as an identity marker".
He's not saying the cultures (ethnic identities) of "white" people are empty; he's saying that whiteness is not really a thing: it doesn't have real conceptual content; it's just an ideological placeholder.
This is not a new idea. See, e.g., The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter, which came out almost a decade ago.
4
White culture and identity IS a thing, however, and it’s not for him to say.
OK, Enough! We do not need Blackface. As a white person, I never have.
We should be discussing the demeaning portrayals of women by people in the gay community who wear women's clothes and use women's make up but this is considered acceptable because gays are a politically protected group that no one dare criticize for fear of being called homophobic.
They perpetuate the stereotype that all women are interested in is hair, make up, and clothes. This is at least as demeaning as blackface but is never discussed.
8
@Alan Snipes Thank you for this, Alan Snipes! You are spot on.
The first time I saw blackface was an Al Jolsen movie when I was about 5 years old. I had no idea it was racist, or degrading or anything at all. At the tender age of 5 what I recall is someone trying to sing while in makeup that looked ugly. It made no sense to me. It still doesn't. I never really gave it any thought until many years later as an adult when blacks determined that it was racially motivated and was an entertainment practice that needed to be abandoned and those who did it use should be roundly denounced for their racist behavior.
George Yancy now tries to explain "Why White People Need Blackface." He views it as a "monstrous creation" that demonstrates white supremacy. Huh? I don't know what he's talking about. On the other hand though, I understand his outrage but not his explanation of the motives of whites.
I've never seen anyone outside of Hollywood ever use blackface. I have no use for it. I don't want to be black, or pretend that I'm being black and I certainly don't want to make fun of or denigrate blacks. The only history of blackface that I was ever aware of was limited to Hollywood.
So, George, take your outrage to Hollywood. Frankly I'm insulted that you attribute the use of blackface to all whites and blame so many of us. I'm not part of collective guilt of other people's racism.
This is not a national crisis. It is limited to a few clods, not the great majority of whites. Whiteness does not drive blackface. Leave me off your hate list.
7
It's interesting and important to hear about the history and racist legacy behind blackface. That said, the amount of gross generalizations and broad stereotypes applied to the entire white race is in itself a broad and oversimplified form of bias. All white people are no more responsible for the actions of some racists than all black people are responsible for the actions of a few black gang members or all Muslims are responsible for the actions of a few Islamic terrorists.
Furthermore while there are toxic constructions of whiteness, the presence of "white" skin color is not a marker that a given individual subscribes to or supports that type of exclusionary identity. Attributing wrongdoing to racial markers and then further ascribing that behavior everyone displaying that racial marker is in and of itself racism and is often the first step to justifying more overt forms of bias, discrimination, and even violence. For example in the 19th century, the practice of cannibalism by African tribes was used to justify slavery by pointing to these outliers as proof of savagery that rendered African Americans incapable of participating as equals in a civilized.
I'd also add that the only contemporary example of blackface I've personally seen was the rapper Drake...
3
@JP Well stated.
Last week I was waiting on a line in astore to pay for my purchase --
As many stores do - they had music playing through a sound system - mostly familiar "easy listening" content --
At one point - i found myself tapping my foot and moving to the beat of a tune which was very popular back in the seventies -
The name of the song is - "Pick Up The Pieces" --
And then - I remembered the name of the group performing the tune --
"The Average White Band" --
You all know the song -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnH_zwVmiuE
And - I thought to myself - what would happen if a band - or any other performance group - were to call themselves by that name today --
Imagine the ensuing "controversy" and social media firestorm it would create --
And - while we're at it --
While you're over on YouTube listening to The Average White Band -- run a search for Judy Garland and Fred Astaire performing in Blackface --
They almost make it seem classy and acceptable...
4
Wasting time, effort, and editorial space on a practice that it literally unknown now and hasn't been popular since before World War 2, and was never, ever, widespread, is just laughable.
Racial issues worthy of public discourse fall into one category: Unconstitutional racial discrimination.
Everything else falls into the category of personal opinion and people have the right to express their opinions regardless of how distasteful some may find them.
Blackface has died, quite a while ago.
Dredging up old examples is just childish.
9
I was going to simply write the word: "Huh?" So as not to dignify this column, bit of course that's disengagement and this isn't the time to turn away from the objectionable. In 2016, the Times published a piece by Michael Eric Dyson entitled "What White America Fails to See," (July 8, 2016). I was stunned by its main argument that said whites are born, and live, with a distorted perspective when it comes to the harm they have done (and continue to do, said Dyson) blacks. Therefore, they cannot be of any help in the amelioration of, or healing from, these wrongs.
George Yancy seems to have a similarly pessimistic view of whites and their chances for redemption. According to Yancy, 60% of Americans (that's about 192 million people) must "own" blackface, not to learn its history, but to learn the implications of their own "white face." Really? I don't know what the professor means other than the old saw of evil that The Nation of Islam chattered about in the 1960's. What else ya' got?
10
"Black people are not the horrible and derogatory racist myths that so many white people have depicted, whether through blackface or other white American pastimes."
Nor are all white people "monstrous" creators. And yet, Mr. Yancy, you seem to find it so easy to categorize and demonize an entire race, the very thing you seem to imply all white people have done to blacks.
The burden is every person's. The burden is to step away from their categories, to recognize their individuality and the individuality of each other. The burden is for each individual to recognize there is one color and it is blood red.
7
Does this mean we won't be seeing "The Jolson Story" anymore on TV?
1
@JW
Just remember. Al Jolson was a Jew born in Lithuania who came to this country and made his fortune by performing in Blackface.
Facts matter. Now you have them.
2
Blackface is odious, period. Who has the ability to see this and reject it? Only the individual, legislation won't help. I'm white, but I am not clear on what this "whiteness" is that you speak of because 1. It is not clearly defined and 2. I can't do anything about it. Just as there is no homogenous single "black" culture, even within the US, there is certainly none which is "white". I am responsible for my own actions, every day and every moment. Don't tell me who I am, I do not tell you who you are. "Race" is a fuzzy thinking misapprehension of genetics; genetic differences exist (and they are awesome), but by far the real gulf is due to CULTURE, and the self imposed isolation of groups. I grew up in Manhattan, a minority among all my peers, never identifying with any "whiteness", nor am I Jewish, or Catholic, or any religion. Nope. Just me, the undiggable digger. I date beautiful dark skinned black women and they enjoy me very much. Can't be defined. But apparently I am in the extreme minority on this one. I guess everyone else is behaving as a half asleep herd animal.
3
Nonsense: long before the controversy about Blackface vaudeville or pranks by white people, the “Zulu Indians” of New Orleans proudly blackened their black faces during this Mardi Gras. They do so this week. The tradition is to memorialize the solidarity that the state’s Native Tribes showed in support of black runaway and rebellious slaves. George Yancey ought to have a conversation with the Times executive editor Dean Baquet, a Creole black from New Orleans about the tradition of the “Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club,” a Carnival Krewe for the past century and a half, celebrating and throwing beads from floats down Canal and St. Charles Streets.
When one views a scene in the motion picture “The Last Emperor” one cannot help but be moved by the symbolism of the Chinese Emperor evoking the tragedy of racism when he performs a jazz song to foreign visitors— in blackface. It foretells the end of his magnificent history. His blackface is a mirror of people he never will know but whom he channels as sings the blues.
Not all blackface by nonblacks is racist. Sometimes it is ennobling.
38
@Bayou Houma
But of course the Mardi Gras tradition you reference is not blackface minstrelsy. Why rope in this very different practice?
4
@Bayou Houma
Are you black?
If so, your point is worth considering.
If not, I'd like to hear from black Americans how they feel about blackface.
5
@Bayou Houma Yep. That's exactly why white people have historically and will continue to wear blackface... to honor black people. Gimme a break.
9
Thank you. This is so distressing and more so because there are still people who don’t get it. As for those who continue to have such hatred and cruelty as to continue their “white nationalism” I cannot possibly understand that. I read Richard Wright’s book about 20 years ago. It still feels like a fresh wound. I was so depressed and horrified that so many people have been treated with such contempt and cruelty. I could never understand it. What is even worse, I felt deeply saddened in wondering how many people were never given the chance to share the gifts inside them - and how much worse we are as a society for that terrible, unredeemable loss.
7
This article can be used as Exhibit A for why Trump got elected. People like this author are professors at elite universities that are supposed to educate our next generation of leaders. It's blatantly obvious to anyone who has ever observed human behavior that the author bears an animus toward white people. (While people like the author may claim to want equality, when people view another group of people as "the enemy," equality and justice isn't what follows.)
12
I agree wholeheartedly with Professor Yancy's historical characterization of blackface and its insideous, dehumanizing and racist effects. But blackface, fortunately, is a relic of the past, from a different era in the evolution of our race relations. The recent incidents of blackface support this point; they have generated so much publicity simply because they are so rare, indeed virtually non-existent.
If Professor Yancy had confined his argument to our past wrongs, I would have no quarrel. Unfortunately, at the end of his piece, he strays into the present with a rhetorical flourish that seems to condenm the entire white race. He suggests that blackface is "clear evidence of the emptiness of whiteness" and the hollowness of its being as an identity marker."
Professor, with all due respect, you have degraded yourself and your argument by hurling your own racist epithets.
13
This article fails from the basic premise of trying to establish American "whiteness" as a monolithic sociological order. My family came from Eastern Europe to escape slavery and genocide on a scale that is difficult to fathom, and that many Americans of all colors are still quite unaware of. I have some fatigue listening to debates over the cultural stupidity of earlier waves of immigrants, or those descended from early colonists. In fact, I have to endure my culture being glibly vilified and stereotyped in the mainstream news AND entertainment media on a daily basis.
Perhaps a more intelligent and thoughtful essay on why seemingly intelligent people continually mistreat "others," the psychological underpinnings of tribalism, would have been better. Or has Mr. Yancy not taken that class yet at school.
8
I’m not sure that that the sentiment behind the statement “the emptiness of whiteness, the hollowness of its being” is that which will lead us to peace and harmony, but I confess there were a lot of big words herein about which I’m not at all sure. I’ll go with blackface=bad idea.
7
What about Laurence Olivier playing Othello in blackface in a famous movie performance in the 1960s. Is that offensive?
2
Yes.
1
Blackface in and of itself is a construct, which in the American experience, has been used negatively. But that is a construct.
1
@EC
But that IS a construct.
AND that is evidenced by recent articles I have seen in this newspaper in articles about Africa, where whiteface is used and photographed.
This article pretty well describes how I, as a woman, feel about female impersonators. A costume does not a woman make. And incidentally, as a white person and immigrant into American culture, am I automatically implicated in the repugnant history and recurrence of blackface? Just asking.
4
@simona carduner,
Are you just trying to spare yourself of reparations? Not so fast.
1
I can have empathy, sympathy, disgust at what slavery wrought, but what I cannot do is apologize for my "White Privilege."
I am tired of people who do not know me making assumptions about me because I am White. So what? I am also Jewish and a woman so I already have 2 strikes against me. I am discriminated against because of those 2 traits but somehow have "privilege" because I am white?
Now the Democrats in Congress (and, in particular, some who are running for President) want to have "reparations." What does this mean exactly? How have current citizens of the United States suffered personally due to Slavery? How would we determine a "just" amount? Who would get it? Who would pay for it? I suppose it is just more pandering to a certain group of individuals who are looking to eternally punish for the disgusting history of slavery.
There will be no end to this
14
You know I understood part of the racism after the civil war was egged on by the carpetbaggers and the Southern men who tried to keep the races separate after the war. And the reason was economic. Yes, the owners of businesses deliberately stirred up racism to keep the black workers and white workers from joining together for higher wages and better working conditions. They encouraged the working class whites to attack black people as much as they could and would make sure none of them was ever convicted for it.
It was the wives of the rich white men who joined together and pulled in the church and demanded that the hanging of black men stop, that they did not need to be protected from black men. And because they were rich they were able to stop some of the violence. So what if racism has been economic all the time? Fostered by the wealthy.
And I do agree with one comment here about the whites who are racists getting really scared at their coming minority in this country. They are afraid of getting what they dished out.
I am glad to have something I can do about racism as a white person. I thought it was terribly insulting to try to imagine what it is like to be black. That I could never understand and it was demeaning the black experience. I just hope I am not being offensive in some way. I will do my best to own blackface being my problem as a white person.
3
I would like to see this article rewritten so that it is easier for the average person to understand. After being required to read Noam Chomsky while obtaining my teaching licensure, this is not too difficult for me, but why did the writer choose to leave a portion of his audience behind? As for the article itself, I don't ponder much about blackface. I don't wear blackface, I don't laugh at blackface, I don't look at people who are wearing blackface, and I do not see blackface as a problem that I need or want to solve. It is mostly a problem for those it offends.
4
I thought it was a terrific article, but I think maybe if the author wouldn’t mind, having someone put it in simpler terms might be helpful. I’m a professor, but I’m not good at theory. It’s a little bit like reading a language you studied in high school but haven’t looked at since. For what it’s worth, though, I don’t think the article is “mean about white people.” It’s explaining what blackface *does*.
3
I don't need Black Face. I don't need to live the sins of the past. I don't need to apologize for other white people's ancestors (mine are not guilty of much other than working themselves to death at hard jobs quite similar to picking cotton). This is not "white fragility." I have done nothing to "harm" any person of color ever, in my entire existence on this planet. I go about my business trying to be fair to everyone (although I cannot say that the black I have encountered have treated me the same way, sorry to say). I don't need this chronic inability for persons of a certain persuasion to continue to beat this boring old drum. Honestly, what's a white person to do? So I read this, get extremely irritated with it, do my job, cook my dinner, pay my rent, live my life...how is reading this -- or even writing it -- helping anyone? How does it change the past? We don't need this!
9
Recent blackface, like those coming to us from the 1980s, seem to be more a reflection of cluelessness and lack of empathy more than the intentional degradation of previous decades. These schoolboy incidents were probably just thoughtless dress-up to these guys, and a reminder to us that things like racism don't just start and stop. They ebb and flow. Outright degradation slips into thoughtless pranks and then, if we're not careful, back again. Many if not most whites are clueless that white privilege even exists (though it's clear to anyone who looks that whites were born on third base and blacks have barely made it to the on-deck circle) and so don't see these pranks for what non-whites see them as - the powerful race continuing to put the less powerful race in their place. It's all a reminder that the work toward human decency is never finished and we must work harder to see things through the eyes of others.
3
Some of the commenters to this point think Professor Yancy is 'exaggerating' the depth of the problem of racism in America. That's a comforting thought, but it's wrong. Some 40 percent of respondents in polls over the last two years feel fine with the current president - a politician who plays his voters' racist instincts like a violin virutoso.
Those roars of 'Lock her up' at his pep rallies could just as easily be 'Hunt them down', referring to the bad people of other races that are polluting Trumpmerica.
Ask yourself a simple question... Have you ever seen a black person wearing 'white face' and performing, as a joke? No? Of course not, it would be meaningless. That's Professor Yancy's point. It's a white person problem.
7
Two white chicks, the movie
4
Professor Yancy, clearly presents a point of view, that unfortunately simplifies a complex phenomenon
Wikipedia, is dedicated to conveying differing perspectives, and in their article on the subject looks at this complex phenomenon. In the early part of the last century, those who used this makeup included: Eddie Cantor, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Buster Keaton, Joan Crawford, Irene Dunne, Doris Day, Milton Berle, William Holden, Marion Davies, Myrna Loy, Betty Grable, Dennis Morgan, Laurel and Hardy, Betty Hutton, Mickey Rooney, Shirley Temple, Judy Garland and Donald O'Connor.
This newspaper printed an article shortly after the Gov. Northam story broke featuring a picture of Al Jolson doing his blackface performance of the song "mammy" from "The Jazz Singer" Far from ridicule or contempt, it was an emotionally powerful rendition of a person, a human being, who is longing for the comfort that had been lost. The "Amsterdam News," Harlem's oldest newspaper lauded it, recommending "every reader see it."
Jolson, while the most famous entertainer of his era, suffered from chronic depression, and this song, as reflected by the film audience, was a genuine expression of human compassion.
Of course, there was some truth in this columnist description; but to define this as universal, or even the norm of intent of performer and audience only fuels the fire of escalating hatred that is consuming us.
3
I'm honestly puzzled over the outrage expressed for appearing in blackface. Surely the criteria for damnation is intent. Lawrence Olivier - Robert Downey - Ted Danson - Lucille Ball would be run out of town in today's intolerant atmosphere. And how about the reverse - Eddie Murphy in whiteface? (Coming to America) Utterly brilliant comedic performance...worth the price of admission alone.
Sorry folks - can't get on board this anti-blackface train when the desired outcome is anything but derogatory. What's next - no gender switching characters (Tootsie) - Tr - straight actors can't play LGBTQ roles (Transamerica Felicity Huffman) and vice versa? Well you can take Rock Hudson right out of that 'leading man' role thank you very much. The craft is called acting - pretending to be somebody else - it's an art form and color should have nothing to do with it.
70
@Tom Gimme a break. I found this article almost unreadable but I did manage to figure out that Lawrence Olivier's Othello was not what the prof was getting at.
12
@Tom Perhaps you should dive into American history. Perhaps you might want to take a trip down South and go to the Lynching Museum. You should not be proud of your puzzlement - you should be ashamed.
13
@Bloke
No, he's calling all examples of a white person wearing black makeup as 'blackface' - rather than the more traditional definition of wearing black makeup in the caricatured exaggerated forms of a minstrel show.
3
Wow, there is no better evidence of Yancy's argument than the dogged resistance about so many commenters to simply hearing his core idea.
There are countless ways black people have been denigrated in American history. But blackface stands out because it so clearly and obviously displays the stark need of one group––white people––to insist on the innate inferiority of another group––black people. Blackface breaks this down to its most obvious and generalized essence.
That is the "burden" Yancy refers to: white people as a group have either believed in that inferiority or have benefitted from it (relative to black people). So addressing it means addressing that still ingrained desire for superiority––not just making sure no one performs blackface at Halloween or frat parties.
89
@Nancy B
Disagreement with an argument is neither evidence in support of it, nor is it refusal to "hear" it.
9
@Nancy B: Could the resistance that you see as confirmation of Yancy's view stem rather from a belief that his analysis is as grossly simplistic and overgeneralizing as the supposed insistence on the innate inferiority of another group?
5
Bingo!
2
Blink, and wake up, folks! Take any one of the sentences penned here, and walk down any street and look into the face of any hue-less person who looks like yourself and ponder deeply... reminisce a bit. Problem is that most folks won't understand the article, as a bit of schooling would assist, and the nation has decided to go the 'unschooled' route. Also, the NYTimes is not read around the country by the people who need to hear/see this. Imagine Trump, or anyone in the White House trying to read, and understand it -- close - minded folks; their base brand of language cuts only one way, and is not meant to widen the mind.
Bravo, and well said, Mr. Yancy.
9
I personally stopped reading as soon as I got to "the parasitic nature of whiteness.". I find that phrase much more offensive than blackface, and I cringe when I see blackface.
7
To be fair, most of the “white” people aren’t hue-less. We’re sort of a pinky-beige-tan-or rosacea red. It’s also a social category, as bizarre questions about whether Jewish people are really “white” suggest. Really hue-less—the whiteface clown—has its own weird history. That said, the article is beautifully theorized and right on the money, a classic example of “othering.”
2
I think I agree with this op-ed, but I can't be sure because the language is so opaque.
Academia needs to learn to speak in plain language, so that it can communicate with all of the other humans on the planet.
Instead of using technical terms that only experts in your field know the definition of, use the definitions.
No-one knows what it means to "feed" on blackface except you, for one example.
The problem with academia is that it has a centuries old habit of setting itself apart by using dense language. That must have been useful at some point, but now it keeps those that agree with you from understanding what you are talking about, and it helps those that don't agree with you attack you as out of touch and elitist.
Elite is supposed to be a good thing. Even Republicans respect elite military units. However, if you can't communicate your ideas to a wide audience, even when writing an op-ed, then it makes elite look arrogant.
Speak in plain language.
11
I was really interested in this article but I struggled with it. I would like another article that was more down to earth in its language. He is describing something important but it is so elevated and intellectual that I’m not sure I get it.
2
@Katie I think that's the point. My brother used to have a poster on his wall that said, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them bullpucks." We have been treated here to the latter.
2
It is interesting to me how do much commentary on contemporary racism, seems to fall into the racism trap, of defining a group based on the behavior of some, or even many, members of that group.
We are first and foremost people, with all the good and bad traits inherent in that definition.
As our society has matured (slowly to be sure) we have moved away from widespread use of racial, an ethnic caricature, and we need to continue to move on.
Let's all get to end the group condemnations, that do nothing but make things harder.
2
Wow. Did you way over think this issue. In some cases (like Northam) I think going that going to a dance contest dressed as Michael Jackson in the 1980s at the height of Thiller was meant as a complement not a slam on blackness. I’m no fan of Northam, but I grew up in the 80s listening to Thiller. It was iconic at the time and people of all races enjoyed the music and musician. I can understand he didn’t mean any harm and none should be taken.
11
You present a fascinating set of testable hypotheses regarding the defensive function that blackface serves for white folks (creative social psychologists often put such hypotheses to surprisingly rigorous test). Collectively, they are certainly food for thought and they have caused me to think about the phenomenon in a different light.
However, speaking social scientist to philosopher, Dr. Yancy: A little bit of manifest humility - i.e., presenting these hypotheses in a manner that provides some hint that they were formulated by a human being (rather than a god on high), and therefore might be wrong - would go a long way toward getting other readers to seriously consider them.
14
This is an article without any sense of nuance, deploying the jargon of post-modern theory to terrorize readers--as opposed, I suspect such theorists and philosophers would say, to terroirize them. It's a good example of why philosophy and English departments are losing majors.
17
Variation in skin pigmentation is nature's way of protecting us from an excess of ultraviolet radiation in the lower latitudes, and promoting the synthesis of vitamin D in the upper latitudes. That we react to it in such a visceral way is the result of another of nature's protective mechanisms - the tribal instinct. The latter is as outdated to modern life as our legacy of the fight-or-flight instinct that produces an epidemic of hypertension in response to our modern stressful lives. Having said that, I am glad that we are undergoing a long-overdue national catharsis in response to the Trump presidency, discussing openly what is wrong with our society and not pretending that all is right, and have been right, with our pretend world.
1
Talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill. What is more disturbing is that highly talented black people are foisted into the entertainment zone, including athletics, based on the assumption that they cannot excel in traditional areas of economic prosperity, such as law, medicine, commerce, and the sciences. I would be willing to bet that some people we know as star athletes, including LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Rajon Rondo, as examples, would be stellar lawyers and doctors. Same with regard to many of the great musicians we have all come to know.
3
No one wants to be marginalized and no one wants their potential and power mitigated by things beyond their control. That is what it's really about.
Take hair color. We accept people's hair comes in different colors. We don't segregate on account of hair color. We don't hire on account of hair color. We don't even prefer on account of hair color, despite what the blonde-crowd would want us to believe. Hair is a bit analogous in that it's a fixed condition, but of course, now we can dye it etc. No one gets offended though when we change hair color because we affix no importance to hair color. No value and especially no power. Your livelihood, opportunity, ability to marry, ability to make friends and move in the world is not predicated by the color of your hair.
Not so with skin. Or ethnicity even.
So when skin color is singled out and used to mock, it is hurtful, degrading and demeaning. That is the legacy of blackface and that is why no one should do it. Ever. Period.
I went to see a high school production of Hairspray recently. Although that is a show that congratulates itself on it's progressive values, I hated it. I imagined being a black student in that school and hearing that was our choice, and I didn't like it. (I imagined being gay and/or being in special ed, and didn't like it any more as the show is insensitive in those areas as well.) As a hispanic, I feel the same way about West Side Story.
Someday, our humanity will be what defines us.
8
My takeaway from this article is that I, white and racist, am beginning to actually have permission to find what my ancestors so carelessly discarded and dismissed in their intersection with people from around the world. I long for deep and lasting respect for all people, for the magical feelings one has when bridging cultural boundaries, for a belonging to the ancients, for the love of all gods, and much more, for the the capability to sustain reverence under all circumstances. It's what I find when I listen to Mandela or MLK or Malcolm or Michelle or Maya or the Dali Lama. It's what I find when I read great writers. It's such a fantastic feeling and I want to have it all the time. This article invites me back to get what was lost long, long ago. Thank you.
4
As a white, Jewish middle-aged (well, maybe a year or two past middle-aged) man, I found Mr. Yancy's essay to be extremely thought provoking. He clearly hit some nerves, judging by the predominance of critical remarks in this Comments section. I'm not a professional philosopher, so some of the technical jargon was difficult for me. But Yancy's major point that the blackface phenomenon is white projection of racism in a way that allows whites to deny racism seems correct. It is playing out in all the belated confessions by politicians, "Yes, I wore blackface, but I'm not a racist."
18
The terms “white “and black “ are derived from the historic power structure of the U.S. rather than any natural condition. Skin complexion is not binomial but a spectrum. Where does "white" end and "black" begin? A dark complexion is identified as "black" and historically considered socially inferior in the U.S. due purely to history not ancestry, while "white” is understood to be someone with purely white/pink skin. If the U.S. had been conquered by African nations as opposed to European, the use of "white " would include anyone with a light complexion and be considered socially inferior , while "black" would include only individuals with very dark complexions. When racism is embedded in the very language we use, it is difficult to objectively discuss racism.
7
Words matter. Nobody is actually “white” or “black”. We are all shades of brown and tan with various hues. The words “white” and “black” are inaccurate and make it seem that we are more different than in fact we are. We are all 99.9% the same genetically.
2
Excellent piece. It is giving me a lot to think about. Thank you.
11
The most incredibly brilliant study of blackface is Spike Lee's movie Bamboozled. It explores blackface in a way that conveys the contempt, hurt and racism in a way that you can't avoid, and if you have any ounce of humanity in you, will make you cry with pain and shame. It should be required watching.
