Put down the black and brown face paint. Step away from the bronzer 12 shades darker than your skin. That is, if you're at all interested in not being a walking symbol of racism this Halloween. Wait, what's wrong with blackface? A lot of people, thankfully, don't need this question answered. To many, it's obvious that it's a lazy, non-funny costume bad idea with a depressing history that is the opposite of celebratory. People have even made very simple visual aids to communicate this. But the public service announcements haven't worked. Each Halloween serves as a reminder that a giant gulf remains between people who understand that blackface is in bad taste, or are willing to defer to black people who tell them so, and people who are still asking "But why? (You know, the ones who are thinking as they read this, "You say it's racist but I can tell you right now I'm not racist, so it's fine if I wear it! Come on, get over it! Stop with the political correctness! I don't understand how this is offensive! It's a joke!") For the "why" crowd (and for anyone who feels moved to have a dialogue with one of its members), here's an explanation of what, exactly, is wrong with wearing blackface, on