9
But you still have to laugh out loud to the reference in the movie to “Tommy Hilnig-a”
Dear Professor,
Hopefully, you’ll never read this - or he other comments. Why is it that American comments recently go straight for the jugular? Why do I always feel the comments smack of “ Oh, I’m smarter than you are, Opinion writer if the NYT? Why are we so mean?
First off, I am a humble public school teacher who has recently retired. I also taught at a small college the final two years of my thirty-seven year career. I am not stupid. But, I am also perhaps too polite to live in these United States. I am appalled that people do not seem to understand the difference between fact and opinion. Even my fifth graders know the difference between opinions (we all have them) and facts (those are irrefutable). Luckily for me, my students also knew appropriate ways to disagree. They were urged to back up their opinions with primary sources, and if not available, sources that are valid and reliable.
When we automatically attack - ad hominem- anyone who merely disagrees with us, it says something more about our character than the person with any opinion with which we disagree. And as I read the comments, I just kept thinking, are these all white people upset with being white people and needing to have empathy for another race and culture? I hope and pray I am wrong.
Blackface is inappropriate. White privilege is also inappropriate. Come on people! We can do so much better as a country and a culture!
Professor, I found your article very thought provoking.
15
One solution to racism that may in near future become viable, it to use genetic engineering to make everyone the same color. Perhaps some shade of brown.
.
We could make it a law. There will be some resistance, but the benefit of removing color as an issue dividing us would make it worthwhile.
2
@HH —“some resistance”? Like perhaps a civil war? But it would be all worthwhile. Only problem is, you’d have to make us all the same religion, and speak the same language. And perhaps the same sex. And height... and...
Any White Privileged Snowflake who feels taken aback by accusations of "White Parasitic behavior", just need to depersonalize what you are reading. The accusations are not made at individual White people. They are leveled at the American Society at large that has been White Privileged from it's inception, embedded from Slavery through Jim Crow to the modern school to prison pipeline. This article is aimed at White Folk who are blind to the Society at large that continues to favor "Whiteness". As James Baldwin and E.B Dubois stated: "Whites must lift the veil of ignorance from their eyes, American Racism is a White Man's (Woman's) burden."
14
This really is the part of the new left that turns off the vast majority of Americans. It is the kind of language which alienates potential allies and drives them into apathy or worse, reactionary xenophobia and racism. Want Trump in 2020? This is the best way to ensure that outcome.
9
@Michael W. Espy I would respond with equal outrage to any group of people being spoken of in the dehumanizing way this author speaks of white people. It's flat out dangerous and wrong. I've written, called and marched for liberal causes all my life. This isn't liberalism, it's dehumanization and oversimplification.
3
Thank you Dr. Yancy for this insightful perspective on American white racism & such degrading aspects as "Blackface".
One part of your column which struck me as extremely important at understanding the continuing problem of white racism in the US is white people choose to "distance themselves" from symptoms of racism, while at the same time not really dealing with the continuing causes of it.
"...I saw and heard white pundits and commentators condemn these individual cases and persons. This is certainly reasonable. ...Condemnation is a sign of greater awareness about this hurtful, racist practice, but it is also a way of distancing: By attributing blackface to a few “bad apples,” they fail to treat this as a teachable moment about the deeply ingrained nature of white American racism. They also ignore the degree to which blackface is actually little more than a perverse expression of whiteness."
Blackface has always struck me as perverse & degrading. The problem of continuing racism of white America is the inability to terms with how racism is so pervasive throughout our culture.
Even well-meaning whites who don't believe they are racist, may still cling to racist beliefs about African Americans. Rather than being defensive for being called out for racist beliefs, whites need to listen to what is being said, take the criticism to heart & imagine oneself in another's position. This won't solve our national cultural racism, but it's a start to understanding & perhaps; healing.
6
The race to idealogical purity is a race to the bottom. Caricature is sometimes just that, to wit, Mardi Gras, its a history of black , white and other colors of face painting. Racism is the problem, not blackface.
13
The caricatures of African humanity are deeply ingrained in the psyches of all. Some of us can see through the historical lens and locate it's trajectory. Blackface happens to be only one kind of caricature, its origins in the late 1820s Antebellum South. The "father of Minstrelsy" being Thomas D. Rice (1808-1860) wrote the popular "Jump Jim Crow" tune that denigrated the status of free African Americans of that era. It is also the origin of the term Jim Crow segregation. So what is deemed popular culture can be more insidious.
To enslave a people is to also require justification, especially in a supposedly Christian democracy. Blackface was used by African American Vaudeville stars too, Billy Kersands (1842-1915) and later Bert Williams (1874-1922). Two black men putting on blackface and subjecting their humanity to ridicule (they too had to eat). I grew up in Liverpool, England in the 1960s and had to endure the BBC's production of the Black and White Minstrel Show, that ran from 1958-1978 before closing down due to public protest. Yes, racism, stereotyping, and inhumanity is global and ignoble. With 400 years of African presence in North America one would expect a higher standard of acceptance. Yet about 250 of those years represent enslavement, and about 100 years represent segregation. The last 50 years represent a nation trying to come to terms with its past discrimination. The blackface issue is only a symptom of the virulent racism raising its ugly head today.
10
The essay may have a point but whatever that point is lost me in a thicket of erudition.
13
@Thomas Hobbes. You say “erudition”. I say unnecessary, dense, impenetrable blather that buries any point 6 feet below grasp level.
2
Maybe the schools of this nation should show clips of Al Jolson singing "Mammy" and minstrel shows of groups of blackface performers in 1930s Hollywood films set in 19th century America. As a child I saw those film performances on tv. I thought the performers were black! Any adult seeing such clips today would easily understand that the minstrel performers were mocking black people (I'm not sure that was Jolson's aim.)
I am also not sure that the writer understands that many white Americans do have their own subcultures that are not based upon either racism or the commandeering of black culture.
4
We, as white Americans, want to absolve ourselves & declare that racism is dead. Nothing is further from the truth. We are in denial. Black families still have a much harder time getting mortgages to live in ‘nice’ neighborhoods. Executives still tend to hire people that look like themselves. People still freeze up when they see young black men. We have a long ways to go & our denial tells the real story.
13
I've lived on both coasts, in large cities and rural areas. I had a lower middle class upbringing, with periods of poverty, and am now upper middle class. I attended public grade schools, and private universities. I have never seen blackface, and I do not know anyone who has worn blackface. Aside from the occasional adolescent or childhood racial stunt that receives breathless coverage from the press, blackface appears to have died out in the US. As it should be.
9
I guess I have a blackface problem. Unfortunately this article gives me little or no insight into what to do about it. Many of us (both black and white) would agree that Abraham Lincoln was a great man. One of his outstanding characteristics was the ability to express complex ideas in language that even the least intellectually endowed of us could understand. The author of this article does not have that gift.
11
There's a huge difference between darkening your face as part of a costume of a particular black person, and the caricature of black people represented by traditional blackface.
I'm not condoning either, but while the former might be insensitive, the latter is intentionally insulting.
If you can't see the difference, you might wonder whether political correctness has run amok.
9
I think we need to take a step back snd redefine blackface. I am African American and black. I do not feel that white people dressing up for halloween as one of their favorite musicians or a little boy going to school as MLK and darkening his skin should be off limits. For the record, I am not offended by it and I think we need to look at the context as well as the intent. Are people putting down black people by darkening their skin in these contexts?
It’s not reasonable to demand that no white person can darken their skin with makeup to be a character for any reason whatsoever.
We can be offended by many things. As a person with dark skin, I am deeply offended by negative comments that I have heard made by other African Americans, as well as others outside the race about dark skin. Some comments have been made in my presence and directly to me. These general comments disparaging dark skin, casually and thoughtlessly made are evidence that the speaker has taken the view as a universal truth without realizing that not everyone shares that view and that I as a listener would find it offensive.
I have heard calls for the resignations or expulsions for those who have worn blackface. If we are going to make these demands, why stop there? Should black people be asked to leave jobs if they have ever made denigrating comments about dark skin?
14
@Miriam Clarke - Thank you. But I disagree on one point; We don't need to redefine blackface. Rather, we need to stop other people from trying to redefine it. Blackface has never referred to the respectful impersonation of a specific individual. Ever. It has always historically referred to a general, exaggerated caricature, usually offensive in nature.
5
Jimmy Kimmel needs to be fired. But hence no outrage since he is now a liberal.
3
@Nyalman - Nope, he absolutely should not be fired. He wasn't doing blackface, which is by definition an exaggerated caricature. He was doing a realistic impersonation.
The "top rated" reader pics here are all somewhat critical of Prof. Yancy and all seem to come from northern states.
This would make it hard to image what being black at Emory (in Georgia) feels like.
As half of an inter-racial couple here in NYC I never got the looks of disgust that I got when we visited Georgia.
Just sayin'
2
Yikes. Anytime someone characterizes an entire race as “parasitic”, scan the exits and make sure you’ve got your car keys in your hand. That’s some serious hate speech there, hiding away between some more innocuous sentences.
17
Blacks not only have black faces, it appears now they also have thin skins. Why the bruhaha about blackface, is it because they think their indignation will pay political dividends, not because they're offended by it? In fact it's a perfectly silly thing intended to get a laugh, which I suppose it does, from both blacks and whites, it isn't intended to hurt anybody's feelings. If blacks want the respect they say they don't get in American society the easy way to show their equality and earn their own way by functioning in the economy under their own steam without subsidies.
4
@Ronald B. Duke Working class whites get the bulk of the subsidies, David:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/16/the-biggest-beneficiaries-of-the-government-safety-net-working-class-whites/?utm_term=.cab5a927a5ec
"The result does not simply reflect the fact that there are more white people in the country. The percentage of otherwise poor whites lifted from poverty by government safety-net programs is higher, at 44 percent, compared to 35 percent of otherwise poor minorities, the study concluded."
4
@Ronald B. Duke By subsidies, you mean the meals and clothing massa used to provide us? Or the 40 acres and a mule we're still waiting for? Or the federally guaranteed mortgages we weren't provided?
Notwithstanding your popular culture and what your friends on Fox news have to say, the history of Black people in this country is working far harder, and receiving far less, than the majority population.
2
The top commenter Eric says “nobody does blackface anymore.”
The most salient part of Dr. Yancy’s essay focuses on the needs of whites to consume: blackness, indigenous people, energy.
If you can’t connect the dots between our modern western racism and our modern western planetary destruction, perhaps you should go back to your university and ask for your money back.
The racist enabling of the present administration is also a consumerist enabling. And the twin dysfunctions have consequences that are real and not “done.”
2
Interesting article -- though did anyone anywhere ever think that Blackface was the black man's burden?
Hollowness of whiteness as an identity marker got me thinking. Many ethnicities have a 'story' attached - some sort of historical/ cultural narrative you can use to help racially define yourself.
If you are Mexican heritage you have Mexican heroes, Cesar Chavez, a certain cuisine and a bunch of other things helping aid you in finding your racial identity. If you are from India you have a general racial identity which branches out into further stereotypical regional identities like 'those Punjabis are great warriors', or Gujarat has 'highly ambitious entrepreneurs/ politicians', etc. The author can explain better the clear racial identity of being black so I won't comment other than to generalize if you are born black in Idaho, chances are you probably don't identify with something other than Idaho.
But white in America let's face the music here: chances are you are just one big mutt. Sure you will have a green beer on St Patty's day and wear some gear but you are only 10% irish. You are 8 % german so you party Octoberfest too and let's face it you drink on Cinco de Mayo and drunkenly hug mexicans but you are 0% mexican.
Seems like whiteness may get interested in other identities since they lack their own. Even in the most liberal and charitable interpretation, Blackface is extreme example of a condescending, dehumanizing and inept way of expressing that interest.
It's not the place of anyone to try to define someone else's identity, and it's certainly not right for someone to describe someone's identity in a blatantly offensive manner (whiteness is "hollow"???).
Shame on this author for ironically and sadly lashing out with racist contempt in a piece that purports to address racism.
13
Hey, Prof, it insults, degrades, ignores. It is racist. OK. But the last thing it requires is an academic extrapolation.
4
To attribute motive is to claim to see into the hearts of others and pass judgement. And many responses have given you what aways follows, as you judge, so shall you be judged.
3
I guess this is an attempt by Yancy to feel superior.
7
@jaco
He’s not the one doing Blackface.
1
There is nothing inherently wrong with blackface. Maybe taken from a historical point of view there have been times when it was done for a reason that made fun of black people and was therefore improper. Blackface doesn't have to be that way. I think the point should be that making fun of black people isn't a good thing which would mean many other actions should be stopped if that is the reason they are being done. This criteria should apply to blackface as well. If it is being done for bad reasons then it should be stopped just like a comedian who tells jokes that make fun of black people should be stopped. However if the blackface isn't done with the purpose of denigrating black people then there is no reason to criticize it as being racist and it should be permitted.
34
@Why. It IS denigrating--at the very least. What possible "good reasons" could there be? Rhetorical question. I know the answer: none.
17
This is the precisely the type of psychological distancing the professor alludes to and the crux of why racism has to be viewed as a problem of Whiteness, not Blackness.
George Yancy plainly presented the historical origins to you. There is no such thing as Blackface being performed for any reason other than a "bad" one. Yet, the attachment to White racial privilege runs so deep among the masses that some of us have to find reasons to justify any use of it at all. That reveals so much more about you, the perceived benefits of Whiteness and the emptiness associated with this culture unless it involves oppressing others. It is indeed a spiritual sickness.
European ancestry and Whiteness are not synonymous. Not all Europeans have been considered White at all times in U.S. history. But coming into the fold of Whiteness always involves a set of common denominators--the "arrogance" of believing one's phenotype entitles one to a set of unearned advantages; the right to to dominate and create descriptions of non-Whites; and the right to pretend this oppression and domination doesn't really matter. Which is precisely what you did. It was Whiteness in action.
The end of racism requires an interrogation of the meaning of Whiteness and radically imagining what European ancestry can mean under the terms of justice. Until then, White folks will remain entrapped, snared in its grip, to the detriment to people of color and to themselves. @Why.
27
@Why. Who determines whether it's denigrating black people? In my humble opinion, in itself it is denigrating black people, but as the author notes, this denigration is unbeknownst to the people performing it more of a comment on their own issues than of any problem with blackness itself.
8
Thank you for the suggestion of Mary Elizabeth Hobgood's book.
As a white American who believes that neither being white nor being American were things that I accomplished, and therefore nothing to be truly proud of, I often struggle with the perceptions I must present. I am white, but I did not perform the crimes and horrors white people inflicted upon people of color. Yet I also benefit from the privileges in our society born from that terrible history.
What to do about it? Feeling guilty Or even ashamed for things I did not do seems wrong, but somehow accurate, and also pointless. I want something to DO. I want to work for equality, true equality, because that is what feels necessary in my mind and in my heart.
It is going to be a long road. It will be worth the journey.
4
Though blackface is, of course, the symptom of a culture that refuses to see a group of people as three-dimensional autonomous human beings, and instead wishes to preserve their status as the simple, uncomplicated, and easily definable "other," to say that wherever and whenever it was deployed it was nothing but a tool of unimaginable racist violence is oversimplifying the argument just a bit. It is hard to imagine that minstrelsy, for all its defects, was the preeminent form of American theatrical entertainment for about three-quarters of a century (roughly 1840-1910) simply because it reinforced white dominance. Indeed, white dominance in the 19th century was so self-evident and all-pervasive it hardly needed any reinforcement. Isn't it possible that at least for the "founders" of blackface minstrelsy (men such as T.D. Rice and Dan Emmet), what spurred them on to imitate the songs and dances of slaves was a mixture of admiration and fascination for the African-Americans they had seen--feelings for which there was no vocabulary at the time that wasn't in some way insulting and derogatory?
5
All this attention is perversely making me more sympathetic to blackface. Not “minstrelsy,” that’s obvious very racist. But I’m reminded of the segment Megyn Kelly lost her job over, where a white six-year-old boy dressed as his hero for Halloween. His hero was Barack Obama. He wore a tiny, adorable suit, and we wanted to darken his skin with makeup. This was considered offensive.
There’s a huge different between wearing a costume or someone you like, or maybe being a little edgy for Halloween. One of my friends dressed up as a priest with puppet that looked like a little boy taped to the front of his pants. Horrible? Absolutely. It was Halloween! Another one of my friends went as Roy, complete with bloody make up and a stuffed tiger around her neck.
Yes, my friends have dark senses of humor. And I wouldn’t find a KKK or lynching costume funny. But a little girl dressed as Pocahontas? Let’s stop being QUITE so sensitive. Sometimes makeup is just makeup.
132
@Mercury S - I take your point but more trust between groups has to be built and power imbalances need to be leveled before that is realistic.
12
@Mercury S
This newspaper printed an article shortly after the Northam story broke featuring a picture of Al Jolson doing his blackface performance of the song "mammy" from "The Jazz Singer"
Far from ridicule it was an emotionally powerful rendition of a person, a human being, who is longing for the smile of all that had been lost. The "Amsterdam News," Harlem's oldest newspaper lauded it, recommending "every reader see it."
Jolson, while the most famous entertainer of his era, suffered from chronic depression, and this song, as reflected by the film audience, was a genuine expression of human compassion.
Of course, there was some of the ridicule that this columnist describes, but to define this as universal, or even the norm of intent of performer and audience is an invidious simplification.
And for Al Jolson, it is a certainty, that this blackface rendition was an expression of shared loss
20
@Mercury S
I agree. There are pre-Lenten Carnival traditions around the world that make Halloween look tame. Fasnacht in southern Germany is especially dark, roaming wild animals, whips cracking, and evil spirits about. Provocation and offensive imagery are everywhere but it's mock aggressive. Some of the more obviously offensive traditions include kidnapping women, blackface, and children being beaten or eaten.
3
I have two words for that position: Tamar Rice. When you combine the rhetorical question with the right to use deadly force, the balance is tipped. It's not just the right to use deadly force and it's execution, it's the entire support structure behind it, and then the fact that structure is completely intractable so far.
Two more words that prove that: Philandro Castile. We're not debating a theory here; this is a reality that plays out in a criminal justice system that weighs factors and delivers sentences that don't reform but cripple for generations.
Here's a heartening result of these opinion pieces: after my last comment, I had 2 requests for more information about my comments. Here's a great seminal one:
"When Affirmative Action Was White" by Ira Katznelson. A little academic in approach, but really well-documented, which is important in the age of "fake news". It's hard to fake that much information.
8
From a 2008 Times opinion piece by Francis Wilkinson titled "Benign Neglect."
In his March 18 remarks in Philadelphia, Mr. Obama eloquently called for a national discussion on race. But in a speech lauded for its honesty, this plea was unconvincing. Having benefited from the nation’s quieter tone, Mr. Obama must avoid stirring the racial pot, unnerving white voters for whom his race requires a leap of faith.
In the days following that address, he couldn’t change the subject fast enough, delivering back-to-back speeches on Iraq and the economy. In his June 3 victory speech, in which he staked his claim to the Democratic nomination, he conspicuously failed to mention that his accomplishment was a historic first.
Through such efforts, Mr. Obama has avoided being stuck in a racial box. His success thus far is a testament to his skill as a campaigner. But it’s also a product of a changing political context and the presidency of George W. Bush, who has shown just how benign a little neglect can be.
3
During the Vaudville period, all ethnic groups [German, Irish, Italians] were parodied - at times mocked for the pleasure of the audience. One comment is corect in stating that putting on blackface freed performers from constraints that society at that time imposed. It may have been in part derogatory, but perhaps not always. Minstrelry occurs in the opening scene of "Showboat" - the musical. Blacks are portrayed with sympathy and respect. The story is rich with poignant messages. Bing Crosby puts on black face to sing in "Holiday Inn," a wonderful film, but I never thought is was intended as disrespectful to blacks. Blacks are portrayed in this film with respect as well. Yes, it would be very disrespectful today, but Yancy goes to far in his assessment. His divisive ideas alienates rather than brings people together.
13
@John Begley
I saw “ Holiday Inn “ a year or so ago and found the “ Holiday “ they were celebrating in blackface was Lincoln’s birthday . I have to say I found it disgusting and tone deaf .
Isn't this article a racist stereo typing of all white people, or white males (that's safer to do, can't risk seeming to "assault" white women) for the sins and usually simple stupidity of some subset of white people? And why is this anti white racism, and the NY Times daily anti not Jewish bigotry and consequent allusions and assertions or Jewish superiority over all the Others ... and major media "hate" propaganda against most other 'majorities' allowable? Isn't blaming, shaming, dehumanizing branding of majority groups just as evil, unjust, and liable to create violence (when they finally decide to fight back) when its targeted against not special victim identity groups as when its inflicted on minority groups like American black people?
16
I'm white, 62 and I grew up in the South (if Miami can be called the South). My parents are/were from NYC. I never wore blackface and never saw anyone else wear it. I was not aware until the Megan Kelly debacle that it was so offensive to wear blackface. I had never thought it was okay; it had just never been brought to my attention. I am mentioning this because my parents raised us to be very liberal and I just didn't know this.
The article may be very well written in some people's eyes, but it is very hard for me to understand. I am an attorney with a background in journalism. I work with experts and their jargon on a regular basis, but this piece is something else. Why is it written this way?
I recently read "Ulysses" by Ron Chernow and, surprisingly, it really opened my eyes about the horrendous treatment that blacks experienced in this country AFTER the
Civil War ended, right on up to the 1960s.
Now I am reading "The Warmth of Other Suns," By Isabel Wilkerson. It is about the de facto migration of blacks from the South beginning around the time of WWI, and continuing up until the 1960s. It, like "Grant," has opened my eyes to the horrible crimes that some whites inflicted on fellow black humans during that era.
I recommend these books to anyone who wants to know more about this topic.
8
"Blackface is the white man's burden." That's certainly a wild exaggeration. In the year 2019, films and stages no longer contain blackface "comedy." In 2019 it is utterly inappropriate to don blackface for a party, or on Halloween. Finding bits and pieces of blackface in old yearbooks (in itself a rarity), or in snapshots of the mindless antics of very few, reminds us of the severity of racism in America's history, but it should never be used as an indictment of "the white man" in 2019.
I am a white man, and I don't know a single person who would find blackface humorous in any way. I would find it to be a repulsive and childish display...except, in my 65 years, I have never encountered a single example of it outside of silent films.
Racism is a nasty thing - an overt display of ignorance and hate - but in our current Culture of Outrage we seem to have an over-amplified fixation on it.
181
@dean bush
Out may be rare, but it still happens.
1
@dean bush All you seem to be arguing about is the size of the burden, not its appartenance. The idea that white racism is essentially a white problem is not new. Notably, James Baldwin expressed this idea quite pungently in "Take This Hammer" in 1963. He was right then, and it still holds.
6
@dean bush
As a 70 year old person of color," Blackface" to me depicts a demeaning caricature of blackness that has absolutely no relation to any black person I have ever seen outside of the classic buffoon of film, the cruel stereotypes that were projected and flaunted by Hollywood and elsewhere in the old (and not so old) movies still shown. You must realize that the caricature was created by whites with the obvious and sole purpose of grotesquely exaggerating and lampooning superficial physical differences and projecting a false narrative of black behavior and intellect in order to allow whites to take comfort in their perceived superiority.
10
I am not an academic...I'm just a musician. And I look at everything through the lens of music.
I grew up white in a small town in Bucks County, north of Philadelphia. My parents were decent, middle class people.
They sent me to a high school in Philadelphia where I joined the band. It was around 1960 and I discovered a great jazz radio station and fell in love. At one point, I think I was about 14 years old, I managed to talk my father into taking me to a jazz club in NJ to hear Duke Ellington. . The post war band was in its prime with all the great, legendary players. The sounds, the swing, the soloists were all amazing. And there were stacks of music on the stands butthey never opened them. I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Over the years, I have played a lot of music with black musicians in front of black...and white people. To the point of this article, I have observed the white audiences for long enough to understand that there is a lot going on.
It feels, on one level, like a forbidden love affair. There is joy and pleasure but there is also jealousy and anger...and guilt. It's a mirror of so much of the cultural and racial attitudes in America.
It's a long topic in itself, but let me say that for me, just trying, honestly, to learn how to play a great jazz or R&B 'groove' has changed the way I look at everything.
5
I always enjoy reading challenging pieces on race in America like this one. But what's better is reading the comments that try to defend the indefensible or, in a decidedly more American style, rationalizes the shameful history and present of racism, or just denies it altogether.
Yet, the comments never cease to confirm what we all really know: racism is not going away anytime soon. It's just too big of a lift for most white people.
171
@A. Jubatus If you're feeling up for a "big lift" perhaps you'll study the worldwide history of racism, slavery, and scapegoating. These unfortunate practices did not begin or end in the United States or the earlier colonies here. They are as old as humanity and as diverse. The esteemed author of this piece does us all a service, in demonstrating that prejudice is a danger to all of humanity, and is peculiar to no particular race.
22
@Charlie Clarke-what happened in the Roman Empire or in Ancient Greece doesn't have much direct impact on 21st century United States. What happened in the United States from its inception to now is a little more relevant. People like you obviously want to shift the conversation.
15
@Mark We can talk about slavery in the middle east today, if you prefer. I'm not just talking about the Roman Empire or Ancient Greece. Slavery was the norm on every continent when slavery began here. Slavery was still ordinary in much of the world when we had a war here to end it. It is still ordinary in some cultures. Humanity is humanity. No one race has a monopoly on oppression. Any time we use dehumanizing terms like parasitic to describe a group of people, we are on dangerous ground. I'm not interested in shifting any conversation. I'm interested in exploring the whole truth.
19
Excellent article. Difficult or impossible for an individual to manage well, or even understand! I think that being a white male American, and America having a continuing tradition and culture of racism, that I am probably racist in ways I can't even know. It is interesting that there are fewer examples of female blackface. I learned blues harp because I liked the music and value that listening and learning experience but it always had something of the cultural carpetbagging feel to me, copying (even moreso not having real talent. But I believe that some of white "blues jam" behavior has blackface/minstrelry elements - the bluesman (whatever that is) as bad, simple, hypersexual, and dangerous. When I learn about a person like the artist Howlin' Wolf (or really listen to his music), I don't see that as being relevant for who he is, even if he played the part sometimes. Good artists are usually hypersensitive, really oversensitive. Trying not to fit people into racial stereotypes, especially people who are frankly already burdened and disadvantaged by prejudice and oppression, is a difficult and ongoing task that we will always have to work at, and not always successfully, just like sexism. In the examples you gave, those people failed in their obligations to be decent human beings. I wish they had taken their lumps like Al Franken did, sucked it up, but it is very difficult to abandon your dreams.
27
@Elaine
Of course there are fewer instances of female blackface.
Most goofy hijinks in youth are by young men. That's just how it is and always will be.
The Democratic party is subtly, and not so subtly, pushing men out of the political pipeline from local, to state, to national scenes.
Lately, uncounted people have not gone into politics, because they have a DUI, or and old affair, or something in their adult past, and nowadays they know it will be unearthed. But with the Northam controversy, it is now much worse: anybody who did any stupid antic even as an adolescent or college would be a fool to run for office.
I'm reasonably intelligent and moderately informed. Yet, I never fully grasped the rationale for blackface until now.
"As white performers blackened their face...they were able to mark black bodies as appallingly stupid and subhuman."
It also served as a form of public absolution - a performative ritual sublimating the horrors of slavery for comic effect to assuage the audience's guilt, and thus, society's too.
108
Great comment
1
Yes, minstrel shows of the 19th century were highly insulting in their portrayal of black Americans. At the same time, the white audiences were captivated by the adapted versions of black music and dance that were presented to them (see, e.g., Ken Emerson's biography of Stephen Foster.) I think the blackface thing was in part a way for the white audiences to "safely" indulge in the black culture they so wanted without looking like they were engaging in cultural miscegenation. They maintained the racial barriers of the day (as well as their sense of superiority) with crude portrayals of black people even as they were drinking from the cup of black culture (as derivative as that version of the culture may have been).
78
@alloleo Lordy. Whatever makes you feel better.
4
@alloleo That's a great point. I think you're right that the hatred is indeed mixed with a kind of longing. Often it's a sort of Rousseauesque Orientalism that sees blacks as "primal" or "authentic", and of course laudatory racism is no better than its derogatory twin, but, yes, there's certainly a portion of desire mixed in with the disgust.
6
Blackface degrades blacks and, by comparison, is meant to elevate whites. There may have been another purpose: to give uptight whites an outlet to express themselves more freely. This was done especially in minstrelsy, performed both professionally and casually. Whites wanted to have it both ways, but the price for this temporary freedom would have been a hardening of the line of acceptable white behavior. I wonder how hard it was to return to the uptight norms. Guess they looked forward to the next minstrel show!
Blackface and minstrelsy reflects contempt for blackness; it also reflects white sexual and emotional repression. James Baldwin wrote that black people had to beg white people for economic survival, but white people looked to black people for love.
44
@Ruth Appleby, substitute women and men for black and white people in your last sentence, and it fits even better.
1
@jb No, I think it's quite accurate: white people looked to black people for love. And they continue to do so.
1
@Ruth Appleby Please define "love". Is love getting to know a person, then caring about them and committing yourself over time to their happiness and wellbeing? Are one night stands or performing sex acts for money "love"? Are dancing, stripping, preening and posing for millions of people you have never met "love"?
1
Oh my goodness, Prof. Yancy. There are plenty of reasons to deplore blackface, but we don't need post-modern critical theory to do it, not even those of us who also belong in the academic community. Arguments such as the ones you make ('terror' doesn't need 'ontological' to be terrifying) are one major cause for Trump's election and the - if possible worse - electorate's disgust with elites.
There are subtleties to be explored. For example, can a young white boy whose favorite movie star is Will Smith dress up as Will Smith on Halloween (with a store-bought mask, of course, not blackface)? Suppose he's six? Does it change if he's sixteen? If not, what are we telling our children about who they should admire, and to what values they may aspire? That Will Smith's characters' courage, ability, kindness and wit are not for them?
But these are not the subtleties your deconstructionist apparatus seeks to address. Not even that Northam first said he was, and now adamantly denies, being in that heinous picture. Suppose he was not, and honestly doesn't know how the picture got placed near his description. What changes? What stays the same? These are worthy questions for a philosopher, but not the ones you choose to address. You may think me unkind, but I fear you use the critical method as merely a tool to reinforce what you already believe through recitation, a performative act that you hope may foster change, perhaps, but not a serious critical inquiry.
436
@NLG
I had begun a response to this article, but you have stated most of the salient points I wished to make. The article was initially interesting, but soon had me thinking that the goal was obfuscation, or at least self-aggrandizement.
I am always somewhat dismayed by those who wish to make sweeping, blanket statements about groups of people, particularly when those statements are in response to sweeping, blanket statements about groups of people...
229
Me thinks you protest too much. Maybe there are subtle arguments to be made that skirt the issue the professor is making, but let’s not. There is too much pain and anguish to push it aside.
18
@NLG - Well said; "('terror' doesn't need 'ontological' to be terrifying)", and this piece by Yancy is poorly argued on the both the facts of the particular case - Northam's - and especially in its torrents of jargon.
The professor's points might be meaningful, but without reading them in comprehensible language it's hard to know. This is bad academic writing at its worst.
75
"Blackface is not a black problem. It is a white one, and fixing it is the job of white America."
"Blackface" needs to be "fixed"?
Last I checked, nobody "does" "blackface" anymore.
The current whirlwind of recrimination against a number of (southern) politicians who "did" it decades ago, as young people, is evidence of that, and, as a northerner of over five decades, I can say that I have never known anyone who has worn "blackface," nor anyone who has watched a "minstrel show." The closest I or anyone I know has ever been to this was in watching Al Jolson or African-descended actors in movies of the 1930s and feeling embarrassed for both the actors and their contemporary audiences for finding these performances amusing.
Nobody uses "blackface" anymore, and anyone who did would be immediately socially ostracized, as is currently occurring.
As for my "white identity" being "hollow," European-descended people have been criticized for years for not seeing themselves as having an identity, for seeing themselves as the neutral identity, devoid of distinguishing characteristics, from which other "ethnic" identities differ. At best white identity has been understood as individual national identities (Italian, German, Irish, Jewish).
Is it now politically mandatory that I adopt a "non-hollow" "white" identity, rather than striving to understand how all of us can fit in and get along together, in spite of the racism that pervades our shared history?
457
@Eric Interesting that this is the comment that has been recommended the most by NYT readers so far, and it is a strategic misreading that also sounds angered by the piece. Where do you find Mr. Yancy telling whites to adopt a white identity? European ethnicities such as Italian, Irish, etc. are not "white identities," they are ethnicities. Insofar as people take it upon themselves to translate these ethnic identities as having racial significance in this country--as "white"--they have done so by projecting their negative qualities onto black people by way of blackface and more recent forms of dehumanizing parody & stereotype. The task set before white Americans by this wonderful piece by Professor Yancy is to interrogate what this identification really requires, not to adopt a white identity.
95
@Eric
Yeah, this essay is an example of identity politics at its worst. While I certainly understand that phrases such as, “I don’t see color “ are silly, I believe the goal of pushing the importance of group-rather than individual-identity is dangerous to the fabric of our society.
Most people, it seems, can get behind the public benefit of bringing actual discrimination down to a statistical zero. But, we are tribal at root, and we should not be feeding that beast in our public policy.
107
@Judy
I think you are missing a few things. Given that;
1) The rise of identity politics has shown that having an 'identity' is a good thing. It's taken for granted that everyone has some sort of identity.
2) Many people identify themselves based on their ethnic background (which is commonly confused with race - a concept that really has no functional foundation).
3) Yancy says "whiteness" is a hollow identity.
Is it any wonder that 'white' identifying readers would ask where they fit it in. As well as ask if they are the only group of people to be denied having an identity of substance? Obviously, this skirts dangerously near the concept of white pride but it remains a question that requires a reasonable response that is *not* based on the pejorative terms. Yancy's overly dense and jargon laden language doesn't fit that requirement.
73
Thankfully this was written for the masses and not trying to preach to those of us who are above this manner of existence.
1
I don’t see why we need an academic article to tell us that making fun of someone else is wrong. That at the core is what blackface is.
I know racism is not the sole province of white people. To make it so in this discussion seems like it would be beneath the author’s capability, or at least their education.
I think suggesting that blackface is white peoples “problem to solve” may have sounded good to draft but when it comes down to it is an empty straw man.
I suspect pseudo intellectualism like this only gives ammunition to people hostile to the pursuit of equality and acknowledgement of our problems. A disservice, really.
I’d be far more interested in a cogent discussion of whether/in what circumstances dressing as iconic and positive black figures is wrong.
8
@Sarah The discussion you'd be more interested in would be very short. I can sum it up in one sentence: "dressing" as iconic and positive black figures, as you put it, is fine, no problem at all; wearing blackface to do so is wrong, for all the reasons stated in this article, and because of the history it describes.
5
@Sarah This hardly seems the "pseudo intellectualism" to me that it appears to be to you.
And the TRUE definition of racism is "to come from a position of POWER and deny equality to others, who are seen as "other.""
If Blacks were running the country on a regular basis and made laws against Whites, THAT would be racist. I don't see any such law on the books. Do you?
And the author is discussing only America here, not Whites in other cultures (none of whom I have found, in my travels, to be anywhere NEAR as racist - unconsciously OR consciously - as the average White American).
As far as dressing as "positive" Black figures, who decides that it is fine to dress up as W.E.B DuBois, but not as Michael Jackson? For many Blacks, HE is a positive Black figure (and for other Blacks, he is not). Who makes the judgement call there?
@Brion
Just because I feel this article is "pseudo intellectual" doesn't mean that I disagree with its overall sentiment. I think it's a missed opportunity because of the way the issue was framed and the argument constructed. Hence my comments.
Regarding other people being racist, I was referring to other (non-white) races who can be just as racist if not more so toward blacks. Whites don't have a monopoly on otherization. I think that's too broad a framework for addressing the problems of white racism toward black people.
Finally, your closing remarks where exactly what I was getting at. I think it would be a more enlightening discussion to address those kinds of figures, not minstrelsy. I would hope that most of us already know that the "darkie" is not acceptable. But that's what the author is writing about.
Segregation was one reason for blackface.
American's loved Black music--Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Ragtime (Scott Joplin). But they had to go slumming to get the music without the musicians. Blackfaced whites were the (poor) substitutes.
4
Both blackness and whiteness are hollow identity markers. There is no such thing as white culture, and as hard as it is for people today to understand, there really isn’t such a thing as universal black culture. Outside the US, Africa is an insanely diverse continent with no overarching common culture (analogous to Europe). And even inside the US, many black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean view the stereotypical black American urban “brand” as utterly alien. In fact our first black president wasn’t even descended from slaves; his mother was white and his father was Kenyan. Of course black Americans share a common experience of racism, but experience isn’t synonymous with culture, and your culture should be defined by so much more than who hates you.
29
@Jim,
"Both blackness and whiteness are hollow identity markers. There is no such thing as white culture, and as hard as it is for people today to understand, there really isn’t such a thing as universal black culture."
The only thing is that Black people (or if you prefer, "Black people") have no control of that, and are usually cast in the American society as members of the outgroup. Black people have no control of the society's definition of whiteness, nor do they have unqualified acceptance into the ingroup. So yeah, while there is no such thing as "universal black culture", or "white culture", as you assert, on the ground, what you say has no meaning.
"The parasitic nature of whiteness and its need to feed" ... George Yancy needs to be more careful, in this otherwise important and interesting piece, not perpetuate the very derogatory essentialist sorts of claims about race that we should all be avoiding.
20
@Steve Y - “The parasitic nature of whiteness...” Straight out of a Farrakhan rally. I half expected that sentence to be followed up with a reference to the Star of David.
1
Thanks to Dr. Yancy for this illuminating opinion. I spoke with him in December for my radio program, Writer's Voice [https://www.writersvoice.net/2018/11/george-yancy-backlash/], and when the Northam debacle happened, I hoped Yancy would weigh in. Racism is America's original sin and it is tearing our society apart. It's time for white folks to get real about confronting it.
4
Blackface, it appears to me, is actually a sort of Rorschach test, for all viewing it. Everyone sees, vividly, what they want to see.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. For myself, an older white male raised mostly with brown-skinned friends, I see the common blackface performances as a projection of actual jealousy for the excellent skills of black performers. We don't want blacks performing this stuff, because too many white people would see what excellent musicians and dancers black folk can be; so we'll make fun of it. And, in case you haven't seen any of it (which all school children should) it was common enough for excellent black artists - to put on blackface; and make fun of those ridiculing them- and incidentally perform superlatively.
We should consider a one-semester course in "Blackface History" as a required part of 7th grade. Show it all, teach it all. It IS our history.
No one can come out of that much exposure without clearly understanding that the white people in the equation are pretty dumb, and not very nice; and the actual black people in the scenario - are pretty nice; very, very smart, and terrific artists.
Bury it - it will never go away; and never stop causing some black people pain. Expose it; top to bottom- most of us, black and white, will be able to shake our heads, say to each other "Wow, that was dumb!" and move on.
3
@Greenpa It's actually ok to be white, greenpa. You have a right to your tastes, but I don't think Heifetz, Stern, and Barenboim were/are dumb. Neither were Rogers and Hart, Copeland, Stravinsky, Gershwin, Dylan, or the late Andre Previn.
1
@me
What about Al Jolson , a Jew like all those you've named, except he that made his fame doing Blackface.
Is that/ was that "dumb"?
Your false equivalencies are are beyond mind-boggling.
I'm quite sure none of those folks were dumb; and I'd be willing to bet good money that the majority of those artists, if they were looking at any blackface material in their pasts from todays perspectives- would easily, and quickly say "Boy, that was dumb." It's ok to admit past mistakes, you know.
"Within this racist construction, though, white bodies remained “normative,” “intelligent,” “civil,” “nonthreatening,” engaging in “mere entertainment” and they implicitly and explicitly reinforced deeply problematic and false “racial differences” between black and white bodies."
Why are all these words and phrases in quotes? Shouldn't they be footnoted?
The article makes valid points about what blackface can mean to the white people engaging in it, but it vastly overgeneralizes in its broad statements about "whiteness".
2
I think in this context the writer is not citing or quoting a direct source (which would warrant footnotes or other forms of citations). The use of the quotation marks are an attempt to signify that these concepts are generally accepted (i.e. “whiteness” = “normative”) though the writer does not agree with or hold that view himself. Simply put, I assume it was a stylistic choice.
Here's where I get off the train, Mr. Yancy. If I don't wear blackface, would never wear blackface, would never tolerate the sight of someone else wearing blackface--but am white, am I then guilty, by my whiteness, of a parasitic need to feed?
This is like me saying that by your blackness you have a compulsive need to overstate. I'd like to think we can both do better than to throw flames on the fire.
46
Extend blackface beyond white actors playing black characters to white entertainment in movies and television offering “white” conceived black roles for black actors. “Gone with the Wind”, “ Driving Miss Daisy”, “Rocky”, “The Jefferson’s” and “the Cosby show” all try to depict black Americans as white imaginings. Does anyone truly believe Rocky Balboa would beat Apollo Creed in Rocky? Does anyone think that Rocky would be needed or able to mentor Apollo Creed’s son in the latest chapters of this white mythology? Spike Lee got it entirely correct at the Oscar’s “The ref made a ridiculous call”. Of course the ref is whiter than wonder bread.
3
@Daniel Salazar - Well yes, anyone who actually knows the history of boxing definitely thinks it is feasible that “a guy like” Rocky (aka white) would be a trainer for Apollo Creed’s son (aka black). Some of the greatest black boxers had white trainers. I am specifically thinking of Mike Tyson’s success being very dependent on his trainers Cus D’Amato and Kevin Rooney. Once parasite Don King got Tyson to fire Rooney, Tyson’s career swirled down the toilet and disappeared. In other words, “boxing trainer” isn’t a “black” role, it is a human rule.
8
This essay makes no distinction between "whiteness" and what some white individuals think and do. To me, that's an essentially racist message. Why obfuscate it with all the post-modern rhetorical style?
22
My friend and her husband and daughter talked over a four hour visit. Topics: wine tasting, start ups; the loss of parents; medicare; funny memories; high rents for young people; food. I agree with this author that racism is a problem. However— neither my friends, nor i are defined only by our race. And our friendship is not lessened because we aren't the same race. That said, white people will help themselves grow if they listen more and splain less on a topic they haven't lived in the same way a black person has. I do hope that kids of any skin color will portray lincoln in a school play or superman at halloween or diana ross in a skit. No makeup required. We are members of the human race.
1
In America, Black people are incarcerated to a wider % of their pop for the same crimes than whites. Colleges have a smaller percentage of black faculty and staff per proportion of the Black pop. Black history is taught less. Banks still deny home loans to black people. Landlords fail to rent to Black people. CEOS and government/policy-makers, are predominantly white (& male.) Employers are less likely to hire if your name 'sounds Black.' The republican party gerrymanders black power out of elections. Black votes are still stolen. I could go on about the racial disparities that still exist institutionally in this culture, & that even pale persons of conscience still benefit from. It is not about if you do or do not use the N-word. Blackface & other racist horrors did & do prepare the ground for inequity to seem inevitable. If you continue to take this type of systems critique PERSONALLY you're derailing an important discussion. Maybe you do not don blackface - but if you are pale, you likely live or work in a community that has been cleansed of people who are not pale, & to which Black people have not been allowed to freely & comfortably enter. Our country still runs on systemic racism. That is the point. We are all part of that problem no matter who we are. Even if you are a truly good person, you are partaking of injustice in America. This should make you angry. We must fix it.
7
Please help me to understand why it's okay for Tyler Perry to dress up like a fat woman and the resultant movies are successful, but blackface is never, under any circumstance, okay. Making fun of a group is not right. Period.
10
So profoundly true. Blackface isn't a mere caricature in American society, however. Go back to the Obama presidency. How difficult was it for many white Americans to deal with President Obama as the man he was. They could only view him through the prism of their own reprobate minds. Consequently, for them, he was the "Kenyan Mau Mau" sympathiser; the non-American who long schemed to steal the presidency; a closeted homosexual (the First Lady simultaneously smeared as a man); his only professional success was as a community organiser; he was a failure at Harvard Law; his achievements are all because of Affirmative Action; and so on.
I'm not American but residing here, I've found it confounding that racism is such a default position for many white Americans. That's what those photographs of the VA and FL officials and so many others proclaimed: Anti-black bigotry is the American norm.
Even worse is the willingness of their fellow white Americans (liberals and conservatives alike) comfortable with just giving this behaviour a pass. After all, it's just "Little Johnny being Johnny," and why should a "racial" decision made X years ago cost a man his livelihood. An argument that has yet to consider what racist decisions have cost so many black Americans . . . Emmett and Mamie Till for instance.
A part of the privilege and supremacy (if you'll allow me to use those words) is thinking that one can somehow continuously indulge this evil and not become it. Shame.
9
@The Violinist
"Anti-black bigotry is the American norm."
I fail to see the basis for your conclusion?
Racism exists everywhere including America. There is no dispute of this. The difference is that in America it is at the forefront of our collective cultural awareness and our perpetual self-analysis.
Do not assume that because we are having a conversation about race, far more prominently than almost any other country in the world, that "anti-black bigotry is the American norm."
It's more to do with USA needing black face not the rest of the world. I don't think it has anything to do with racism but culture and traditions such as Halloween. Halloween is a USA tradition and lots of those people have white face paint.
No doubt it has something to do with golliwogs as well - though I think that's a British tradition and it's probably a cultural hangover from British traditions as the pioneers in the USA were of British stock. What with the Boston Tea Party or something. Golliwogs were loved childrens knitted types of soft bears and could be a misguided hangover from them.
And that brings us back to why there are not black soft toys and teddy bears and dolls for kids to play with. It's patronising to say the least to say it's racist to have gollies and black dolls etc. Be proud of your colour as you're only teaching kids that white is the preferable and superior colour because of all these do gooders that see racism in everything. I see lots of black dolls and lovingly home knitted cute golliwogs in Op Shops and they're quickly snapped up because of their cute happy faces and degree of expertise that has gone into the knitting for the kid that would've love the golliwog.
1
What wasn't mentioned is the point of it all. The author throws around a lot of big words and abstract concepts, but the reality is simple.
Follow the money.
Blacks had to be characterized as being less than human and inferior to whites in order to justify enslaving them.
Pretty simple. If you can convince yourself they are like animals, then you can treat them like animals.
10
What about ironic comedy that is based on white people not "getting it" or "getting it" about being black? For example, The Office, "Diversity Day"?
Is it a hilarious way for us to mock ourselves, (or white people, if you're non-white) for our failings and racial cluelessness?
Or is it also a way for the white viewer to secretly get a kick out of the white dummy who's saying inappropriate things? You ever notice that often the white fish-out-of-water idiot is the black person's boss, or they're in some other setting where it's impossible for the black person to say anything challenging to them beyond an eye roll?
Same thing with any male/female comedy scenario featuring "the clueless guy who doesn't get how sexually inappropriate he is." For example, The Office, "Hot Girl."
Seriously, these types of comedy sketches all rely on the dummy needling the victims without retribution from them. (Usually they fall apart by their own undoing in another situation, and sometimes the victims get the satisfaction of a smug 'Mmm-hmm." But you don't normally see any "Dude, are you serious?" confrontation.
So what's the difference between the "ignorant white person" in a hilarious sketch and real life, where people say and believe racist/sexist stereotypes and either say them among friends or in a situation where a victim can't retaliate?
Certainly blackface ranks first in the competition for denigration by certain members of the majority culture in the US. Here in California, there was Warner Oland as Charlie Chan, and Glen Gordon as Fu Manchu... in yellowface. Denigrating Chinese and Japanese might rank second... Then there is Alec Guinness as Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia... in brownface. Perhaps corrosive disrespect transcends race (although race amplifies it). Certainly "Hix Nix Stix Pix" had an element of that disrespect, absent race.
1
@sonnel: Prince Faisal was Caucasian, but what on earth is wrong with an actor playing a part of ANY character, real or imagined, regardless of ethnic group? Taking your logic to its end, you're saying that Kirk Douglas (an American of Ashkenazi ethnicity) shouldn't have played Vincent van Gogh (a Dutchman and gentile).
1
@Maria da Luz Teixeira Your question is for Mr. Yancy. As far as I know, everyone on the Indian subcontinent is Caucasian too, as are most Latinos in the US. And denigration doesn't need racial difference to occur: is there any significant racial difference between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland? But I'm sure denigration happens anyway... even for... "poor cousins"... pretty much indistinguishable genetically.
2
@Maria da Luz Teixeira
I must say I agree -- to an extent. We must abhor cultural domination, which blackface represents.
But cultural appropriation is something else. While I think minority actors should in general play minority roles -- as they have been underrepresented in opportunity -- it becomes absurd, as you say, when you begin nitpicking. And it may deprive minority performers from opportunity. For instance, should Spike Lee not have directed "The 25th Hour," about a white drug dealer going to prison (excellent film, wonderful Edward Norton performance and dynamite score with Springsteen on the end credits)?
Should the late Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee not have starred with their son Guy in a production of "Long Day's Journey Into Night," Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical masterpiece?
One of the reasons I love opera and ballet is that they are color blind. No one cares about race or ethnicity. It's all about hitting the high Cs in "La FIlle du Régiment" and doing the 32 fouettés in "Swan Lake."
No one ever said, "Oh my God, Leontyne Price is singing in 'Madama Butterfly'" -- a story of a Japanese geisha sung in Italian. Opera lovers said, "Oh my God, we have tickets to hear Leontyne Price."
But then, opera and ballet do not have the hyperrealism -- and money and power -- of the more popular media. -- thegamesmenplay.com
1
Agreed, but that doesn't mean that public officials, black or white, must necessarily resign over non-criminal "cultural" offenses committed decades ago.
13
If I found myself living in a society where I thought the majority was parasitically feeding off and excluding me because of my race, I think I'd look to see if life might be better for me in a society where people of my own race were in power. If I found that life would in fact be worse for me in such places, I might reconsider the nature of my relationship with the people of the society I had imagined parasitical.
7
@Charlie Clarke To clarify for those who think I'm saying if you don't like it, go home. First, this is your home, assuming you live here. What I am saying is that to solve problems we need to study them carefully. Before we blame any group of people for our problems, something that has historically led to tragedy, we need to evaluatet the complex causes of those problems. One example is the tendency of some conservatives to blame immigrants for our national problems. Whenever we see a term used that dehumanizes a group, such as "parasitic," we need to think carefully. Before we decide that America has problems because white people are "parasitic" we should try to compare their behavior to that of other peoples. We can do this by looking at other cultures. Are people treated better there? Are things more fair? Better and more just overall? If not, perhaps the problem is not that a particular group is parasitic, but that humans are tribal and violent and cruel. There is nohting special or unique about white people.
@Charlie Clarke Black were brought to this country in chains, against their will and worked for FREE for 400 years. So, according to you since Blacks were excluded through no fault of their own and have been systematically excluded they should stop complaining or go back to where they came from. You're what wrong with this country. Take your blinders off and grow a soul.
@Charlie Clarke
In other words, "shut up and put up with it, or go back to where you came from"? The lack of compassion and understanding is mind-boggling.
Ta-Nehisi-Coates said it best in his writings that: 'Being white means something to some people, The whiteness has a value and is so important to them that they engage in racist behavior as a matter of fact.' (paraphrasing)
When I moved to this area 35 years ago from Detroit I was stunned at how pervasive that sentiment and strong belief was here. Some would make the most hair-curling statements to me as if they were not just established fact, but they assumed I was of the same mind just because I am white.
During the confederate statue removal period I posted many opinions from this opinion page with the subject Slave Labor Built this Country. The extreme and viscous responses were eye opening and quite unsettling to me. When Barrack Obama was president some would bray loud and long in restaurants and other public spaces that this was clear evidence of the 'end times'. Or that as 'Christians' they would be 'OK when the worst happens'.
To those that do not like what Mr. Yancy has to say I believe that you missed his larger theme of consumption and projection.
Most of the derogatory remarks I pointed out above came from some who just had to have the need to feel superior in some way to non-whites, however slim that margin was in their heads.
9
What a wonderfully insightful article. I must admit, that as a white male, I was initial put somewhat on the defensive. I don't see myself as a white parasite benefiting from white privilege, and I did bristle at the suggestion.
However, on closer reading and some reflection, I think my initial reaction was misguided. I can remember painful moments in my own personal history where unwelcome aspects of my socially constructed white self was uncomfortably close to some of the behavior we now publicly vilify. Professor Yancy may be right, condemning this behavior is a form of distancing for whites, and perhaps blackface is the white man's burden.
50
"To embrace the rejected parts of our humanity that require scapegoats."
This article helped me understand racism better in its parallel explanation of how dehumanizing or humiliating others serves to assuage group pain, massive brutality and degradation on a societal level.
I was abused by my father and brother, not because I was of a different race, but simply because my father needed a place to put his rage.
It would strike me that forgiveness, compassion, and understanding by the abused could be a way out of this.
Racism is collective rage
29
@AvidReader
That is very disturbing. I'm sorry for the abuse you received; you did not deserve that. But...do you believe that if you'd forgiven and understood your father he would have stopped being abusive? The abuser is the one with the control and thus the ability and responsibility to stop the abuse.
14
These incidents of white men dressing and made up in ‘Black Face’ appeared in college and high school settings where photographs in yearbooks. Where were the school officials and yearbook advisors in these specific cases? In public schools where I worked especially during the years of desegregation, there was immediate editing and intolerance of such insensitive, racist, acts. Students were punished with a school code that required a suspension hearing with parents and guardians. School committees authorized these school codes of conduct. Where is the chain of command in these cases?
The only blackface I ever saw -- until recent photographs in The New York Times -- was Al Jolson's, when he sang "Mammy." It seemed to me that he was honoring a tradition, not making fun of it.
I have no doubt, however, that most young men and women who have in the last 5 decades dressed up as black people did so with malice. After all those civil rights marches in the 1960s, in which Southern cops set big dogs and fire hoses on well-dressed black men and women walking miles in pursuit of their civil rights, how could it not be? I remember as a child seeing that footage on TV and being horrified. That college students could wear blackface is really staggering.
Besides, who dresses up? In my life, I've never been to a costume party. Must be -- if I might be permitted to say so -- something about a sort of English heritage, a Monty Python mentality, foreign to those of us with immigrant grandparents. We tend not to dress up as other people.
On the other hand, in the heyday of Motown, lots of white girls curled their hair in tribute to their singing idols. I do not think that doing so was malicious. (Others actually ironed their curly hair to look like Twiggy.)
Thing are complicated. More complicated than this piece suggests.
8
What a great way to take a relatively easily understood problem and turn it into an intellectual mess.
Peacock puffery is not needed when an ordinary cockatoo will do.
8
"we would need to...embrace the rejected parts of our humanity that requires scapegoats.”
I'd say this same moral revision is at the heart of our political divide too.
While blackface as a validation of whiteness through the degradation of the black "other" may no longer be socially acceptable, the show does go on. The targets include a host of "others": racial and religious minorities, women, liberals, LGBT, etc. The specific caricature may no longer be performed, but the general form has become both expansive and conspiratorial: the distortions performed in spoken word; the degradation through derision; the affirmation through call and response. What is a Trump rally but an extended, thinly veiled minstrel show of white validation?
4
I'm an Indian American, and in my experience racism is not a white problem - it is a human problem. I'm ashamed to say that there is plenty of racism in my own ethnic community, and I've seen plenty of it amongst other races both in American and abroad.
I doubt that Mr. Yancy can honestly say that he's never been at a family or community event where people from his own race have said or done something prejudiced, or vile, or disrespectful about another race.
This isn't to excuse blackface. But solutions always begin with looking inward at our own faults before we begin to accuse others.
30
Thank you Professor Yancy,
Even progressive whites who often think of ourselves as past the deep seated roots of racism need daily reminders of how far yet we have to go.
4
@John from PA Just reading the comments is eye opening. It's amazing the hoops people will go through.
so far back, but I have some memory of Al Jolson, his portrayal of a singer in black face wasn't seen as anti-black by my immigrant , but aggressively non discriminatory, radical father, he felt Jolson was bringing some small aspect of African American culture aka Jazz to a mainstream white audience. These things are never as simple as seen from far away.
8
@James Patuto Sorry James but NO and sometimes things are as simple as they seen. I guess it's whatever makes one sleep at night no matter how non discriminatory or radical, huh?
On a divergent point, I submit that as a white person, I have been a huge fan of black entertainment during my entire adulthood. One of my favorite bands is Parliament Funkadelic whose creative genius, George Clinton, has often presented the challenges of black America in something akin to a sarcastic version of a blackface minstrel show that tries to make sense of the centuries of oppression and struggles. in an effort to find an alternative universe for black America. In its heyday in the late 1970's the Parliafunkadelicment thang was an effective way to bring this plight to America but white America wasn't listening. Ironically, this creative vision and expression of blackness "evolved" into the hip hop and rap of today, some of which is an informed study of the travails of black America and some of which is nothing more than a modern minstrel show and is really the only "blackface" performance that continues unabated today, oblivious to the racist stereotypes that if fulfills. Or perhaps embracing those stereotypes.
I wonder how many would be concerned about the problems of "blackface" if it was not for Trump being around. He represents, in my mind, a truly bad side of America. And yet he is hailed as a hero for 35% of America.
Could this be why the other 65% feel that they have to have zero tolerance for Americans that did something wrong in their past even though have since lived good lives.
It seems to me that this form of repudiation for Black Face and the me-to movement hurt people just in an attempt to make a statement about Trump.
I have a feeling that none of this affects Trump or he supporters.
3
Interesting argument. It reminded me a bit of interactions with my ex, who exhibits narcissistic personality disorder. Often I learn what he's thinking by what he accuses me of doing/saying. It's uncanny. I used to find it distressing, but now it's more funny tinged with sad.
4
This article makes important points, but critical race theory scholars really need to learn to write in a way that ordinary people have a chance at understanding. There's just so much off-putting jargon in here.
8
White youth sometimes try to imitate Black athletes with certain very cool moves on the basketball court. There are instances of Whites using Black speech patterns in some circumstances in order to sound hip or even dominant. Dance moves trying to imitate Sammy Davis Jr. may not even be recognized as such even when they were derived from Sammy by the dancer. High School theater has seen it okay for White students to dress up as a Native American or Chinese, even using some face makeup. Theater is older than America's period of Southern slavery and the denigrating practices of blackface. I think there must be a way for a White American actor or actress to tastefully portray an African American character in a legitimate theater piece without it being looked at as anything having to do with the old blackface practices.
3
@marcoslk
The way to tastefully portray an African American character is to hire African American actors. There is no need for Caucasian actors to do this anymore
4
@Monstera So, might you defer your objections if the scene were a rich, all-white suburban high school doing Othello with the star made up in black face makeup by a beauty parlor lady that could really do the trick? What if you could see the performance and when the star walked out and began to speak the entire audience was stunned? You could almost hear the makeup brush drop. Everyone applauded like crazy and the finale. Why should Black people be the only characters on earth that people of another color shouldn't be allowed to copy? Isn't imitation supposed to be a form of flattery?
1
Professor Yancy's essay is painfully on point.
My white adoptive family insists that I am white to them even though I identify as an Asian immigrant from a war-torn land.
They think they compliment me when they call me white, but I feel unseen and insulted.
Is there any white person who understands why? Please tell me how you reached that understanding so that I can reach them.
3
My heart goes out to you that you have to experience this kind of erasure.
For a White person, which I am, it’s insanely hard to get on the inside of this issue.
How it seems to me is like this: When you’re White, until you’ve educated yourself about White culture and engaged with White studies, you’ve no idea that Whiteness is a “thing.” To you, then, Whiteness is synonymous with reality. Whites, except for more woken ones, are not aware that our reality is not thee reality and that we think of everything outside of it as “perspectives.”
A thought that comes to me about your question is that maybe when your adopted parents say they see you as White, they are unconsciously saying they don’t see you as “other.” Which would be an expression of our (Whites’) incomprehension that our world view, understandings, judgments, interpretations, perspectives and even our feelings are White. That is to say, culture shapes every aspect of a person. A White person is shaped by White culture. The problem is that we don’t realize there is such a thing. That’s not to deny that underneath the think layer of culture, there is our foundational humanity which we all share in common (such as love and acceptance as necessary ingredients for flourishing).
A question as an entry-point for conversation could be: If, for argument’s sake, you adopted me to give me “a better life,” did you inadvertently envision giving me a White life?
I hope this helps in some way. Sending you good vibes.
1
Dr. Yancy addresses an important topic. Yet as some readers have suggested, sweeping claims about whites are no better than sweeping claims about blacks, e.g., through blackface. And here's where the rubber meets the road: as a white person, I've not only never worn blackface, but I've been a teacher for forty years. In that capacity, I don't care about black students - or white students, or men or women. I care about people. To the best of my ability, I judge my students based on their individual merits. As a result, I've mentored and written letters of recommendation for many black students over the years. Yet if Dr. Yancy (or anyone else) already knows that since I'm white then by definition I'm a racist, why should I try to be anything else?
10
See Spike Lee's Bamboozled, a very under-rated satire.
And then remember that we all come out of the womb ready to be a hunter-gatherer, and getting us to behave differently is a lot of hard work. Civilization, as you call it, it is not "white," it is capitalist, and that system happened to develop in "white" areas first, making plenty of "white" victims first before the pains and rewards of capitalist conformity spread around the world (to different "colors" of people).
Human beings spent thousands of years unable to travel far, and so they hated and killed people who looked just like them (and thanks to promiscuity and kidnapping wives, even the worst "enemies" kept taking steps to look just like each other). "Racism" is just an artifact of long-distance travel enabling people to hate and abuse those who don't look like themselves, and to imagine that "race" is a cause.
The confusions of the interactions of a badly-behaved species with a high-tech economy built on greed are boundless.
5
It is a jungle out there. The jungle becomes more apparent when civilization one bangs into civilization two: say Europeans into Africans or Europeans into Native Indians. It is a jungle because territory is sought by one group that has superior weapons and ideas. A fight ensues. At various junctures the warring camps try psychological tricks, inclusive of justifications for why they should win -- apart from having better organization and weapons, and exploitative ideas. What's to be done? It really is a jungle.
The resolution is to make the world less like a jungle. This involves territory not staying in contention, but a new sense of mental territory growing into existence. In this new jungle, all might benefit from the enlightenment of all. Thence to the modern world.
At some point, with this perspective, something like blackface is just silly, but maybe, for some crude people, a necessary step to acceptance of others, heretofore thought lessors, into a universal fold.
The happier resolution is for the medical school (cf. the yearbook) to fund scholarships for black students, to really show they have maturated past earlier phases of total acceptance of others -- else they are really the new inferiors.
1
I wonder what percent of living Americans have actually seen a white person in black face, not counting photos or films. At age 75, I've never seen it, and I grew up in the South.
10
One of the defining moments of "Django Unchained" was Samuel Jackson wearing Blackface in his role as Stephen, the major demo on a slave plantation. It was a stroke of genius: we are familiar with Mr. Jackson's face, and the addition of Blackface was meant to be noticed and amounted to shock appropriation. And, as it turns out, he's the mastermind behind Calvin Candie, the hateful character played by Leonardo di Caprio. Wow.
3
It is time for non whites to stop seeing whites as if we all were part of the white elite. Black face has been deemed an insult. So be it. Growing up in a neighborhood that was mostly no more than a generation from Europe, as children for Halloween a boy might have gone as a girl, a vampire or even put on blackface. Nor did our parents know the history. My mother's family came here in 1911 and he father died in a coal mine when she was 7. My father's family were here earlier but were also just catholic immigrants form Ireland.
So ok, we won't put on black face or wear an Indian bonnet. But that really is not much of an achievement.
9
@Terry McKenna blackface is part of White culture in other countries.
Thoughtful insights of race relations circa 2019 are lost because Mr. Yancy replaces any nuanced insight into the complexities of race relations with ideological jargon that broadly attacks "whiteness." Evidently, like many adherents of critical race theory, he believes the path forward for race relations in this country is for white people to somehow come together to micro-manage "white" psychology so that the result is ----- what exactly? Evidently, a national "white identity" that is sufficiently woke.
9
Yancy’s article isn’t about blackface per se; it’s about racism in America that refuses to die.
Some seem threatened by his conclusion: “What if blackface is clear evidence of the emptiness of whiteness, the hollowness of its being as an identity marker?” But there is ample evidence that the identity of many whites in America is on shaky ground, struggling for definition. They fear their approaching minority status and being denied the American Dream - their white birthright. “Western civilization,” flush with cultural markers of white identity, is being diluted and replaced.
But historically white America has always had an identity defined by illusion. America has always been a country of “posers” (think Trump) pretending to be something they weren’t in order to establish who they imagined they were – thus creating an actual identity that was disillusioned if not hollow.
Some of the very first Americans, the Puritans, landed as the “Chosen People” – people whose identity was defined, not by themselves, but by their god. The founding fathers had an identity crisis when they imagined themselves as people who believed that “all men are created equal.” Today white America believes its global identity as the healthiest, the happiest, and the smartest in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
America’s racism creates an identity void. It’s another confused identity marker that attempts to establish who you are through the forced assertion of who you are not.
68
There is another vast territory of self-hatred and insecurity under the surface. James Baldwin discussed this in detail.
3
Another perfect example of an ivory tower champion getting lost in abstract paintings of "whiteness" which, of course, by default equals white supremacy, neither explaining the past nor describing present times by the mere fact of conflating yesterday and today and tomorrow for that matter. Prof Yates deals with ideas not actual human beings in actual history. Reading this article one could think that tickets for minstrel shows with Thomas Darmouth Rice are available at the theater near you and millions of white people are lining up daily to entertain themselves as if it's the 1840s. Blackface is a problem for white people? It is not a problem at all! About 6 percent of the population believe that Elvis is still alive. That's about 5.99999 percent more than those who find Blackface entertaining! Moving on to things that matter!
19
Yancy's argument amounts to, "I think that X is like Y. X is pretty awful. Therefore someone who did Y should resign from his position."
But is X always like Y? When a white actor plays Othello, does it necessarily follow that the white actor is a racist?
Apparently 30 different actors have played Othello. Some were white, like Laurence Olivier. or John Gielgud. Some were black, like James Earl Jones or Laurence Fishburne.
It is difficult to arrive at a judgment. I do not want to condemn Laurence Olivier or John Gielgud without any clear evidence of their racism.
Professor Yancy, whether he realizes it or not, is promoting a form of McCarthyism where an assumption of guilt spreads more and more over society so that the society goes into a state of crisis and, ahem, we lose the race with China.
7
@Ludwig
A lot more than 30 actors have played Othello in its over-400 years' existence, and at least back into the 1820s, some were black. But no white actor playing Othello was "doing blackface", which automatically assumes a racist intent; he was simply making up to achieve the nearest possible physical approximation to the character he was playing, in a play in which the lead character's race pretty much drives both the action and the psychology of that character. Of course Olivier and Gielgud were not acting out of racist motivations, anymore than were Paul Robeson, William Marshall and James Earl Jones when those black actors took on the role of a military leader who is, in all other respects, hardly the brightest kid in the class. It seems that white actors are not even considered for this role any longer, which is a kind of reverse racism to be sure, and when Verdi's operatic version of the play is performed at the Met these days. the tenor singing the title role is not allowed to use even darkening make-up, which rather makes a shambles of the entire story. IT IS NOT BLACKFACE BUT SIMPLY REALISTIC MAKE-UP! But Mr. Gelb says, "We have gone beyond that kind of thing." Professor Yancy should beware of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
3
When I read proggie boilerplate like "the structure of whiteness", I know I'm dealing with one of the factors that helped get Donald Trump elected, and with someone working assiduously to get him re-elected.
11
Yeah - in the tradition of French existentialism Prof Yancy obfuscates and confuses made up terminology for a reflection of reality.
There is a history of 'Blackface' around the world that predates slavery in the USA and has nothing to do with subjugation.
There are the Blackface traditions of the magii around the world. There are Moorish agricultural festivals. You can find it in Iran among 22 other countries around the world
It includes its converse - whiteface as well - which is practiced in Africa, Asia among other locations
So absent any real information or an actual argument presented by Yancy, I will continue to believe Blackface mocking POC is practiced by a very few BAD APPLES.
8
That is an excellent opinion piece. It helps explain "blackface" and our (white) confusion. I've read a small portion of Peggy McIntosh's work. I've read about slavery and the life in the deep south. I've studied just a small portion of black history. I'm not looking to be excused.
Your opinion piece helps straighten out something that is confusing for white people. "Confusion" is the word.
For most white people when we think of "Blackface" we think of Al Jolson. And because it appears no one has pilloried him, we (whites) don't find anything wrong with "blackface". I guess we are confused just as Megan Kelly was confused.
As regards Ralph Northam and Anthony Sabatini, what should they do, should they resign so that someone of the caliber of Clarence Thomas, Woodrow Wilson, or Donald Trump should take their place? Would the people of Virginia or Florida be better served? Can't people grow from their mistakes and become better people without public apologies? (I am personally tired about public apologies.)
As the comedian Aries Spears said, "There is a little bit of racist in all of us." Were all confused.
I feel like it is not correct to describe this as a black and white problem. Its more accurately a one tribe or identifiable group against other(s), so they can have more.
Blackface and other forms of mockery help define and demean the 'other'. I agree with Karena from Canada, its and esoteric article.
"Race", "Whiteness" and "Blackness" exist as overheated, Western delusions that have caused immeasurable amounts of pain and suffering. Until the myth that people can be accurately divided by "race" is finally extinguished, we will continue needless suffering of the human race. It is way past time to let go of this concept for the greater good of humanity.
5
The condemnation of blackface in this column is appropriate and well articulated. The condemnation of all of "white" America for the practice is inappropriate--and racist in its own way. I have never practiced blackface or been a party to someone else doing so. I don't even know of anyone who has practiced blackface. Blackface is not my problem. I bear no burden of responsibility for its practice. We have a word for the practice of attributing blame based on a person's racial characteristics. We call it racism. I know that Mr. Yancy and his allies have developed new, Orwellian definitions of racism, wherein you can only be a racist if you have a certain skin color, but I unlike them I am committed to a society that is colorblind, a society that judges people based on "the content of their character," not the color their skin.
10
another illustration of the intellectual vacuity and moral bankruptcy of Critical Race Theory. Does a great disservice to the truths ironically referenced therein. Also a great disservice by helping Trump in 2020. Maybe try Buddhism as an alternative and watch less TV?
7
@steven wilsonl
I agree the article is overwritten, but did you have an actual critique?
1
It's a cultural expression of "the other", so if you reverse that yes, it is just about white and black. So the author seems to be labeling us too.
2
@JayGee
Re your comment: "As a woman, I see a similar dynamic occurring when men dress in drag. It appears to me that men exaggerate female characteristics and behavior in order to mock women..."
Not just you. My thoughts exactly as I read this piece. Read it substituting woman for black. I wonder if the male author would then agree with his own rather pretentious explication.
Or how about substituting the word Jew, Muslim, Asian, Native American, Italian.... we could go on. Every group denigrates "the other" to validate its superiority and appease its insecurity. Racism is toxic and malignant, but it's hardly unique to or the metaphysical summation of whiteness.
9
If we boil this down to common English, much is just an acknowledgement that white people (to the extent that they can be made into a homogeneous group) see black people as different. Are there any societies that don't see differences? Do Han Chinese not see Uighurs as different? Did the native Americans not originally see the whites as possibly ghosts (at least in some encounters?) Ok, so we all need to learn. But please let's stop using "normative" and other words designed for academic papers to say something that is really simple.
8
@Terry McKenna
He actually uses "normative" wrong: "On this score, American whiteness embodied and embodies an epistemological and ontological divide that it takes as 'normative,' as 'common sense.'" "Normative" means a "required" or "imposed" or really "rule-following"; it does not mean "natural."
1
While I have no quarrel with the Profesor's thesis here, I can't help but think he is at the very least lecturing the symposium and that his high-falutin' academic lexicon is lost of those who might most benefit from it--that is, in the unlikely event that they could understand it.
Blackface is just another way of whites declaring that they can easily take the place of blacks. In the process they demean blacks with a facile and one-dimensional substitute which precludes their participation in the act itself.
4
I admit that I read a bit into Mr. Yancy's piece--but what I understood him to be saying, to some degree, is that blackface is a metaphor for something at the heart of white racism.
The murder of Trayvon Martin (among other young black men) is, when read in this sense, an instance of blackface. Mr. Martin's white killer projected onto Mr. Martin (a black man, a black male body) a particular white man's false notion of who a black man is. And that allowed this white man to murder (to destroy) that black man. The murderer had obliterated Mr. Martin even before he killed him. He had erased Mr. Martin's identity as a black man and replaced it with a racist caricature that allowed the white man to justify Mr. Martin's destruction.
Other instances of blackface as metaphor can be found in Hollywood's long, sordid history of portraying black men and women.
Philosophical language can often become hyperbolic in an effort to make its point--and this is always a danger. But I am a "white" male. And I found Mr. Yancy's point, at least as I understood it, to be valid--even if the language pushed a few buttons.
4
@CAP Thank you.
I had a recent conversation about blackface with a man who had spend his life in theater. He made a point about masks and how that gives a "freedom of id" to the wearer. "The freedom to be what?" I asked. "A racist?" But I've been thinking about it. Why does a white person want to be black? Even in grotesque caricature? Is it complicated? I think Mr. Yancy is right in stating that blackface is a white issue. But it may not just be pure mockery and hatred. It may be desire. It may even be a longing for connection. After all, why dress as Michael Jackson? Who wouldn't want his skill set? I don't think this issue is black and white - as troubling as that thought is.
4
Nothing more exemplifies the fact that color was and is a social construct than the actually coloring of the face by use of burnt champagne cork. This makes a celebratory and erasable marking that left an indelible stain. The spurious and absurdist defining of blackness presented with blackface not only defines color for white supremacy, but it is also utilized to posit and sustain the binary identity of whiteness itself. Beside the continuing presence of actual blackface today, in elite places like Covington High School, the defense of political correctness as the claim that overly sensitive snowflakes do not get the supposedly innocuous jokes of bigotry remind us that the haunting spirit of
minstrel blackface is far from effaced.
It's phrases like this that undercut the argument here, " whiteness and its attempt to make sense of itself through both the consumption and the negation of black humanity".
Not all white people are the same, and there's a lot more to humanity than white or black people. Both are in the minority, actually, most humans are East Asian.
The truth is, barely any white people put on blackface these days, which is why it's so shocking and newsworthy when they do. But this article paints all white people with the same broad brush, which is not useful. If people make the fight against racism one of all black people against all white people, in America, black people would lose.
Just as "Black people are not the horrible and derogatory racist myths that so many white people have depicted", so are white people not the horrible and derogatory racist myths that are being asserted in this article.
12
This is the best piece I’ve ever read about this strange practice. I didn’t grow up in this country and was raised by very liberal parents so I’ve always been somewhat mystified by blackface and, for that matter, white racism though, of course, I have a deep appreciation of history. If words were knives, you have flayed the matter with the precision of a surgeon.
3
White people need blackface? As I white person, the only contemporary context I've heard of blackface is when someone gets caught doing it and it makes national news, after which that person gets a lot of heat. I've never seen anyone do blackface and I've never heard any anecdotal story from anyone else about seeing blackface. Maybe saying white Americans (200 million people?) "need" a practice so taboo that a picture of someone doing it decades ago leads to calls for resignation from a current job is just a bit of exaggeration?
By the way, 70 percent of black Virginians do not want the governor to resign. This obsession with maintaining a constant state of fever pitch vigilance against every minute symbolic racial transgression is not something shared by most people of color.
These are the obsessions of generally highly educated, class-privileged people of color who work in fields like academia and the media, and who correctly recognize that their livelihood depends on this stuff.
8
@ Eric Maybe folks in the Hudson Valley don’t do blackface any more but I live in Brooklyn, capital of liberalism. I’m within walking distance of an elite private school where not long ago teenagers put on blackface to the amusement of their peers and not very much adult disapproval. I bet there’s more of this about than we’d like to admit.
3
I am white and I don't need blackface, never wore blackface. It seems whiteness is being portrayed as evil and boogeyman-like in this article. Is there any race without evil people in it? Rhetorical question - there aren't. Are there any races without good people in them? Rhetorical again. No.
Painting any race in all one "color" as this article does, making being white as evil in itself is no way to bring people together. We can't deal with the demons of our past by making them the demons of our present.
13
@Lock Him Up
I have two words for that position: Tamar Rice. When you combine the rhetorical question with the right to use deadly force, the balance is tipped. It's not just the right to use deadly force and it's execution, it's the entire support structure behind it, and then the fact that structure is completely intractable so far.
Here's a heartening result of these opinion pieces: after my last comment, I had 2 requests for more information about my comments. Here's a great seminal one: "When Affirmative Action Was White" by Ira Katznelson. A little academic in approach, but really well-documented, which is important in the age of "fake news". It's hard to fake that much information.
2
The issue of white racism - or monstrosity, to follow the author's lead - is not simply bilateral white-on-black. It is a warped misconception of biological hierarchy that places white, Christian America at the pinnacle of all Creation, including all other humans.
Without diminishing the degrading nature of blackface, at the very least, in 2019 it can be called out and decried for the racisim that it represents. Imagine what would happen if an NFL or MLB team adopted a caricature of a someone in blackface or a black person as their mascot and showed that image daily on national television. Yet, this is exactly what we tolerate with respect to native Americans. When people object, it is still possible to defend the Washington Redskins and Atlanta Braves logos and mascots as "just in fun."
Maybe that's because there are more black survivors in the US than there are native Americans. While black Africans were enslaved, which is terrible enough, native Americans were simply exterminated because their way of life was incompatible with the white European concepts of land ownership, and they were considered too "savage" to serve any useful purpose to whites. Black Americans are an inconvenient, but all too visible reality, whereas native Americans are mostly out of sight, so it is easy to pretend they don't exist.
Reading Mr. Yancy's comments twice, I feel as I'm in very deep mud. You can be certain that the vast number of entertainers in blackface did not muse on racism or grotesque white monsters, they thought about earning enough to pay the rent. Does Mr. Yancy really think Al Jolson acted with overt bigotry? I think not. There are bigots and they use disgusting symbols but they are not as pervasive as you might think. Most people of all races are not filled with some ontological want because they don't think that deep because they don't hate anyone. They are afraid of 'The Other' but can be reached and finally understand what is wrong and change their behavior. The whole point of Christianity is that human beings can learn compassion, mercy and forgiveness and change. The US has changed and will keep doing so. Remember all these white folk voted for Barack Obama not out of guilt or remorse but because they liked him and they did not engage verbose intellectual musing. The worst of what Blackface is about is fading away and will finally be seen as a piece of our rustic past.
7
@David Fairbanks
In fact Jolson was the opposite of racist -- or regarded as the opposite of racist by black audiences at the time, and by the black entertainers he promoted.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/filmhistory.23.2.196?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
A persuasive view of white prejudice and its effects, but I doubt that many white bigots need blackface these days. There are lots of other ways to express contempt. I also wonder whether the recent vote by the United Methodist Church to ban same-sex marriage ceremonies and LGBT clergy, a vote carried partly because of the African constituencies, doesn't suggest a similar dynamic on the part of Africans, and African-Americans, in regard to homosexuality. Insofar as African Americans are prejudiced against gays, is that--along with whites similarly inclined--their burden?
7
This is a moving and deep analysis and I join those who deplore the practice of blackface in modern times. Still, I wonder if these privileged young adults were doing much more than being mischievous at the expense of Black people. In private, lots of people do make fun of others, whether people of color or people with disabilities. I imagine Black people make fun of White people too. It is not very nice, but it can be funny if you're there. It might, but does not necessarily say something all that deep about your racial prejudices.
6
White supremacy is knit into the nation's DNA, and there is no such thing as a social CRISPR virus to edit the trait out of future generations of white Americans. Simply put, we are all racists here. Our only choices relate to what kind of racist we want to be. Like an alcoholic dealing with their addiction, we can be an unexamined racist, an unrepentant racist, or a recovering racist. We can never be cured from our racism. It is simply too deeply ingrained in every aspect of our language and media. It shapes every family system and every institution. Trying to extinguish racism is like playing whack-a-mole. It just keeps coming back in a new and different form. The best we can do is commit ourselves to dismantling the behaviors and the structures we are aware of, knowing that they will morph over time and need to be deconstructed again by the generations that follow us.
5
Do you really expect all college kids or anyone young in the 80s and 90s to know the full history of blackface? You can say that this history "should" be taught but it wasn't when I was in school. Of course I never used the "n" word and never wore blackface and was raised to treat everyone with equal respect. But at the same time, I grew up dressing as an old fashioned China man and an Indian (Native American) for Halloween, too. It wasn't meant to degrade anyone. It was a costume. Trying on a different personality. What about the book "Black Like Me"? Was that wrong? For a white person to dress as a black person to better understand the experience? Was it wrong for Eddie Murphy for comic purposes to put on whiteface? I guess what I am asking is, when are sins forgiven? The people in Virginia have apologized. It's 30 years ago. Don't we believe that people are capable of change? We cannot move forward if we forget history but we also cannot move forward if we are stuck in the past.
6
I am reminded of Chris Rock's point about racial progress. It's not how far Black folks have come. It's how far white folks have come and have yet to go. Race progress is indeed my burden as an old white man, not the burden of the folks that have endured the distortion of their lives.
5
I would never attempt to explain why a race needs something.
7
Since it's unclear whether the authors of NYT's columns write their own titles, this piece may unintentionally run into some terminological quicksand. My takeaway from this piece isn't that white people need blackface, as the title states, but that blackface helps inform "whiteness", a word the author himself uses. Otherwise, one conflates a generalized, verbally explicable, and neatly bounded self-identity of "whiteness" with "white people", which seems to me a classic example of racial essentialism. With that friendly amendment, for what it's worth, this "white" person agrees with the author's argument.
Maybe it's considerations of space that force the author to be a bit generalized and vague in terms of culture and history. On that, all I can say is that this white Southerner never saw in person and certainly never did blackface himself growing up in the 1960s and 70s South. Likewise for every Southern friend and relative I've asked since the latest scandals. Not claiming where I grew up (E. Tenn.) was a racial paradise, of course. Rather, when you look at who's been involved in these recent scandals, they've been part of the Southern elite, those at the top of the three-tiered Southern caste system. Maybe it was different for the white middle caste in former days. But nowadays, hey, I'd really like to know why such a practice became popular among the elite. Slumming?
3
Blackface certainly was a problem, but nowadays a far greater problem is the opportunistic exploitation of past mistakes being used to fuel racial animosity.
People who donned blackface decades ago can at least claim ignorance, those who profit from it now have no excuse.
5
I agree with most everything Prof.Yancy writes but I don't know if he can apply the same analysis to a realm outside of the Black/White binary. How I wish he had set ventured outside the Whites wearing Black Face issue to talk about Red Face. Almost everything stated about Black Face also applies to Red Face except that Red Face is still not sanctioned publicly in America. So it is not uncommon to see an entire stadium filled with White and Black People, in Red Face garb with feathered head dress, with facial war paint, chanting, beating drums, doing tomahawk chops, whooping and hollering and dancing in grotesque parody of American Indians. This practice is old as the USA. As the historic Boston Tea Party protesters who dressed up as Indians and sacked the British ships illustrate, the practice of Red Face is centuries old and it still continues today especially in the realm of professional sports. What is it that drives White people and Black people to dress in Red Face?
4
I agree, when your idea of fun is to mock a historically oppressed group of people, you have to ask yourself what's really going on in your subconscious, and why you feel the need to do such a thing, and why it gives you satisfaction. It betrays deep fragility and hatred of parts of oneself, buried under denial and projection, as Prof. Yancy notes.
1
Just to add to the mix, I figure I should mention animated blackface. Remember Heckel and Jeckel, or the crows in the animated movie Dumbo? But then, those old cartoons were equal opportunity insulters. They made fun of everybody:
Old white men - Mr McGoo, Elmer Fudd
Hillbillies - Mushmouse and Punkinpuss, Yosemite Sam
Women - Betty Boop, Olive Oyl
People with bad tempers - Donald Duck
I don't know how relevant all this is, but I just thought I'd add it to the mix.
4
Something tells me this article is beyond the understanding of those it seeks to enlighten, including the half-baked politicians mentioned.
If you're trying to address ignorance, speak its language or be ignored.
4
" Blackface is not a black problem. It is a white one, and fixing it is the job of white America ".
I don't know enough science to summarize the conclusions of the writer that I believe to be clearly true , but in posting the end point above it agrees with an observation I have been writing recently that " Only the good White People can defeat the racist and sexist White People that prevent equality for everyone who is not a White Male " .
As simple as that revelation was it points out the futility of the struggle waged by women for liberation . It argues that the almost 200 years African Americans went from chains around their necks and ankles to being considered equal sometimes in management jobs in the Northeast can only overcome racism but so far . If America is ever going to parallel the words of the song " America the Beautiful " we need those in power to welcome Non-Whites to their churches , their schoolhouses , their neighborhoods and the golf course .
We need the good White People to stand up and oppose the people behind Trump who want to maintain White Supremacy and prevent America from becoming great .
Run this same piece in October and see who even dares dress up in costume for Halloween for fear psychoanalysis will be required afterwards.
5
Just to underscore here, blackface is the manifestation of the grotesque and out-sized loathing we Whites feel toward ourselves but will not admit. It's striking that the recent examples of blackface show politicians in their youth. It suggests there is something in the socialization of white youth that requires developing such self-loathing and then projecting it onto black people in order to secure membership in white society.
Asking some of our children to learn to hate themselves or be ashamed of themselves, so they can actively or passively go on to hate, shame, and hurt others is such a sad state of affairs. I thank George Yancy and others like him who persist in asking whites to examine just what it is we are doing to our society.
4
Blackface does not tell you about "whiteness". It tells you about the human condition.
American B&W racism is born of British Colonial rule. It doesn't take much at all to control entire nations with such things as they rely on a human frailty, transference. They gave people an outlet for their resentment of the unfairness of the class system. Champagne corks!? seriously? I know I questioned Rochester's character at the very first seeing of a rerun on the Jack Benny show. I am not so different that other children did not also have the same reaction to it and blackface.
Blackface was(is) a way to put a barrier between the black performer and the white audience to prevent them seeing black people as "people like me". Another part of blackface is the caricature style of performance imposed for the same reason. It worked on black & white audience members at marking & enforcing the false social barriers even though they knew and understood what was being done.
Again the point of racism is to create a false dichotomy in society that pits the people against each other and draws their focus away from those who are actually responsible for the problematic things in their lives. The really insidious nature of it is that the harm inflicted by the first person convinced to act on it keeps it alive and breeds more without any more effort from those who got it started. That insidious mechanism is how poverty works at keeping people down too.
4
The humans who inhabit your planet would be better served by having ordinary people discuss this issue without a PhD's influence over the discussion. Let intellects knock it around in their own wonderful way, while allowing the ordinary folks to figure it out for themselves; otherwise you risk having simpletons like me resenting all of you earthlings.
The golden rule should suffice.
2
The rage that emanates from this article is understandable. Still, I don't know what to do about it. Am I as a so called "white" supposed to Accept criticism for something I have not done, that my ancestors have not done and nobody I know has done?
Frankly, I find this broad generalization of "whites" and "whiteness" racist. I don't think this approach helps us.
8
“The parasitic nature of whiteness”?
Yes, blackface is offensive and it’s history is one of degradation and oppression.
But responding to racism with even more racism will get us nowhere.
Yet another article that claims the mantle of social justice while actually sowing hatred and division while making broadly stereotypical claims.
16
Inn the white South (and I confess to being Southern and white) is a different kind of blackface not requiring no burnt cork. It is vocal. If at a meeting a white man makes a statement, in quoting him later at an all-white gathering another white will speak in a normal voice. If a black man speaks, that same man will quote him with high-pitched voice like of Prissy in GWTW, thus signifying that what was said was funny and laughable. It occurs in print. Writing about a white man, the writer might well have him say “I don’t know what you’re doing.” Later, if a black man says the same thing, it may well be written as “Ah don’ no whut you doin’” although the sentence would have been pronounced exactly the same way. (I said white South, but don’t believe for a moment that such practice is limited to us.)
Such impersonation has bothered me ever since I was a child in the 1940s seeing both blackface minstrel shows and womanless weddings (half the cast are dressed as women, and usually you’d have Eleanor Roosevelt arriving arm in arm with a blackface Marian Anderson) on the stage of our (white) high school auditorium. I thought both portrayals in their exaggerations showed cruelty toward those being mocked. Even yet drag can make me uncomfortable, even though it is often justified as an attempt by gay men to express their feminine side. Possibly, but too often the caricature seems to signify a hatred of women not so much by gay men but by men. It parallels blackface.
3
@Jonathan
You raise a fascinating point. At the end you make a questioning comparison of whether gay men in drag actually hate women and look down on them, belittle them; similar as to white people doing blackface. I know gay men who do drag and they do it as acting, imitation, admiration, etc. So, I wonder if blackface was done to a great extent with that in mind - imitation, admiration, etc. - such as a false Irish brogue.
I know what I just wrote will is very controversial and I am not countering what has been said by all the commenters and the writer, I am just wondering.
1
White people need Blackface because Blackface allows them to act like the way they envision Black people act. People who benefit daily from the baked in institutionalized racism of America when called out as racist become outraged. When Mark Meadows was called out as using a Black Woman as a prop tears came to his eyes. He reminded us that he has people of color in his family and that he was good friends with Cummings who happened to be Black. I think Cohen calling Trump a racist actually improved his poll numbers. This Pollyanna view of America is just that. A recent poll of Americans told us more than 60 percent of Americans dislike the Black Lives Matter Movement. The movement actually means Black Lives Should also Matter Too. No matter how we dance around it the fact is almost half of our country think only one race should matter. We as a nation think if we don't address something it doesn't exist. Racism affects every aspect of American life and to deny it is being disingenuous. The only thing on the horizon that is going to address inequality in America is going to be demographics. People in power never just have an epiphany and share it with the powerless.
4
Reading this column reminded me of a question on the multistate bar exam I took in 1981. The question started with the words: “Assume it is the year 1604” and proceeded to set forth a complicated fact pattern involving the long defunct legal concepts of dower and curtesy. This column on the scourge of blackface should have started with the words: “assume it is the year 1937.”
6
Sorry, but Green Book won the Academy Award for best picture.--not likely to see that "bigger and tougher America" any time soon.
3
This article appears to be based entirely on bitterness and animosity and doesn't show a shred of an honest attempt to understand the actual psychology of bigotry. If we're going to fight racism we have to do better than simply inflame anger.
5
A lot of words written to state an obvious truism: blackface is an execrable practice, that most will agree is deserving of nothing but censure. But "burden" & "accountability"? A person's responsibility for another's actions, unless they have partaken in or condoned them, is precisely nil. You pontificate a great deal about white America, but there is no single "white America" any more than there is a single "black America" (or indeed, perhaps a single America at all). Most white people (or any people) will be unwilling to accept responsibility for anything other than their own personal actions. If you want to create a constructive dialogue, you would do well to remember this. A person is an individual first and foremost, and if you try to place another person's cross upon their back, don't be surprised if they are less than willing to accept it.
6
I believe most of America is now aware what blackface means HOWEVER most of America was not aware of what it meant 30 years ago. If it did such comedians such as Fallon, Kimmel etc. would not have wore blackface on mainstream TV. We now know its hurt. We should learn together and grow together. If every youthful miscreant is condemned for life, we have failed as a society that forgives and allows for redemption. Worse such discussions will go underground and then progress is impossible for few people can stand up to the scrutiny of the righteous social media masses. He (she) that is without sin among you, let him (her) first cast a stone at her.
1
Correction: Governor Northam stated, upon further reflection, that he was not in the photo that was posted on his yearbook page. He probably took the photo of his friends at a party and captioned it about beer drinking. The caption is never mentioned. Was it in poor taste and insensitive? Absolutely . Should Northam’s life be ruined for the all the good he has done since? No.
2
Donning blackface as an exercise may actually be helpful in combating racism, but only if done figuratively, not literally to fully imagine what it must be like were your ancestors were captured in Africa, brought here as slaves, the inhuman treatment and extreme brutality employed by their fearful owners to clamp down on the natural desire for revenge and revolt, the mortal terror, lack of freedom and economic opportunities of Jim Crow that still pertains in parts of our country in the behavior of white neighbors and police. Imagine what the legacy of all this must feel like, e.g., the psychological burden at a very young age of your parents out of real concern for your safety, having to disabuse you of your childish expectations, that just because you have darker skin you are not to assume you are the same as other children, valued and treated equally, instead of as a stereotype.
I am a white male, born in 1945, brought up by educated parents in a mostly liberal, yet mostly unintergrated part of Queens, the same time and place where Trump lived. Despite never hearing a derogatory racial comment from my parents or anyone I knew, I must have unconsciously absorbed prejudices, as most must do, out of what was in the air at the time, & the lack of direct contact and experience. Though liberal and open-minded, it took me a long time to rid myself of them, and found the exercise of donning blackface figuratively, i.e., putting yourself in another's shoes, was very helpful.
For whites to construct an identity outside the racist construct, we would need to give up our socially constructed white selves and embrace the rejected parts of our humanity that requires scapegoats.” - This is pretty much what James Baldwin concluded! I don't believe White Americans will challenge and interrogate White supremacy in my lifetime. It entails too much emotional labor and few White people have demonstrated a stomach for that work.
Inaccurate racial generalizations, like those made in this article about so-called White people, only exacerbate racial problems. It's startling that they're being made by a college professor.
8
The academic pompousness of this piece is an affront to the reader. The condescension of the author makes him fair game for some sarcasm in return. To wit.
Maybe this is a good article. Maybe not. Once it is translated from PoMo or one of the other dialects of Fashionable Nonsense, one can judge.
Normally literate people trip over the following failures to speak English.
"interrogating white racism": to interrogate is to question, with instruments of torture at or in hand; one interrogates a human being; one does not interrogate an inhuman feature of society (white racism), a cat, a book, a sentence, etc.
"epistemological" is philosophical jargon; used in popular writing it calls for some paragraphs to translate the concept into popular English. Lots of luck.
"ontological" is a biggie of philosophical jargon; it calls for several pages to translate it into popular English. Five bucks says you can't do it.
"white knowing". Huh? Well, I know lots of whites. Does that make me a "white knowing" person? If so, then I'm also a Black knowing, Latino knowing, Russian knowing, etc, person.
"white unknowing". Harder. Is this something like unfriending whites on Facebook?
15
@alyo
A few few years ago, I was in a mid-career graduate master's degree program at Columbia University (Strategic Communications).
There were several cardinal sins one could commit in communicating with one's audience, using jargon was in the top three. Surely the author is aware, but perhaps seeks to confuse rather than enlighten.
4
For the love of Jeebus, please stop generalizing all people of European origin. You are preaching to the blancos that never lived in a city where they were the minority. As a life long Chicagoan I have never lived in a neighborhood where my racial origin was the majority. And that's a good thing. As a member of a community like that you soon realize that everyone is judged on their own merit.
8
When I hear about "White People" relative to American racism, I assume that we're talking about White Americans.
White Americans are the people who have the 400yr history of kidnapping, slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, racism, etc.
My issue today is that many White Americans are still very unaware of the details of our own history.
Re this part of American history in general: White people are are ignorant; African Americans (and Native Americans) know it all too well.
Some of this commentary is actually true, but actually just some. Making fun of any race by any other race is a problem and not just a white persons problem. In America, racism is rampant in white, black, east and west Asian (yes Semetic Middle East and India are in Asia too) culture. I don't know if racism is a common theme in Hispanic culture but my guess is since it seems to exist everywhere else in the world it probably is. I grew up in Detroit and know that in my very racially diverse neighborhood white culture was ridiculed by blacks as often as whites disparaged blacks. All cultures seem very comfortable making fun of LGBT stereotypes in America and it is the norm on SNL. Why aren't you outraged about that? Or if you are outraged why aren't you speaking up about it? Why is it that effete intellectuals only see their own race or culture as the victim of abuse? While this seems to be an ugly norm of the human condition worldwide, wake up and recognize that it is not just limited to Whites disparaging Black people in America.
7
@Joel Egnater The whataboutism suggests you missed the whole point of the essay, as well as attempting to draw equivalency between ridiculing white culture to the history of the dehumanization of blacks in this country. No such equivalency exists.. The closest would be the historical dehumanization of Native Americans.."savages" being the connection.
1
Blackface is so shockingly wrong. But so is this analysis.
You just cannot give the same meaning to blackface a century ago and today. Generalizing on the matter won't help to fight against it.
As a NYT reader put it in this column, there is a before and an after, and the civil rights movement in between.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/opinion/blackface-northam.html
That's why we shouldn't believe those who argue, about Gov. Ralph Northam, that facts that are 35 years old shouldn't matter so much. They should actually matter even more so because they happened after institutional racism lost ground to civil rights.
Then, what's the difference between Northam's and Al Jolson's blackface in "The Jazz Singer" - probably its most famous occurrence in the whole history of cinema?
The thing is, Al Jolson wasn't racist, and did not intend his blackface to be seen as such. In an intriguing manner, the "oldest Black newspaper in the country” stated at the time that The Jazz Singer was “one of the greatest pictures ever produced,” and that, “Every colored performer is proud of him (Jolson)".
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/10/al-jolson-hero-villian/
How come?
The history of blackface turns out to be much more complex than the author contends. Failing to understand where it comes from will not help in the fight against racists who try to downplay its abhorrence today.
8
@PubliusXXI
I am so pleased that you saw fit to rescue Al Jolson from the general thrust of Prof. Yancy's rage (posing as scholarship). Particularly effective is your use of
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/10/al-jolson-hero-villian/. Other sources on Jolson are also available. The historical record shows that Jolson despised white racism the way he did anti-Semitism. And that he contributed to unheard of levels of integration of blacks into his and other shows on Broadway. Many now-legendary black musicians, singers, and actors have acknowledged Jolson's impact on the professional chances and subsequent success. In fact, HIS blackface was a civil rights action designed to bring black American culture to the surrounding white world.
Jolson's purpose was far different, however, from traditional uses of blackface in American entertainment, about which Yancy is quite correct, and for which reason it must be better known these days.
2
The blackface that some whites used to literally assume and now figuratively assume (in their demeaning treatment of blacks) is a symptom of an unresolved issue in America, an issue that won't go away until we address it.
First, let our history books reflect that this country went so quickly from being an insignificant agrarian backwater in the early 1800s, (while Europe was already industrialized) to a major industrial power by the late 1800s entirely because of the unpaid work of slaves, and all of the horrors that slavery involved. Why aren't there statues in every town in this country commemorating the work of blacks in creating this great nation?
Second, let's get the word "terrorism" into the history books to describe the treatment of blacks by whites--countrywide, but mostly in the south--in the decades following Emancipation. Let's put pictures in the books of lynching picnics, the burning alive of blacks for glancing at a white woman--or even just for the heck of it, etc.
Third, let's all just stop pretending our history has not had a lasting impact--as statistics on poverty, housing segregation, academic achievement gaps, etc., all still show.
I'm a high school teacher in a mostly white district, and my students are barely even aware of any of this. It's at most a chapter in their junior year history books. Try talking to them about any of these issues, and they (and often their parents) get uncomfortable at best, angry at worst.
7
@EB Thank you!
3
This article is incredibly painful to read.
5
Is there an Irony in his placing a burden on the 200 million odd people in white America in an article written in such a way that only the highly educated will likely read or understand it?
8
@Derek its called 'whiteface' ;)
2
And it is not just "blackface," Professor Yancy, that oils the engine of white racism. It's also any kind of "entertainment" that highlights the "differences" between the races.
When I was a boy, long ago, one of the most popular radio programs of the time was "Amos 'n' Andy; it ran on radio from 1928 until 1960. The black dialect was so popular among whites that the nascent television industry, never shy of making money off the degradations of others, took it up for two years (1951-53).
The sitcom was set in Harlem. The idea was, apparently, to bring to white audiences at home an "idea" of what "negro" life was in America. And why not Harlem, the Mecca of all things black (repulsive and disgusting). The actors, whose names I refuse to dignify here, further cemented the caricatures of black people as dimwitted, lacking in perception, unable--not unwilling; there's a difference--to apprehend a concept and think it through to a logical conclusion. The emphasis on the trivial as important. The Step 'n Fetchit, lurching characterizations of how black people lived their lives; it was all there for white America's amusement.
This program, with its blackface masques and the thick, white-lipped maws only employed the underlying perceptions of black people that whites held--and still hold. The Tennessee governor recently admitted to donning Confederate gear at "throwback parties." He's not resigning, either.
We won't challenge lies and assumptions because we don't have the will.
Kind of an esoteric piece if you ask me.
"What if blackface is clear evidence of the emptiness of whiteness, the hollowness of its being as an identity marker?"
I do not understand what is attempting to be said here or the question. Does it make me it?
Blackface is shameful and disgraceful and makes a mockery of black people and is wrong, that is what I understand. I remember when I first saw it in some old movies I was surprised that they would actually do that in movies.
1
Dear Prof. Yancy,
This is a deeply thoughtful and extremely well written piece.
But please help me understand something: What is "black" [and what is "white"]? If my DNA is 98% from recent Africa? What about 90%? What about 80%? 50%? 40%? 30%? 20%? 10%? 5%? 2%?
Seems to me that discussing the "group" inherently breeds divisiveness. Seems to me that the "melting pot" taught so long ago as the basis for the USA made for a better foundation for cooperation and getting along. I want to know? Who is allowed to use the unspeakable N word? What % "black" does one need to be to be "allowed" to use a word of hate like the N word? Why can some people sing it and others cannot? What defines who is "allowed"?
Sure, the history of blackface is filled with racism. Then again, over time, I would argue most people lost sight of what it derived from [certainly by this decade] and what the history was.
Without honest answers to the questions above [and an honest analysis of the tensions not answering them creates or exacerbates] it seems the topic you are addressing are not really able to be discussed.
3
@David The answer was written long ago...the 1% rule. Beyond that, it is not for we, 98/99% European whites to make those decisions, period. The point is that we whites have been making those decisions since the inception of America. We created the race problem, and questions like you are asking is a way of attempting to absolve us of that responsibility. Who chooses, who is "allowed"? Certainly, not us.
1
Amen!
2
The author here accuses white people of defining blackness in the process of projection. Yet it seems that he is likewise defining whiteness in the process of his own projection. The author goes on to claim that white people delude themselves into thinking that they understand blackness better than black people themselves, while at the same time deluding himself into thinking that he understands whiteness better than white people do. The logic in this article is so distorted by racial animus and tortured by racial self-reference as to be in and of itself a study in the dynamics of racism.
8
Brilliant and precise thinking.
I skimmed through this group of articles. I suggest reading “Black Like Me” for additional perspective.
1
There are plenty of white people who find black face utterly, inexplicably bizarre. This is not necessarily a universal condition of an imaginary essential whiteness (or its lack) as the author strenuously implies.
7
America is 85% white. We majority whites can never grok what it's like to stand out as being "Other" based on the unavoidable color of our skin. We majority whites cannot grok getting "the look" when we walk into an upscale clothing store, or needing to have "the talk" with our teenagers so that they don't run afoul of unwritten societal "rules". We majority whites can never grok what it's like to know that one of our fellow citizens was lynched in 1981 solely because he was the first black skinned person a KKK mob could find. Lynched 3 years before Ralph Northam and his "elite" med school fellows "playfully" wore blackface to keggers. We can never grok what it's like to know that our ancestors (Great Grandma, for example) were slaves - Slaves! - owned by another as one owns a shovel, where post-slavery Jim Crow laws perpetuated that history of slavery well into the 20th century.
It is bemusing that some whites feel the need to defend their whiteness in a country where whites (usually old, rich and male) dominate every aspect of our society. Simply because we've stopped wearing blackface for entertainment does not mean that debilitating racism no longer exists and that the playing field has been leveled.
4
@Miss Anne Thrope - I agree with your points. But according to the U.S. Census, whites who are not Hispanic or Latino are just 61% of Americans.
1
From reading this I envisioned the idea of scapegoating. It is not only practiced by white people, but in the western world it usually is. Germans needed the Jews leading up to WW II and the holocaust. After the emancipation proclamation, white America needed former slaves to denigrate and relatively, elevate themselves. It seems rather than thinking and educating oneself, it is easier to blame the "other" for my unemployment, lot in life and personal failures in general. Donning blackface is a way to "demonstrate" the inferiority of black folks, and thus "prove" that I am superior. Any one of a number of examples demonstrating the heinousness of racism.
This is how the Democrats lose 2020.
8
@Yer Mom
I agree wholeheartedly. One can even agree with most of the points in Mr. Yancy's column while also being fearful of how many more moderate whites will choose to vote for Mr. Trump in 2020 because they cannot understand nor relate to this issue, which may seem vaguely threatening to them. And what about the looks one or two of them may receive when walking into a crowd of people of color? Again, the black face issue is real and disturbing. But if you're talking practical politics and how to get rid of Trump, emphasizing this issue is a loser.
3
@Yer Mom
Wrong. This is how America continues to lose.
1
This is a stunningly well written essay.
Of course most white people will not understand it.
It is too bad there is not some drug which will turn a white person black for 72 hours and let them see "the other side" of the fence.
Vietnam Vet
4
This white northerner never understood black face. It is not something that ever crossed my mind to do for any reason. So I am not sure of the why’s of it. It always seem to me something Southern Americans did in a mocking way. All I can say is that if something is deemed offensive to someone and you care about them, then don’t do it. It’s that easy.
2
Blackface in America?
America seems a nightmare of incompetence when it comes to the problem of nature vs. nurture and this is most clearly seen when it comes to racial, ethnic, sex/gender identification. The phenomenon of blackface appears to exist from a combination of really crude, simplistic belief in raw, grounded, unchangeable human nature combined with a crude, simplistic Christian belief: Black people are fixed as black (no nurture can change that nature), and by being black they are associated with evil (crude religious good/evil dichotomy), but white people although naturally being removed from blackness, the negative, can "put on the black" precisely because they are also able to remove it...and of course blacks cannot ever get away with "putting on the white" (whiteface).
Naturally with the really stupid and crude and insulting and limiting sense of human nature we have in America one would think we would have in our comprehension of nurture over nature an improvement in reasoning, but no such luck. Our idiotic concept of nurture seems to actually permit blackface in that it makes racial, ethnic, sex/gender identifications social constructs only, thus opening the possibility that a person can identify with any race, ethnicity or sex that he or she wishes, and in fact we do have people arguing they can be a race or sex not actually their own...And of course an actually mixed race person is called this or that depending on who you speak to...
I'm "Confused".
3
I try not to think too hard about why some people absolutely need to feel superior to others. By any superficial means, whether conspicuous consumption, or wearing certain kinds of clothes, or putting on make up.
@gratis Or developing philosophies that demonize some "other" (jews, white people, immigrants) .
2
"Blackface is a performance historically grounded in white supremacy".
That statement alone should teach every white person that this is not acceptable and therefore needs to stop being, even remotely, be seen as "comedy" or just a "hoot". Let's just face the fact, it's racist and despicable and we are better than that.
1
Prosecuting the past is easy. You can find all the racism you could possibly desire and bathe in feelings of superiority and delicious outrage as you shoot arrow after arrow, (and call white people hollow?!) And then you can watch as the resentment grows, the divide between black and white grows, nothing gets done about our current public schools, our current healthcare system, and our current climate change emergency. But at least you found all that racism. Super.
7
Acknowledging American whiteness as the basis for our nation's ontological and epistemological identity is essential to discussions about race, especially if you consider it from a socio-constructivist perspective, which holds that humans actively construct individual and shared reality in a social context."American whiteness" gives a name to the present-day power structures of our nation's shared reality, established and adapted by white citizens, with institutional memory passed down over decades of generational white constructs that perpetuate the oppression and marginalization of black Americans. These constructs didn't permeate our culture; they ARE our culture, and they are so ingrained in our individual and shared worldviews that we do not see them--they are the lenses for our ontological and epistemological paradigms and we are blind to their existence because they are foundational to how we see the world.
It is only through unpacking these ontological and epistemological assumptions that we can understand American whiteness, its role in modern day culture, and (where, how, when) we can more systematically combat and dismantle the institutionalized racism that exists as a result. The intellectual and emotional burden of change is on the privileged, and we have to listen with humility to the people who stand outside these structures, and appreciate their willingness to help us see how these constructs limit our progress as a nation. It is our burden to bear.
3
The amazing thing about this column is that virtually every assertion in it about blackface and minstrelsy as a projection of white identity is true, yet its language and argument constitute a pompous travesty of academic thinking and writing. "Blackface is not a black problem"? How profound! Who in their right mind in 2019 thinks that blackface is a black problem? Every one of these points have been made by many other writers, beginning with Eric Lott's definitive work on the subject, with incomparably greater clarity and nuance.
7
To dwell on Blackface, white guilt and non-forgiveness for those in office who "sinned" years ago but have sought redemption is wrong. It merely perpetuates anger and racial hostility. Segregation and Jim Crow was once accepted but is now illegal and anathema to our society. It has been weeded out through the generations. We realize that integration - with whites and blacks going to school first from kindergarden on through high school - allowed for racial camaraderie and economic opportunities that were once unthinkable. Folks whose grandfathers were once in the KKK are now leading members of government in the South and the North. All that is to say say that times have changed. Not overnight but over the course of time. It takes time to change attitudes. To condemn white people for abhorrent behavior decades ago and demand they resign from office is wrong.
3
Let's put the proverbial shoe on the other foot for a minute. Suppose a Black person dresses as a white Grand Dame society matron and mimics/exaggerates her mannerisms of attending a society function. Would that be considered racist? Of course not. All exaggerations and parodies are deeply based in truth.
2
@MarathonRunner
It was called the cakewalk.
@LS Cakewalks are still a frequently-occurring part of community social and fund-raising events. No one seems to be objecting to cakewalks. We can't have two different sets of rules for the same parody-based activities.
More importantly, why do people care? Remember, Gov. Northam has over 60% approval among African Americans in his state. Mostly, it's the talking heads who need something to talk about. Being scandalized by everything is the order of the day. Remember, when Secretary Clinton was accused by the same talking heads of being 'racist' because she'd used the phrase 'super predators'? A phrase that black leaders had asked her to use because black communities were being torn apart by drug dealers and the like who were preying on the young.
So now were saddled with and are are forced to be mostly indifferent to the scandals of the scoundrel in the White House.
6
Was this piece insightful? No. But bound to incite? Absolutely.
14
Good points, but I think we need to not get carried away. Re Sabatini, that story has been totally taken out of context -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/07/politician-wore-blackface-dress-his-friend-they-call-it-silly-high-school-prank/?utm_term=.8e0273529983
1
Black face is disgusting. Folks who would, today, use this display as a meme to belittle others are beneath contempt. Simple and direct.
As we go forward as a society, we need folks of all colors, identities, abilities to contribute. That is how the human race will prosper, if we can counter the corruption in all forms of governing - pseudo-democracies, authoritarian-driven forms of governing all over the world.
So step forward, confidently, people of all descriptions, join all others and mold a world that is mutually beneficial.
There is one more important aspect of white racism against blacks that Professor Yancy does not mention: fear.
For a white performer putting on black face he/she is telling the audience that black people are not to be feared because they are buffoons.
For me, being a white person, that's what I see in racism in all its manifestations. White people who are racist are terrified of black people.
2
What difference does it make whether blackface is "actually little more than a perverse expression of whiteness"? That's like claiming that black slavery is a perverse expression of whiteness. The bottom line is that both slavery and traditional "blackface" are immoral and should not be tolerated. Fortunately, both are no no longer tolerated by the overwhelming majority of whites. We don't need the rest of the philosobabble.
7
"Why White People Need Blackface"
I was expecting to read why white people still need blackface today. Instead, Yancy described, with deep insight, why whites needed blackface when it was commonly practiced. But then, he asserts that "fixing it is the job of white America."
Since instances of blackface are vanishingly rare today, what is Yancy's real point? I look forward to comments added here to educate me.
10
@A Faerber When you're right, you're right. No additional comments necessary!
2
@A Faerber The same stereotypes about African Americans codified in minstrel traditions are utilized today, both ironically and pejoratively by all Americans. Go back and watch Beverly Hills Cop, or an early Beastie Boys performance (sorry grown-up Mike D). Blackface itself may now be uncommon, but the caricatures it helped codify are still part of us and our society.
@A Faerber
The problem isn't with the wearing of Blackface per se, as much as it's with the mentality that allowed it, and to a certain extent still allows it to happen -- albeit in a different form.
And this is all part of America's systemic and endemic problem its own past and its history of racism.
1
What about Al Jolson? He made millions from it! How come nobody says anything about that?
2
Finally someone gets it. So much of white identity is rooted in the debasement of people of color in general, and black people specifically. After all the words white and black collectively do not amount to much, so it became necessary to expand it by creating the notion of race as a means to create a common group identity among Europeans. In other words whiteness had to be define by what it was not (even though it was) and given a name. That name was black. Black meant unclean, violent, promiscuous, stupid, greedy, subhuman. White mean clean, peaceful, chaste, intelligent, and charitable. Neither definition defines either, because people are individuals, and all communities want the same thing. They want to belong, they want their children to thrive, and they want to be free to live their lives without fear.
No one needs blackface. No one does it anymore. Writing a profound contemplation on this past-tense phenomenon seems like a waste of time and space. What's next? "Why white people need to confine Native Americans to reservations"?
12
@Ken Krigstein No, but since you asked, a good question would be why all the murderous rage against so many Native and black people?
This all goes to the essence of racism, which is ultimately about self-esteem -- or lack thereof. It means being able to say to oneself -- "it doesn't matter how drunk, stupid or lazy I am, I am still better than any of "those" people." That is a powerful belief, and a something which is very difficulty for an individual (or a community) to abandon once it has become established. Understanding that basic truth explains a heck of a lot about the slow pace of progress in American society over the last 150 years.
1
This piece illustrates the problem of identity politics. The deconstructionist analysis bulldozes right through and over individual choice, reason, conscience and imprisons all white people in their whiteness and all blacks in their blackness. We whites are all prisoners of our skin and bodies. We “project” (the implication is that we “vomit”) our subconscious selves onto other bodies, black bodies. Everyone with a white skin is implicated and is guilty of all instances of blackface. I find the deconstructionist concepts and jargon here small minded, boring and formulaic.
34
"It speaks to the parasitic nature of whiteness and its need to 'feed.'"
And...that's where I stopped reading. When you need to predicate your argument on stereotypes nobody could defend in good conscious, you probably shouldn't make the argument at all.
After all, the lazy nature of people whose first name starts with Y and their need to be in the spotlight shouldn't be allowed to distract from an important movement. Just stay out of things until your first name stops starting with Y. Then you'll have a place in the conversation :P
8
Dr. Yancy,
Your absence has been noted by this reader, and it is good to welcome you back.
Since 'BLACKFACE' is beyond my comprehension, and having little or nothing to add to the above, in the spirit of true revelations, when I was five years old, my costume of choice was a pink bunny suit in a game of Follow-the-Leader, which ended in tears and cake.
Hoping this degrading practice of whitewashing and degrading America is a shady phantom of the past, and perhaps the answer might be found in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. For those of us who enjoy novels, 'The Invisible Man', by Ralph Ellison may be worth revisiting.
Keep on writing, while expecting some of us to back-peddle in an attempt to show that we do not have a racist bone in our body and soul.
A friend, who worked as the only white doctor on Rikers Island, rarely spoke of what this entailed, but mentioned once in passing that a felon who demanded immediate emergency care in the waiting room called her every name under the sun. Finally she turned, and asked 'Are you a Racist'. The room went quiet and you could hear a pin drop.
To think that in 2019 we are going on about 'White Supremacy', it is enough to make one believe that Hitler won the War, and we are all going to have to go back to the drawing board and clean up our act once and for all.
To understand why white America needs Blackface, you have to first understand that America is in deep denial when it comes to acknowledging its own racist past.
That's why it's so easy for whites to not only make light of it, but why they fail to see it's not so funny after all.
And I have no doubt that many of the ensuing comment here will reflect just that.
66
@N. Smith
What past.
My grandparents came here after the first world war.
I don't share that past you refer to and refuse to acknowledge it as if I have to ask for forgiveness for some actions my ancestor did.
15
@Why. My grandparents also came here around that time.The point is not that we participated in slavery or segregation or blackface, but that we are white in a predominately white nation that has systematically kept blacks from equality, that has practiced racism up to this very minute. Therefore, you are really not able to opt out and say none of this applies to me. It is not about asking "forgiveness", but having an inner dialogue about your own white identity and privilege.
18
@Why.
That's not only your choice, but it's also why this country continues to have the race problem that it does. It's also the denial I was referring to in my comment.
And by the way. I'm not asking for "forgiveness".
It's more complicated than that.
I'm asking that Americans have more intelligence when it comes to deciphering this country's history in terms of it's racial past.
And that appears to be too much.
13
As to be expected, the apologists for racist denial are out in force. Doesn’t that all but prove the author’s point?
3
To say "White People Need Blackface" when most white people find the history of race relations in this country shameful, is as prejudiced and racist a statement as you will encounter, and as unhelpful. Perhaps in the age of Trump, a guilty bigot, it is helpful to overstate things. But trust me, the majority of people just want to get along. The rest need to mellow out.
21
Many, many white people are clueless about the racism that is still a central part of life in the United States. This article will not do much to improve the situation, draped as it is in jargon that is to plain speech and clear thought as blackface is to real black people. "Whiteness" is here rendered a causal power, a Platonic form that's come down from its heaven to blight the Earth. Note the author's use of 'body': a body can be intelligent, who knew? It is the black body that is the object of Whiteness's deceitful parasitism. But it is black human beings who have been whipped and lynched and horribly, viciously denigrated. Yancy's language, in its way, is perfectly dehumanizing. An abstraction of dubious ontological pedigree, Whiteness, vampires black bodies. His foggy language recalls Heidegger. This would be a bravura performance, if it worked: to enlist the nazi thinker to the cause of black folk's liberation. But it does not work. Fog makes nothing clearer.
6
Has it somehow completely escaped your notice that we no longer have minstrelsy shows? That we no longer have blackface actors on even obscure regional stages, much less on Broadway, where Al Jolson's blackface character was once America's #1 box office star? You write as if blackface was still commonly worn, as if it was only yesterday that Gov. Northam committed the vulgarity (it was in bad taste even then) of wearing black face, when in fact it was 35 years ago.
We are dismantling confederate memorials all over the south, the Times's opinion pages feature 2-5 African-American writers every day, 3 African-Americans are in the thick of the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination . . . but all you can see is "white supremacy . . . an act of epistemological and ontological terror." And of course "the parasitic nature of whiteness."
Yes, racism is real, and it used to be exclusively white, but we have spent 60 years trying to dampen it. Yet you write as if we've done nothing at all, and as if we still felt what your own words clearly reveal you feel yourself: "a self-redeeming and self-congratulatory history."
Your lumping together of all whites as parasites and "consumers of black bodies" is a call for collective punishment. It is racist. You need to apologize.
48
@Green Tea
I'd go a step further - not only is blackface no longer remotely socially acceptable, you can get fired now, as Megyn Kelly did, just for disagreeing with the mainstream consensus that it must always be racist. And a governor is expected to step down over it, despite being democratically elected and having broken no law. Today the problem is not so much black people being oppressed by racist imagery, as it is white people losing their jobs for having the incorrect point of view on the issue.
7
Yes, psychological projection is a central part of blackface mockery. As a person who grew up in the South, I can well understand the almost irresistible need of whites to "project" or "throw forth" upon blacks virtually all the human traits that whites are afraid or ashamed of having. Whites who dread being seen themselves as foolish, undignified, stupid, or just plain liars could throw all those scary qualities onto the black population they had purchased through slavery, and than they could feel a bit of relief.
There is an even more damaging and dangerous side to this great need for white projection.It goes beyond blackface and is responsible for the still-widespread white assumptions that blacks are fundamentally dishonest, brutal, and almost automatically suspected of criminal behavior. Hm. Where does this assumption come from? Is there a projection by whites that accounts for the disproportionate and alarming police violence against blacks, or the swollen numbers of blacks in our prisons?
Toward an answer, I would ask people simply to imagine a "blackface" drama about blacks on stage in "blackface" lynching white men, repeatedly, while laughing and cheering at the public site of a white person being lynched. What qualities would black-faced whites be projecting or "throwing off" onto blacks in such a drama?
Would any "mockingbirds" be harmed in the making of this production?
Another over wrought piece that fails to deal with the real issue: Is any white person now contemplating or doing something so stupid and racist as putting on blackface? Other than a few white supremacists. who will be pummeled immediately if they go public, I can't imagine anyone in the last generation or so doing so.
We are constantly getting better in our relationships between black and white Americans, e.g., the high and ever-increasing rate of inter-racial marriages. This grievance piece is simply that--and not a reflection or accurate depiction of "us" today.
14
A few years back on SNL. Eddie Murphy donned a whiteface, and referred to a black character in the skit as a "silly negro," aping what he thought a white person would say and how they would say it, in a stiff manner that white people are perceived as talking.
Was he being racist against whites in his SNL skit?
A few years before, Marlin Brando starred in a movie called "Teahouse of the August Moon" in which he wore Asian face and acted subservient as an Asian would be perceived as acting. Was he being racist?
A few years before that, Al Jolson appeared in blackface in "The Jazz Singer." Was that racist?
My point? Not every blackface impersonation is racist. I mean, if kids go around on Halloween with Bill Clinton masks, does that mean they have some vendetta against Bill Clinton? I think we should be more careful before deciding whether someone appearing in blackface is actually a racist.
8
"It speaks to the parasitic nature of whiteness and its need to 'feed.'"
Thank you for your comment Mr Yancy. It speaks elegantly of your views of white people.
You are of a kindred spirit with the likes of Mr Trump and men intellectually like him who believe themselves to be sufficiently erudite to explain the history and inherent humanity of an entire race.
Guess what?
White people don't care what you think. None of us will lose sleep over your opinion of us.
We don't have the time to comfort you for your insecurities. We scorn the white racists who wear blackface, but we also scorn the black racists who condemn all whites as born racist.
You are one of the latter.
27
Professor Yancy has painted the entire white race with one brush. That is wrong.
Professor Yancy keeps saying blackface "is". Prof, look around you. Blackface "was".
I was so proud of my liberal arts degree. But, nowadays, I am embarrassed by the professors scraping out and building up thesis out of the tiniest bits of trash, just to make themselves relevant and payable as academia shrinks.
23
Professor Yancy is well-known for his arguments that all white Americans are inherently racist simply because they are white.
However, before a lot of us succumb to the white-bashing and guilt-inculcation in this article and throw ourselves off a cliff, please consider the fact (check it out on Google Images) that there is an 98%-black krewe (organization), The Krewe of Zulu, that has marched in the New Orleans Mardi Gras parade going back to around 1909.
The distinguishing characteristic of the Zulu Krewe marchers is that they wear painted-on blackface with painted-on, exaggerated, white lips, or what is commonly referred to as blackface.
Perhaps Mr. Yancy will put his anti-white jeremiad on hold for a bit and explain why whites in blackface are abominable while blacks in blackface are, well, acceptable, or exemplary, or whatever they are. Does the Zulu Krewe represent a teachable moment for us "monstrous" white faces?
Don't get me wrong, I was a social justice warrior decades before the term was coined and I personally abhor racism and racist stereotypes and do whatever I can to combat them. However, I also object to the relentless efforts of Mr. Yancy, the NYT and others to paint all whites as overt or hidden racists.
25
The whole point of the controversy about northam's yearbook picture is that black face posing is a relic of the 19th century and that that kind of behavior in the 1980s was anachronistic. As a 68 year old white man who has advocated for equal rights for my entire life, I question the author's contention that this practice is still commonly in use. I've never witnessed it.
23
Thanks Mr. Yancy for this very illuminating article. I couldn't agree more that "black face" is a white person's problem. I was hoping that the recent scandals and revelations would prompt a little more assessment, in addition to a wide spread, but swift condemnation. Perhaps too swift, to the point to seem too eager to put the whole thing behind. Unfortunately I think you are right that we (white America) are still not tough enough to confront our fears that have fueled racism for centuries.
1
The only thing Trump brings to the table is his brand of racism. He has made no great deals he looks like a bat boy for his idol Putin. Just last week he let a guy who doesn't have a reliable plane to bring him to a summit make him look like a rube. The North Koreans who can send, as we are told, can send a missile to our shores can't fly their Great Leader a few thousand miles? Trump has nothing but racism in his quiver to brag about. The question that should be asked to all of Trump's supporters is if you support a racist what does that make you?
4
I wish to add one definition to the discussion of my fellow white peers who appear to be upset by this article: White Fragility.
"White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering
the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium."
https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116
3
@Galt
Translation: "White fragility" is what people display when they disagree with critical race theory. As a concept, "white fragility" is just a weaponized ad hominem fallacy.
8
Impressively disturbing photo appearing on this op ed piece. Would like to know the provenance.
3
So... does this imply that we should have black actors put on "whiteface" and give us the black renditions of how whites are perceived? After all, if white people have used this "entertainment" as a narrative to describe the blacks as "other," surely there must be similar views of whites that have never gotten full expression by blacks. The best way, perhaps for whites to see the negative aspects of "blackface" would be to see the reverse image. Nothing like looking in a mirror to see one's full face, the good, the bad and the warts and all.
4
No one “needs” blackface, and no one should ‘need’ to be told it is offensive.
1
I think it would be way more constructive, and positive to EMBRACE the Face.
Suggestion: use blackface performances to defuse the confusing issue of racism.
I still remember Flip Wilson on Laugh=In doing the Mammy Routine, and then wiping his face, "Hey, man, hows this stuff come off?"
When I was in college, the white boys would imitate Mr. T , blackface, with a baldwig cut out to allow for a mohawk....haha....it wasnt a jab at black folks it was an attempt to immitate MR. T....I pity the fool!! And of course, Mr. T, himself, was a delibarate over-the-top portrayal of a black man overcoming the past. (Chains of Gold!!)
If you hate something...........it controls you.
5
Yes, the admiration and envy and longing that prompt an attempt to change identity are always lost in this current discussion of what was and is no longer, vis-à-vis racism.
With Jussie Smollett I kept wondering if he was longing for the sort of historically validated (self applied-noose) persecution that comes with immediate sanctification and public sainthood, of course while not getting too badly beaten up, but proclaiming loudly and throughout the media that the ‘white’ men had set upon him to extinguish his magical tv light. In a polar vortex. In Chicago.
Who is longing for whom now?
1
This is a brilliant article, even if the language is very erudite. It explains the basis of most social stereotypes as well as blackface. What goes unsaid is a general need by humans to feel special and superior. Indeed many suffer from childhood criticism that leaves them feeling the need to manufacture their own judgment of “special place” in society. This often translates into a prejudice against those who are different in sex, color, ethnicity or any number of social differences.
What is to be done about this in a society that hypothetically respects everyone but still idolizes the achievements of a white upper class and elects someone like Trump? Integration, more inclusive business practices and education, and the election of more diverse politicians helps. But it is time to realize that our white guilt and uncomfortable feelings about prejudice pale in comparison to the burdens placed on others who have suffered from our societal structure. Everyone benefits if we recognize our country’s prejudicial past and move ahead to now realize that each person has a unique set of talents that need to be acknowledged and celebrated.
6
Yancy analyzes the structure of an aesthetic form that constructs through its projections, and performs, an Other it will not "see." Thus the monstrous project of a "knowledge" that is no understanding, a possibility of a society structured partly by relationships of domination.
Left-liberal race theory remains on a plane of psychology and morality, as it prophetically denounces. This means it must misrecognize forms of social injustice deriving more from economics, and what Michel Foucault called "strategies without strategists," than from simple relationships of command and obey--as in slavery. The latter still exist, as in most labor contexts, but failing to see the relationship between economics and power leads to neoliberal liberalism.
Yancy, author of "Dear White People," he thinks that "we" personally and collectively are the cause of black oppression. He is half-right. Would that it could all be simple; that politics were morality; and that moral recognition could solve our problems. His liberal faction, speaking of "white supremacy,"
misrepresents the privilege of the oppressed: it is not innocence of oppression but a facility for liberation.
Ti-nehisi Coates speaks of "black bodies" and "the people who think they are white." Yates says "I know who I am." He also "knows" who we are.
These identity liberals speak of an unstated war of races. The oppressed must have an oppressor. But there is a thinking not of but beyond being.
1
What is “whiteness”?
Also, way to characterize millions of people by their skin color. Me thinks you have become what you purport to oppose.
16
I understand it this way:
"Whiteness" is meaningless. It’s not a viable ethic or biological category.
It’s only meaning is political and "whiteness" depends on negating the humanity of others.
If we can dismantle the myth of "whiteness" then people who currently self-identify as "white" can let go of that self-identification and start to see themselves and the world as it really is — and finally hear what this essay actually says without becoming defensive. People can be German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish rather than « white » as those are viable cultural identifications.
But I think one adjustment is necessary. It’s seems necessary to debunk "whiteness" before people will stop identifying as white. (I think good people are confused by the double-bind in pointing the finger at "white people" to ask them to stop identifying with the fake consteuct of "white people.")
Oy, this is way too important a topic for an academically pretentious article like this. Professor Yancy, your prolific use of jargon and tone-deaf style obscures your ideas, some of which might be important.
I struggled to make it to the end of this piece, trying not to let my overwhelming gratitude at changing my college major from philosophy to political science, but the last sentence redeemed it.
Yes, blackface is the white man's job to confront. Yes, white people are stunningly defensive and incurious about their racial attitudes. Yes, we have a very long way to go.
But aside from talking with my bi-racial children about these ideas, I will also caution them from taking classes with professors who write like this.
5
@Cousy Anti-intellectualism at the base of your comment.
2
@Craig Avery
Less anti-intellectualism than a need, common I suspect to most educated people, to read something that is clear and makes sense.
5
Could it be that the article is clear but is difficult to read unless you start to accept that "whiteness" is a horrible lie?
This op-ed contains a glaring cultural double standard. Yes, we should abhor and condemn blackface. But there are not top rated TV shows currently airing that celebrate whites in a white defined caricature of black people like there are shows that celebrate men in a male defined caricature of women. If we are going to call out the blackface of yesteryear, it is a misogynist double standard not to call out the "femface" of today. The analogy of harm done by reinforcing damaging stereotypes about the class being lampooned is exactly parallel. However, when women tried to point this out several years ago, we found out that if something is empowering to men (in this case, gay men) women don't get to have an opinion on how it harms women as a class. One could just as easily say ""Male American drag queen performers engage in exaggerated and distorted gestures, warped dialect and sexist clowning, all creations of the male American imaginary."
12
"Blackface is not a black problem. It is a white one, and fixing it is the job of white America."
And so - Let white America fix it.
Moreover, if "blackface is the white man’s burden, not ours" then why harp about it?
And so be it - Let white America bear the burden.
2
Sure let's address blackface. I'd like to know why some blacks, AL Roker, for instance decry a question about blackface but he has the nerve to dress up like a white woman, Susan Boyle. One is okay but not the other?
6
@James It's a power thing. Blacks in whiteface do not equal whites in blackface.
3
@D Melanogaster To children today it is the same thing, and I am very pleased with that result. A white kid dressing up as a hero figure who happens to be black is a reflection of positive change that has occurred in our culture and I believe it should be encouraged. Perhaps some of us should stop fighting old wars and wake up to new realities. I do not mean to imply that racism is not an issue, it is. At the same time lets not let old legacies get in the way of progress.
5
Al Roker is not powerless.
4
How does this article address the black people who dress up in blackface as part of the "Zulu" group during Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans? Blackface is not exclusively a white phenomenon.
2
We have reached a point in the development of America, where we are re-defining "race".
Firstly, its about time for us to admit to ourselves that we will never control racism by continuing to define each of us by Race. This should be obvious...but appearantly, to a lot of Americans...its not.
Secondly, as so-called "white" America has volunteered for a 40 year, civil rights Guilt Trip about its own reprehensible behavior regarding race.......its about time that we turn around and ask, perhaps Demand, that the so-called "black" America do some honest self-evaluation.
Blackface....similar to the embarrassing portrayal of the Simple-minded, Hillbilly or perhaps the fast-talking Italian immigrant(something like Chico Marx)(later a Mobster), the lazy mexican, on and on.......or any other classic American stereotype.
Where does the white" horror and fear of black folkways come from? Is there any basis for it? Sadly....there is.
End note.........."white" isnt a color. Its the combination, the noise, created by all the other separated, well-defined colors...the monotones. "black" has long represented the complete lack of color......in racist terms...the lack of humanity...........
Its time to end the definition of certain humans as "black" and include them inside the "white". Many "black" people resist this with a fury and indignation that destroys everyone around them and even themselves.
1
To most Americans, Blacks are as necessary to their self-esteem than the poor are necessary to the rich. Feeling superior is the first priority.
5
Hope someone sent this article to the Va Governor
2
@Charle
I suspect the Va. governor would need to carve a few hours out of his schedule to plow through it.
““For whites to construct an identity outside the racist construct, we would need to give up our socially constructed white selves and embrace the rejected parts of our humanity that requires scapegoats.”
White people need to stop identifying as "white."
Will this demand seem like a double-bind to the very people who need to hear it?
1
Even as a child, images of Al Jolson in Blackface disturbed me. Eva Braun, Hitler's long-time GF and one-day wife was photographed in Blackface.
"Gennelmen, be seated!" was the opening of the Minstrel show, something that originally was performed by White men, later by Black men, also in "Blackface", but clearly it was because that was one of the few avenues to making a living.
"Amos and Andy" as a radio show, had its characters all voiced by White men. It wasn't until it moved to TV that they were forced to cast Black men in these demeaning roles.
Steppin Fechit made a fortune protraying the White man's image of the "shiftless" and stupid Black man. But like his fellows, he was doing what he could to survive and even prosper. And that was because it was one of the few avenues open.
Yes, Blackface and it's constant continuous pejoritive imaging of Black Americans is a White problem, and I say that as a White man who was raised to believe (and still do) that the Civil Rights Movement was one of, if not the most noble efforts in our nation's history.
I contrast that with the celebration and "mainstreaming" of radical racism, of cheering what was once fringe crackpot ideas, last week at CPAC, demonstrating that White supremacy and the so-called "Conservatives" are totally melded into one toxic blight on our nation.
And then the arch-racist, the arch-bigot, the arch-White Supremacist came on to rant for his longest speech ever, Donald J. Trump, God help us!
5
@Dadof2 Every example you just named is from more than 50 years ago. (Except Trump, of course).
@atb
And your point would be?
Lynching, which the KKK used to murder thousands, sometimes as brutally as the Spanish Inquisition, ground to a virtual halt in the 1960's, with very few incidents since then.
Does that mean we can just say "Lynching isn't a problem anymore so we should just ignore it"?
Couldn't this article be considered an example of blacksplaining?
9
@JamesEric Some of us need to be 'splained. Over and over and over again. OR we might think of this article as cultural commentary and get over our little selves that are afraid to learn something that we probably haven't thought about for 1/1000th the amount of time that this philosopher has. When you were in school, did you consider your professors to be X-splainers?
1
@JamesEric No. For that to be the case, what Prof. Yancy is saying here would have to be common knowledge for most white people. Clearly that isn't the case.
4
I can see where we would want to be, but not how to get there. Perhaps we need to take ownership of blackface, like have an official John Howard Griffen day where we invite people to walk in each others shoes for a day.
What a damning report of the idea that 'white identity' is anything but a stupid way to deny the horror of 'whites' plundering 'the other' just because the color of their skin, for which dehumanizing black folks is a pre-requisite. Hence, "Blackface". Quite frankly, until and unless 'whites' introspect and apologize and take conscience of the absolute nonsense of their position, no justice nor peace shall be available in what, following slavery, remains an institutionalized violence via segregation and inequality in housing and jobs, in health care and in education. I find it ironic that, however subconscious our prejudices in discriminating 'the other' is, there is only one race, the human race, however diverse by virtue of geography, culture, climate, etc. After all, each of us came out of Africa, to populate Earth. Can't we see how ridiculous all this intolerance is, the pettiness of our thoughts and actions? We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, be contrite, and willing to face our stupidity straight on. There is no other way. White privilege and entitle ment are all false constructs, in a vain attempt to show our humanity.
4
White people need blackface? How offensive. To understand the relationship of blackface to the invention and maintenance of whiteness is one thing. To say that white people need it, or even need whiteness is another. White people are reminded every day in the NYT that they are white--not by blackface performers but by your own opinionators. This is not a chosen identity any more than blackness is. Not any more, anyway. Ever. Just imagine a white person trying to tell Prof. Yancy that they aren't white. What garbage.
6
Racism - America's original sin.
Religion - "God, Glory, Gold!"
Would Jesus be a racist - or tolerate one?
@Paul Are you assuming that Jesus was what we call Caucasian? ha
1
Some of you may recall that Monty Python did blackface and yellow face and other racist comedy tropes too. Ah but they were liberals satirizing the establishment, so it was ok. Not so ok that those skits are in the “best of” collections today though.
1
@Thollian A lot of us did and said a lot of stupid things. The issue is, how do we want to think about these things now? Is it an opportunity for growth, or do we have to retreat into the kind of primitive defensiveness that this piece is actually about?
The article leaves out the next step-- the racism of the odious Charles Murray which lyingly claims science says blacks are subhuman. This next stage of racism has enlisted many of the whites at nyt to thump for it's propagation at good American colleges. Black face in a white smock is all too alive and well.
Yes. Anti-black racism is often projection.
3
The sweeping statement that white people currently "need" blackface is unreasonable and not supportable. I'm white and I certainly don't. Like most people I know, I need and seek to connect with people, not caricatures.
Human beings of many races engage in acts of mimicry and artifice of other races, and not in a good way. It's not just a "white" behaviour -- I've seen black, south Asian and East Asian people undertake "grotesque projections" onto other races too. Doesn't make it right, and doesn't take away the sting of hurt and humiliation for those who are mocked. It's a human practice that does harm.
11
Yancy gets the "theft" but not the "love" part of Blacklace. Read Eric Lott's *Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrel and the American Working Class. See also my "The Psychodynamics of Racial Reparations".
2
How difficult to have a normal conversation when GOP is now an exact image of trump.
46% of electorate approve of racist-in- chief job performance, so he goes to CPAC in Maryland to bolster his base ahead of 20/20.
No surprise that he encounters complete adoration.
Why did he say he loves poorly educated, he didn't think highly of them, he assumed they're to ignorant to recognized sleazy con operator.
But, I don't think they're...if poorly educated still survive in our broken system of brutal capitalism they can tell a CON Man from decent one.
These numbers aren't encouraging for democrats, they might have to do even better than in 2018.
Let's hope that every person in this country votes, all of us non-depending of our skin color.
Racism is a cancer that keep metastasizing in spite of long history of struggle, we have to be able to cure it once and for all.
GOP has been racist for decades, prior to electing their racist president. We have to vote them out, whoever defends this moron should be kick out of every public office, or nothing will ever change.
So disgusting to observe this poison in 21st century in a country that claims to be a "democracy", were a joker of the president hugs the american flag with his buffoonish vulgar face expression.
Makes me feel sick!
What should we tell to our grandkids, how can we justify this chameleon, who gradually moulds our country in his hateful detestable image.
His audience was laughing at the late senator John McCain...just horrid.
5
Any form of genocide or mass subjugation requires the perpetrator to view the victim as subhuman, in order to give the brutalizer a psychological compensation mechanism to justify the atrocity. Toni Morrison writes of the "twin succubi", fascism and racism. The Nazi's yellow "Star of David and " Blackface" emanate from the same dark cesspool of the human spirit, and that gives even added weight to the horror of Charlottesville and the rise of American nationalism.
5
Thank you for your article, Mr. Yancey.
I am a Presbyterian. Presbyterians (and most other Christians) believe in original sin. We are all tainted creatures. Sinful creatures.
Mr. Yancey, with all due respect--you talk about white people the way Presbyterians talk about original sin.
White people. Consumed with fear, hatred, contempt for "black bodies." Going to any lengths to obviate the inherent humanity of black people. "Projecting" those fears and hatreds upon black people.
And yes, When I consider race relations in this country over the centuries--
gosh! You could make a very good case. A damning case! Open and shut. No question.
I say this with sorrow and shame. We're not ALL that bad. Not ALL of us.
I'll spare you the line about "some of my best friends--." I don't think that'll play. Not here. Not now.
But blackface?
No. I never felt the least urge to put it on. To see someone else put it on. To see a minstrel show. To see a human being--ANY human being on earth--hurt or humiliated or demeaned or disrespected.
A Presbyterian? Yes. That's me. A believer in original sin? Absolutely!
Which enables me to say: we're all in the same boat. Sinful. Depraved. Naturally given to hating, hurting, demeaning each other.
We need God's grace, don't we. And with that grace--
--we need to WORK on that hatred--that desire to hurt, demean, oppress.
To work HARD. VERY hard. All the time.
Thanks again for your article.
4
The author judges all whites en masse. Is that not racist?
46
@Maria da Luz Teixeira
No, it is not racist. You could argue that it is predjudiced, but not racist. People of all races engage in predjudice. On the other hand, racism is about race in the context of a power or privilege differential in a society. As long as white people enjoy more access and credibility in America than black people (and they still do), then whites can be racist, but black people cannot. They CAN be predjudiced, though.
1
@Maria da Luz Teixeira
Yet...
White people judge, Native Americans Muslims, Mexican's, African Americans, and people of color as a collective. Donald Trump called Mexican's murders and rapist. The oldest mantra for white racist/supremacy... white people are going to killed in their beds, and white women will be raped. The Belgian's, British, Danish, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish colonial powers and the United States, all used such racist rhetoric.
Slavery and its close cousin, Jim Crow didn't occur because a handful of white people kept it going. Those evil and violent institutions were sustained because majority of white people supported the subjugation of Blacks... local, county, state, federal government and judiciary.
I recall an interview with writer Toni Morrison, she spoke of being truthful about what did and were you stood in difficult times. Ms. Morrison stated, it was important to be truthful with oneself, if we are to rid ourselves of evil and evil acts. Ms. Morrison said, "If you asked most of the French what did they do after the Nazi's invaded France, they'd claim they were apart of the French Resistance. When it's known the Resistance through out Europe during WWII were small groups of people fighting against tyranny.
The Holocaust, "Ethnic Cleansing", violence and all horrows against people don't occur in a vacuum. Theses crimes occur because the masses either praticpate or doing nothing to stop it.
2
Among the more upsetting cultural chapters of my very Northern home state’s history was an annual minstrel show put on by our state university's fraternities. This event ended in the 1960s, before I was born. But the stubborn attitudes of the white people who enjoyed it then persisted. I first learned about this history just a few years ago, and I asked my mother, who was in college during this time, if she remembered it. She enthusiastically said she did, and I was a bit shocked by that and asked if she understood what blackface was really about. We had a SHARP disagreement from there. (She kept insisting that it was “honoring Southern culture” – in a state on the Canadian border?) It was especially upsetting to me because my mom identifies strongly with the activism of the 1960s and the civil rights movement, and yet in this case nostalgia trumped understanding. It taught me that racism and white supremacy are like layers of an onion – you peel one back and think you got rid of it, but there is another layer underneath of assumptions people never thought to question, and then another and another.
While I didn’t think it sunk in at the time, recently when the pictures of Gov. Northam surfaced, my mom mentioned it. Wow, she said, this is a reminder of how much I had to learn. One of the things Prof. Yancy is saying here is exactly that, that white people all have to do the work of learning and having the awkward conversations. We owe it to society to peel back those layers.
11
@gmg22
I love that your mom is one of the ones who is willing to learn. Gov. Northam... not so much.
1
This is a great article that wonderfully explains the necessity of whiteness' need to deny Blackness and Black humanity. It made me think of James Baldwin's admonishment of whitness, "What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it is necessary to have a 'nigger' in the first place...if you think I'm a nigger, it means you need it.”
5
@Henry Minton
I wonder, though, if on some level everyone needs to have some class of people they can look down on. I am not excusing racism, or suggesting that it has to be inevitable. But I am suggesting that humans of all kinds seem to enjoy having someone to oppress. For example, women and people with disabilities are often denied access, even within a particular race. I do not offer that comment in the spirit of "oppression Olympics", but more as an observation that even if the world were composed of one "race", we'd still find the "other" and oppress them.
3
@Syliva
If that's true, then who do black people enjoy oppressing? Or Native Americans, particularly the ones who lived in perfect peace and harmony on the Caribbean islands until Columbus's troops massacred them? They didn't even have the concept of oppression.
Thank you for this very fine piece. I have lived in my white blindness most of my life, feeling like I'm a liberal, progressive person, but in reality having virtually no interaction or integration with African Americans other than of the most superficial, passing variety. We are still a profoundly segregated nation, and segregation just goes on breeding more ignorance, inequality, and hatred based on misplaced blame.
Trump's election and the release of "I Am Not Your Negro" began to wake me up. Now I look at this from the other side of the mirror, that American racism is a serious white people problem. A problem of secret shame and fear--which is then pushed aside by blaming the victims.
Any white person who thinks the "United" States can prosper and be healthy and succeed without intimately examining his or her own perspective of black people and looking in the mirror to ask why s/he is so insecure that s/he needs to feel superior to blacks is deceiving her- or himself.
The brilliant James Baldwin, on whose writing the film is based, a film every white American should see, nails it when he says, "The question you got to ask yourself, the white population of this country has got to to ask itself, is why was it necessary to have a nigger in the first place....Because I am not a nigger, I am a man. But if you think I'm a nigger, then it means you need it, and you need to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that."
https://youtu.be/rNUYdgIyaPM
7
@Jan
Thank you! I think a lot of us white people have been going through this same evolution in the last few years. (And it is sad it took us so long.) I don't think it'll be enough to save us in 2020, but eventually we'll get there, an anti-racist America. If we are careful, that is, and don't just exchange our old certainty that we were good non-racists for a new certainty that "now I'm not racist, I've finished my evolution, now everyone else just needs to be like me." Let's keep paying attention and evolving.
17
I grew up in a small New England city where, back in the 30s and 40s, there were not many black people. Some were poor. A few, however, were small business owners and fairly affluent. Still, socially, there was a racial divide. Those who went on to college often attended all black colleges in the South. They vacationed in resorts with others like themselves. In WWII, the armed services still were segregated. That was judged socially appropriate.
In the mid-1940s, my family moved with the textile industry to South Carolina, where racial segregation in schools, work places, areas of residence, attendance at cinemas, seating on buses, even use of separate drinking fountains in stores was the law -- and a rigidly enforced law. That law was almost universally obeyed without any show of protest. It was how things were. Like others around me, I obeyed those laws as well.
When I compare that world to what I experience today, even when visiting South Carolina, I feel astonished (and yes very pleased) with the change that has occurred in my own lifetime. Yes, we have some way to go before race ceases to be an issue for people making their way in life. Judging from what I have seen in my own lifetime, nevertheless, we seem on the right track and are going to make it.
Perhaps one has to have lived long enough to experience such history to believe that positive change can and does occur. Take heart!
8
@Penseur The public universities in the North were integrated from their founding in the 19th Century. Your neighbors could have gone there, had they chosen to.
2
@Jonathan Katz
These schools may have been "integrated" but blacks attempting to attend these schools met harassment and difficulty while merely attempting to receive an education. That is why students "chose" to attend HBCUs.
1
@Jonathan Katz: Yes, but they chose not to do so. They too were caught up in the need to feel a separated identity, a class system within their own race.
1
I appreciate very much the tone and history of this article; the harm that these practices have done to our current society is real and it is not funny.
I find myself grappling with how to move forward with our next generation. My white 6 year old son adores Black Panther and asked for that costume. He uses an African-American avatar on his school math practice app because he likes it best. My white 9 year old daughter dressed up like Gamora for Halloween,( from Guardians of the Galaxy, played by African-American actress Zoe Saldana). Should I steer them away from these choices because of the poisonous history of Blackface? How and when do I engage in a meaningful discussion with my children that allows them to celebrate people and characters who are not of their race?
8
@Hazel
No, let them wear whatever costumes they want, it's a sign of respect, not denigration. Dressing up as a superhero for Halloween has nothing to do with a racist minstrel show. Be glad there are black superheroes to look up to now.
3
@Hazel that is a beautiful question. You asking questions like that about what is right and wrong from a stance of race is what everyone who isn’t black should be doing. So that being said, I think it is great that your kids enjoy and have real love for black culture. That being said for me as a black man I have seen our culture get ripped from us and used by white people. Rock n’ Roll, Blues, and Rap are things that have been culturally appropriated by white culture. So just from my stance and knowing how slippery a slope fandom and then cultural appropriation can happen I think it’s good to encourage your kids to love black culture but also understand that being black isn’t a fashion choice or choice at all it’s that we’re born into it. That is very heavy for a kid but Germany does teach the holocaust in schools so kids can understand the ramifications of past mistakes.
1
Oh, please.
I'm glad you have a thesaurus, but this is still nothing but puerile jingoism masquerading as erudition. It's a long, hard, sesquipedalianistic slog to a meaningless conclusion, its foundations based more on fancy than fact. I submit that blackface really isn't anyone's problem. Have you seen a lot of it going on recently? Of course you haven't. But everyone's jumping on the bandwagon of getting their underwear in a twist over some costume party pictures snapped during Reagan's first term. There's hardly some epidemic of blackface sweeping the nation - I've lived my entire 50 years here in the South and never seen it. Yet we've had at least a month of hand-wringing over it - which is about 29 days more than it deserves. The amount of coverage has had a countervailing effect to its intent, at least for me, as I've gone from disapproval to exhaustion to just not giving a damn anymore.
As a final point, Mr. Yancy, laughably ludicrous lines like this: "It speaks to the parasitic nature of whiteness and its need to “feed”" make it absolutely impossible to take you seriously.
127
@Greg
Jingoism? I think you need to consult a dictionary. Moreover, the essay is not about "some epidemic of blackface sweeping the nation." That is a single-minded and narrow-minded reading of it. It is about the ideology of racism, which has swept and continues to sweep over this nation. Knee-jerk reactions like yours are one reason we have made so little progress, particularly here in "the South."
10
@Greg
With all due respect. Maybe you haven't seen Blackface in your entire 50 years in the South -- but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, nor does it mean the mentality that allows it to occur has changed.
Especially since racially motivated acts to keep Blacks subordinate and "in their place" either violently or in jest, still abound and are on the rise.
6
@Greg
You have not seen much blackface lately because it has become unacceptable!. Just because it is not seen one should jump into conclusion that racism does not exist.
Sounds like a Texan reply all right. AND, with a lot of support too, judging by the numbers that "recommend" it--another proof that racism survives under the mantle of being fed up with it...
5
As a woman, I see a similar dynamic occurring when men dress in drag. It appears to me that men exaggerate female characteristics and behavior in order to mock women, but come nowhere close to truly representing what it is to be a woman. When watching a drag queen’s act, I feel belittled and ridiculed and ask myself, “Is this what they think of us?”
I’ve talked to a few (female) friends about this, though, and none shared my opinion, so maybe it’s just me.
22
@JayGee It’s not just you! It is also rather superficial when people (whose birth gender is not female - is that they way to say it?) who say they identify as a woman, when what that means is that they like to wear makeup and nail polish and high heels. I’m a woman and wear none of those.
12
@JayGee When my father dressed in drag to perform, always trying to be a woman as ridiculous looking as possible, he was expressing his intense misogyny. As a joke—if you didn't like it, you "had no sense of humor."
5
@JayGee Nope, not just you, couldn't agree more.
3
Having spent a fair bit of time in academia, I understand that professors have to professor. Humanities professors in particular are constantly promoting constructs, paradigms, archetypes and syntheses in an attempt to explain reality. (Some also use it to gain tenure, to overawe undergraduates, and to dazzle or confuse listeners at conferences and cocktail parties.)
The problem is that – ironically, since these are "the humanities," after all – such intellectual effort tends to squeeze people into rigid and ideological categories that, in the end, don't resemble actual human beings all that much.
To the extent that Professor Yancy's essay urges reflection and self-critique regarding deep-seated and often subconscious racial stereotyping and generalization that are rooted in our troubled history, it has something to offer. But when his own synthesis leans on stereotype and generalization – "Why White People Need Blackface," "the parasitic nature of whiteness," and “a long history of whiteness,” for example – it reads less like an attempt to explain reality and more like a manifesto.
77
@BK
Being myself an academic philosopher in academia, I assure you that professors do not "have to professor" and that plain speech is used by many of us to convey difficult ideas. Plain speech is also used by us so that undergraduates can actually discuss and reflect on what we're talking about.
While it is true of many—and it is—please, do not lump all humanities professors into the same basket while complaining about Yancy lumping a diverse group into the same basket.
Thanks!
16
@The Lorax
You are right. I concede the point.
11
Couldn’t have said it better.
I agree with professor Yancy's analysis but must remind him that his audience is not well versed in the meaning of "epistemological and ontological terror."
So put another way, whiteness always stands in opposition to blackness. And whiteness is not the same as ethnicity, although in America we've conflated the two.
We also have to recognize that historically there have only been two races in America, whites and non-whites. But social changes are bringing all the belief systems associated with that into question.
I agree that the condemnations of racism are appropriate, but they then close the door on the bigger question.
Why in the 21st century do so many whites cling to the symbols of racial superiority from the 18th and 19th centuries?
Could it be that despite the promises of the 13th, and 14th Amendments that most of us don't really understand that to achieve equality we must eliminate all forms of racism, root and branch?
This will take time, commitment and effort. If whites can simply be open to this proposition there are many ways forward. But as long as we keep practicing the few bad apples syndrome we will have to face these issues over and over again.
13
This is a terrific article. Thank you for your insights. There are so many subtle and not-so subtle dramas white people act out against the other. By extension, your article also made me wonder about Drag and what it says about some men and how they need to depict women, act out exaggerated and grotesque depictions of femininity.
25
@cgtwet
Oh, great. Now we get this article as justification for transphobia.
2
@Jeoffrey omg I know right! This is the third comment I’ve seen someone complaining about drag. Which isn’t based in one gender men and women can both do drag. So the points they’re making make so little sense. I don’t know what they think drag is. Also I don’t think they know that even what they’re angry about or what they’re arguing against.
3
Thank you for these thoughts. The challenge is what to do about the problems racism has caused and continues to cause. It appears that single motherhood and an absent father has much more to do with poor outcomes for any race than racism. If the goal is to improve the lives of black and poor Americans, shouldn't the focus be on the cultural issues that disadvantage them?
18
@Dr B Do you know what Red Lining is? How public schools are funded? How cultural codes are reinforced by popular media? Etc. etc. How we "read" and "understand" one another, and how discrimination is perpetuated, is far more complex than 'single motherhood' (which didn't seem to turn out too badly for our last president).
18
@Dr B
" . . .the cultural issues that disadvantage them?"
And by that I assume you mean the culture of poverty? the culture of violence" ? the culture of failing schools? and so on?
-
Dr. B - who created those conditions?
3
@Dr B
So black people actually are one dimensional to you?
3
@peter, @james: I was oblivious to the existence of "White America" and "Black America" until I, a white woman, married a black man. I lived with my husband in Black America, I visited my family in White America, and I spent the bulk of my time with a foot in each world, which required straddling a yawning chasm I had never perceived before and which seemed to widen, not shrink, through the years. White people think of America as having a certain history, culture, set of mores. Black America sees these assumptions not as American, but as White American, because these constructs are the product of white oppression of people of color over centuries and have been handed down through generations of white families until it is assumed that they are norms for all of America. This is why, as @james put it, "liberals" seem to want to make modern people pay for the mistakes of our ancestors. Of course modern people did not do what our ancestors did. But modern people are still operating under the assumptions our ancestors established, and that is why we need to break that pattern if we have any hope of true equality in America. Though my marriage ended and I moved back to White America, I see Black America vividly, across a chasm now wider than I ever imagined possible.
112
@Greek Goddess
It would be more helpful if you listed those aspects of white culture that blacks find alien to themselves. Just saying there's a chasm is too vague.
8
@Greek Goddess
To begin with. You describe "Black America" as though it were some monolith culture.
Let me assure you, IT IS NOT.
There are many different aspects to Black life in America, so sweeping generalizations often come across as over-simplified.
And in the end, it's still all about white America's denial of their role in this country's tortured and racist past.
6
@Greek Goddess
'"...liberals" seem to want to make modern people pay for the mistakes of our ancestors.'
It is not about modern individuals paying for the mistakes of individuals from the past.
It is about Our Constitutional Republic taking responsibility for its official acts. We the People have responsibility for what We the People have done.
The reason that Republicans can't wrap their minds around this is that they don't actually believe in the actual Constitution. They think that the Constitution says whether they want it to say, the same way they read their bible.
They all insist that the USA is a "capitalist, Christian nation," even though neither of those words are in the Constitution. The most racist Republicans claim this is a white man's country, even though it doesn't say that either.
Our country is not defined by the whims of the Party of Trump. It is defined by the Constitution, which makes everyone born here an equal citizen, has language more compatible with socialism (Justice, the general welfare, tax and spend) than extremist capitalism, and specifically forbids an official religion.
The Party of Trump is constantly attacking the Constitution, calls Our Government, "the enemy," and fully supports a president who claims he can decide who is a citizen by executive order!
The USA has to take responsibility for its actions, and to talk about it as if individuals should only have the benefits of being citizens, but not the responsibilities is folly.
3
As usual, Dr. Yancy mixes academic mud into thoughtful insight, but that’s ok, it’s his job. The rest us worry about these things too, but it is a huge mistake to think that color is something unifying an imagined ‘white’ culture, or that history is the dominant force in shaping lives today. This nation of immigrants mostly left ancient regions because something had changed just enough to give up history, language and culture, and try something that promised better. Nearly all of us currently resident here are only a few generations away from people who were not only reviled and oppressed at home, but didn’t expect that much better here. Right now, our American culture is exceedingly transitory, separated from continuity, and (technologically) shaped in completely new forms. I can’t tell you if a ten-year old today will understand blackface on an emotional level, or religious persecution, or misogyny or even gender.
So, Dr. Yancy, it’s all good, and very likely, also all bad. Stay tuned.
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I think we can agree that blackface is an archaic artifice. The portrayal of black culture in early film and television was stereotypical. However, it is not the cause of our dysfunctional justice system, economic inequality, or inadequately funded public school system. But the blackface photo was taken a half a century ago. Let's focus on the substance of inequality in our laws.
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@Maureen Steffekblackfase is not the cause, but a reflection of racism. Donning blackface today (or condoning its use in the past) is proof that many refuse to “get it,” and are still demanding that black people “be in on the joke” of their own subjugation. Haha. Obviously (but not obvious to everyone) not funny.
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@Maureen Steffek
Except it isn't an "archaic artifice" judging from the many instances of blackface wearers that continue to surface such as the recent examples of the school teacher in Iowa, college students at Brigham Young University, a nurse in San Diego, a London man on the Tube, etc.
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@Maureen Steffek
The point is that the cultural stereotype justifies those legal and economic inequalities. Enough of the population still believes that people of a certain race deserve less in life because of their supposed differences (think the myth of the lazy "urban" welfare queen), so they won't vote for equality. These stereotypes aren't confined to the distant past, even watching movies from my childhood in the 90's I cringe at the racist and sexist stereotypes used for comedic effect. I'm sure someday we'll be cringing about a lot of stuff that isn't given a second thought today.
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I wasn't aware of blackface until my 20's, when I saw an old film at MoMA. It seemed odd, but didn't, and doesn't, seem to say anything to me (I'm white) about myself, as opposed to the society I've always rebelled against. Of course none of us, black or white, are completely transparent to ourselves, so who knows?
My heart is always with the powerless. But the way we talk about racism disturbs me. I can't completely understand my closest relatives, so I certainly don't presume to understand friends or strangers of other backgrounds. I would never explain to them how behavior in which they've never engaged reflects their unconscious assumptions.
More importantly, these dissections of attitudes seem based on the false assumption that changing attitudes is the way to remedy injustice. Our economic system is based on widening divisions of economic and political power. Those divisions are disproportionately manifested racially, because our economic situations are overwhelmingly inherited. Racism may sometimes be a rationalization for greed, but it does not motivate it.
If the goal is communication & empathy, it's important to discuss differences in attitudes & experience. But if that is the goal, then we shouldn't condescend to people by psychoanalyzing them. And if the goal is changing an unjust world, we should be addressing the laws that create unjust conditions. As I have written here before, the goal is a just society, not one in which injustice is colorblind.
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@Martin
Sigh... It concerns me that this is such a common response.
"The way we talk about racism disturbs me."
Woe is me that I am made momentarily uncomfortable. I will not stand for this maker of discomfort! Burn it!
"I would never explain to them how behavior in which they've never engaged reflects their unconscious assumptions."
Never? Literally never? If someone that you're familiar with was joking about domestic violence, you don't think you'd be able to parse ANYTHING about their unconscious assumptions? It would OBVIOUSLY be context-dependent, but you could almost definitely draw some meaningful conclusions about this person. It's not that difficult. People are not black-boxes. They aren't that difficult to understand.
It's important to note here that Yancy never made the claim that you seem to believe he did--that "we can make very specific determinations that apply to ALL white people" with regards to their perception of race. He doesn't make this claim, because this claim is absurd.
Instead, he points out that while condemning specific black-face-participants is a small sign of progress, the driving force is not individual "bad apples," but a deep-seated white-cultural phenomenon which allows whites to feel superior to blacks. He illustrates how this phenomenon has been historically exacerbated by the ghosts of Antebellum racism.
Stop thinking that because you have white skin, Yancy is calling you evil. He's not.
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@BB I guess if a friend made that joke I'd ask them to think about how a victim of domestic violence would feel. But I'm more concerned with whether or not people support giving women the legal & economic power to escape & combat violence, than in diagnosing senses of humor, especially on a universalizing basis. People are individuals, not examples.
I dont care if Yancy thinks I'm evil, I care that the discussion he advocates only serves to help "both" sides feel superior, while making sure we do nothing to address concrete injustices. Honestly, I think that if slavery still existed, Yancy would be analyzing attitudes and the Democrats would be trying to ensure that both slaves and slave-owners were racially diverse. All to avoid empowering those anti-business abolitionists.
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@BB YES, YES, YES......THE THE NTH POWER....UGH
As I was reading this piece, I found myself wondering if there are similar social and philosophical underpinnings to drag shows. It seems to me that the appropriation of black bodies and of women's bodies has gone hand-in-hand in the white (male) world.
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@Greek Goddess I've found myself thinking about that too. In both cases, drag and minstrelsy, the performance is a grotesque exaggeration of features, dress, and behaviors. While it's obvious in blackface, if we really unpack drag performances, they too are equally exaggerated depictions of how men understand woman, still perceived as 'other', and unquestionably at times played for laughs.
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@Greek Goddess
Last time I checked it isn't straight white males that are dressing in drag.
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@Greek Goddess We are "woke" to racism and LBGTQ -- but we have no conception of the depth and breadth of misogyny yet. But one need to only look at the vileness of commenters to see that people are very comfortable being hostile to women publicly -- whereas (most) are more circumspect when it comes to race or sexual orientation.
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The use of racial depictions has been a concern of opera companies for some years and some have completely prohibited it. There are many non-white roles such as Otello (the Moor of Venice), Turnadot et al. (Chinese), Madame Butterfly et al. (Japanese), Lakme et al. and the Pearl Fishers (South Asians). In the past, I have seen Black singers use makeup to appear more white for European roles. None of these are intended to mock other groups except perhaps for the originally Black slaves in the Magic Flute. To this day, Porgy and Bess cannot be performed by anyone other than Blacks.
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@David,
"Othello" was played by Sir Laurence Olivier in Blackface, and while this American had heard of the noble Moor in passing, after the movie was over, I remained perplexed because Olivier was known as an Anglo-Saxon. Naturally, I was the clown in this anecdote dating back to 1965.
What is more mystifying now for this viewer is that there appear to have been few black Hollywood actors available to star, and be cast in this Shakespearean role.
The old grainy photo of the current Governor of Virginia is dated; but why anyone would want to use Blackface, let alone another be dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan is singular, and shows poor taste. America had a Civil War, in part to abolish Slavery, and while there is pleasure in youth, there is a lesson in morality here that seems to have been forgotten.
How can a conversation about blackface fail to mention the phenomenon of "Amos 'n' Andy?"
The invisibility that radio provided did nothing to diminish the "blackfaceness" of the show. Even when the show made the (very successful) leap to television after the war and the main characters were portrayed by black actors, it was no less blackface than when two unseen white men pretended to be black in front of a microphone. In its early days, television, both the phenomenon of being able to see the actor and the physical device that made it possible was the purview of whites, and everything broadcast was aimed for the white audience. TV sets were nearly as expensive as a used care, often more so. Many if not most blacks were unable to afford the luxury of seeing black men acting as though they were being played by whites.
Blacks portraying themselves as white actors would portray them has been with us since the age of silent film.
Try to picture Sidney Poitier and Morgan Freeman as Amos and Andy. Maybe you can see it in your mind's eye. I cannot.
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@Glen: Glen, take a look at "Amos and Andrew" with Nicolas Cage and Samuel L. Jackson.
@Glen
I would argue that "Will and Grace" was nothing but the gay version of "Amos and Andy."
While everything in this article is true.
It is also true that "Blackface" was and is about LOVE.
It was and is in its varied forms about the ability for the performer and audience to express, feel, think and understand outside the strict boundaries the society sets for a given class, race, religion, ethnicity.
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@Asher Interesting comment, though I'm not knowledgeable enough to parse my agreements or disagreements.
When I was a kid I had an aunt who traveled a lot (most of us couldn't afford to), a sort of "Auntie Mame" character. She sometimes brought me back things like a Mexican sombrero, a Tahitian "idol," a fez from Morocco, etc, things bought at souvenir shops. Today they might be seen as insensitive cultural appropriation, but I experienced them as tools for imagination, and aspiration to cosmopolitanism (multiculturalism?), not as tokens of privilege and power.
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@Asher
I could not be more certain that empathy across racial divides is antithetical to the objectives of blackface. For every heartfelt exploration of black suffering and humanity performed by a white man with shoe polish on his face, there are hundreds who used/use it as a medium to mock, and to strip humans of their dignity and reduce them to risible caricatures.
People who want to understand someone else's viewpoint can go talk to them or read a book; dressing up in minstrelsy is not the way.
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It takes quite a bit of intellectual and emotional maturity to hear that one is parasitic, feeding, and exclusive of the other and still hear that person's truth. As satisfying as vinegar can be, I suspect that honey, as of yore, will have more long term success.
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@ForUsTheLiving. We whites have had plenty of honey. Aptly applied vinegar is what is called for in a "civilized" land where the percentage of blacks outnumber whites in our infamous prisons, and where police still get away with murdering blacks; who were no doubt "killed while trying to escape." That is, until the advent of the smart phone. We may have come a long way, baby, but not far enough, not by a long shot.
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@ForUsTheLiving Preposterous. Name the success that came out of not speaking truth ? Examples of feeding 'honey' to monsters having 'long term success'.
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@ForUsTheLiving If I found myself living in a society where I thought the majority was parasitically feeding off and excluding me because of my race, I think I'd look to see if life might be better for me in a society where people of my own race were in power. If I found that life would in fact be worse for me in such places, I might reconsider the nature of my relationship with the people of the society I had imagined parasitical.
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Historical facts - no matter the source - point to the 'white man's' obliteration of indigenous people (56 million killed in the Americas by (mostly) European settlers) and then the importation of slaves - stolen lives.
In the @100 years that followed the civil war, legislation - national, state, and local - was used to ensure that people of color would not be protected and would be oppressed, just in a different legal construct. In addition to segregation laws, housing/lending laws, etc. ensured that black people would be kept down, kept at bay.
In the 50+ yrs since civil rights legislation passed, some of the laws improved the conditions but 2 things remained:
1) Most of the damage of 400 yrs of slavery, oppression, and all that comes with it remain. Imagine a family of 20 generations built with one layer of oppression, discrimination, & inhumane treatment at a time. Now imagine a whole community. Now imagine an entire peoples or race. Few of the best of us- no matter the color of our skin - could find hope much less success through such a history. They can't change this overnight; in fact, much oppression and racism against them continues to weigh against progress. And...
2) Many whites (not all) have been conditioned by this same 400 yrs. Despite all of us being immigrants at some point in our past, our attitudes and skin color remain as a weapon against these people, and by extension, humanity itself.
An open wound against mankind is an unhealed wound for us all.
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@Brad G
Well said. It would be nice to see this article paired with one proposing what we can do about the problems it discusses. Healing that wound should be a priority for us all.
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@Brad G I'm not defending what Europeans have done wrong, but I think those who think Europeans have been worse than others should study the history of other peoples. Our history is not unique in its violence and oppression. Seems these things are a sad part of human nature. What European culture did that was unique, was to try to enact reforms and to put an end to these awful practices before anyone else even saw a problem with them.
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@Charlie Clarke
Unfortunately, there is something unique about the violence and oppression of European people. For several reasons, Europeans have been able to kill, enslave, colonize and extract wealth on a scale that far exceeds non-Europeans. See for instance Jason Hickel, The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets.
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Times change, and social norms change. We can sit in judgment of the past, but it is conduct today that is most important. I remember as a kid separate bathrooms and water coolers for black and white. As a child I didn't think anything of it, because that is the way things were. Thank goodness for positive change, but if you weren't there at the time, measure your condemnation of others who were. As 13 yr. olds, four of us put on a blackface pantomime skit in the basement auditorium of the church, and the audience had a great laugh. No one brought up the fact that it was racist. And don't be arrogant about being brought up in the north. I can point out things that happened in NY City that are as bad as anything that happened in Alabama. And humanity has a long way to go before it fully appreciates the full meaning of the golden rule.
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@bullone
"Times change, and social norms change. We can sit in judgment of the past, but it is conduct today that is most important."
Yet that is exactly what liberals do all the time. There is no act to far in the past that can't be used be condemn folks.
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@bullone
I can recall as a child in the '50's seeing blackface skits on TV and in movies, but I couldn't understand why it was "necessary." The portrayal didn't make the acting funnier or even "funny" at all. I cannot recall having a "great laugh" watching any of the blackface episodes I saw.
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@James: No. First of all let's clear up the use of the word "liberal", which can mean a lot of different things. In this context, it's pretty clear that it has nothing to do with what John Stuart Mill had in mind when he articulated the philosophy. If fact -- lets face it -- in some circles it has come to mean "anybody who isn't just like me",
Anyway, true "modernists" -- a much better description of those who are currently often mislabelled as "liberal" -- don't condemn "folks". Only bigots do that. Modernists condemn "those who insist on ignoring and/or perpetuating continuing injustices". There's a big difference.
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Could this argument be applied generally to any type of negative stereotyping? Does a bully utilize this process on a micro level to justify his or her actions?
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@Benjamin Loeb In response to your question, yes it can. I'm old enough to recall the numerous times in tv shows when women almost always tripped and fell when fleeing the bad guy, or stood helplessly staring at the men fighting in the room with their hand over their mouth. As a girl, I asked my parents why women were so "LAME" in tough situations and they---fortunately for me---said that it was just a plot device to make the hero appear stronger.
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@Benjamin Loeb I have never seen even one NYT column about negative stereotyping of seniors.
@Benjamin Loeb: Yes, but the danger of the bully analogy it makes the systems that keep white supremacy in place, systems that are as robust and insidious today as ever they were, invisible. See for example the introduction of DJT's Black employee as proof that he is not racist. Lord! The 'see I have a Black friend' trope has been used to great effect by late night comedians forever, and Congress still does not get it!
We must be careful not to freight the systems of racism onto one single individual and in so doing relieve ourselves of the weight these systems bring to bear on our entire globe.
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Professor Yancy’s essay is thought provoking and, judging by some of the comments thus far, has hit a nerve.
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@J. Everyone's nerves are on a knife-edge, so hitting one is really easy to do. Let's talk about solutions to the problems, and not demonize a race of people. Any race.
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@Lock Him Up It is to white people's advantage to not talk about race. See: white fragility.
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Mr. Yancy makes the mistake of generalization - in huge, and disturbing measure. I really don't think it's useful to talk about "White America" as if it exists - or ever did.
White Americans owned slaves, yet some white Americans were abolitionists. White Americans engineered Jim Crowe yet some white Americans took buses south to register black voters.
The racial imbalances in America, among them health, wealth, education, and incarceration are undeniable. We should all be working together to address these urgent needs.
I don't think Mr. Yancy's essay is at all helpful in this regard.
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@peter Well stated. 60%+ of US (non-Hispanic Caucasians) have always had fewer obstacles, I suppose "Privilege" looks better in a tweet, than minorities. To deny it is just plain ignorant. But to group all whites as inherently evil and uncaring is not going aid in solving the problems.
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@peter
Meh, it's just lazy thinking that allows someone like the author to lump all whites together.
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(Or we could say that some white Americans owned enslaved people, but most did not.)
When we focus too obsessively on race, we overlook social class. We miss the opportunity to find commonality. In the late 1800s my ancestors were tenant farmers., operating under the same dire conditions that tenant farmers worked under in the American South. The lucky ones were domestic servants. At least they were fed. They came to this country as the result of hunger and poverty in Europe.
A dear friend whose poor, but educated parents were born in Russia always assumed that my English surname and white skin granted automatic entry in to WASP society. Not so. Social class is a dead giveaway. I didn't have the manners, references, or sense of entitlement to a good life that people of someone who grew up in Greenwich or New Canaan.
I've noticed among people I know that those of us who are only a generation or two removed from domestic servitude, or stoop labor never learned how to ask for more when it came to negotiating salary. We didn't quite know how the system worked. I was brought up with the servile belief of my parents that you had to "know somebody" to get a good job, or a fair shake. Privilege isn't always a matter of skin color - it's being brought up with the belief that you are worth something. This toxic generational belief needs to be overcome before people can make headway in the world, regardless of race.
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"What if blackface is clear evidence of the emptiness of whiteness, the hollowness of its being as an identity marker?"
Be careful about claiming that "whiteness" is hollow as an identity marker, Professor Yancy. Nature abhors a vacuum.
It is essentially the position of white supremacists that "whiteness" has a positive content. And that such positive content in the humanities and arts (whether elite or folk) and philosophy has been systematically attacked for 50 years. It is the hollowness of intellectual discourse that labels Aristotelian ethics as "white" and thus allows it to be captured by white supremacists.
There are plenty of "progressives" of course who claim that "whiteness" has only negative content. That's just the other side of the coin from white supremacy.
If you ask people to choose between (a) positive content to their identity (black pride, gay pride, women's history), or (b) negative content to their identity (blackface, the bad white male) they will over time adopt the positive, self-affirming perspective. That is the basis for the human pull to tribalism. Tell people long enough they are only bad and they will define an identity that says they are great. Tell people they are empty, and they will fill that void.
The Professoriate might have decided instead that a common American identity with equal legal rights for every individual in all their glorious uniqueness was a better political, ethical, and philosophical project. They still could.
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Thank you for this article. It reminds me of James Baldwin.
I recently read that the character of Cat in the Hat has its roots in blackface minstrelsy. Blackface, hiding in plain site, in every children's library in America.
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Mickey Mouse also has roots in the minstrel shows.
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@Siobhan Mickey Mouse, as well. I recently listened to a Code Switch podcast about blackface and was jarred and saddened to hear how pervasive it has been. I truly didn't know.
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@Siobhan The Cat In The Hat?! Now we are taking white guilt too far.
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What we need is more willingness to talk about racism, particularly in schools. I grew up in the suburbs of Boston during the fights over court-ordered bussing. My town, my school never mentioned it. We managed to read To Kill a Mockingbird as if racism was something that happened in the south in the 50s, not in the Boston area at the then current day. As Dylan sang, it was long ago, far away, things like that don't happen nowadays.
So, I get how people can reach their 20s being totally oblivious to the ugly truth around them, especially if they don't want to face the fact that their community, their friends and family, even themselves might have a fair degree of ugly prejudice.
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Blackface is the tip of the iceberg of the structural disparities between black and white in America: in schooling, social investment, income, opportunities, and the judicial system, where there are different sentences for the same offenses, for white and black defendants--and often, lethal differences in encounters with police. But for the white people still engaging in blackface, it is also a collective affirmation of a blatant manifestation of a white supremacy identity. White Americans who do not speak out to make this unacceptable, through constructive shaming, at the very least, bear some collective guilt.
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Powerfully written and eloquently stated. Having lived here and in Europe -- and the Europeans were stakeholders in the slave trade and were ur-colonials, as we all know -- there is a major difference. In this country, there is a discourse, and articles like this one are published and reach a large audience. Not so much on the Continent, where the sense of white superiority is still and terribly hard-backed into the culture(s). I regret that we have so much progress still to make, but it's heartening to have access to the conversation.
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Thank you for the article Mr. Yancy; it's true. I recall my parents used to like to watch Al Jolson on television - his Mammy and Camptown Races were legendary songs.
I was curious why these entertainers felt the need to imitate black people - this article helped to explain that. I believe my parents were not racists - my father did most of his business with blacks and we were raised to be respectful of all people. All these years I felt Al Jolson was the exception - his act was acceptable - it wasn't. It's something I finally realized today...after all these years. It's a white people's issue for sure.
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I'm a white man married to a black woman, and my take on American racism is that it's like a failed marriage where both sides refuse to accept that the other has a completely different understanding of the reality of their relationship. To save the marriage, husband and wife need to listen to and accept the legitimacy of the others interpretation.
The vast majority of whites now believe that racism in America is not a major issue holding blacks back and that it's no longer something the government should be involved with fixing.
The vast majority of blacks believe that history and the present have created nearly insurmountable obstacles of negative black stereotyping that keep them from achieving equal power and wealth in the American system.
Statistical analysis makes it clear that their is still a huge chasm between white and black wealth and power in this country. Racism is the color based difference between the explanations of this divide.
We are in extreme need of honest and direct marriage counseling here.
Meanwhile, we can at least make sure that all American children born in poverty are provided with equally excellent schools from pre-school on as those fortunate enough to be living in wealthy neighborhoods.
Both sides should understand that this race based economic chasm needs to be closed.
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@alan haigh, this is an intelligent comment.
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@alan haigh
Bravo!
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@alan haigh,
"The vast majority of whites now believe that racism in America is not a major issue holding blacks back and that it's no longer something the government should be involved with fixing. "
I respectfully disagree. The recent stories with cell-phone videos clearly showing unarmed black men running from police officers and being shot dead for it are eye openers for any thinking person.
Black men peacefully meeting for a business discussion at Starbucks and having the police called on them.
Locally, a black man watching TV in his living room having the police called on him because someone saw him through his windows and thought he "didn't belong". Oh, yes, racism still exists in the US.
The "government should not be involved with fixing" thing goes back to Saint Ronald Reagan proclaiming that government is the problem, and the ensuing GOP drive to drown government in the bathtub.
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Powerful essay. Thanks for sharing. it is difficult as a white American to face up to our racisy past and present.
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Difficult to read, in more ways than one. One additional aspect of "whiteness" is not having to think about it until an opportunity for entertainment or philosophizing comes up. Then, we (white people, that is) can sit back and take the long view, safe in our majority and knowing that, if push comes to shove, we have more push. And so, the dismay of some when they realize that the power relationship may not always be what it was. American politics has always contained the promise of equality and that is the one thing that makes an alternative to the human tradition of racial and ethnic conquest possible. How ironic that white Americans may soon find that it is just a promise and not a binding principle.
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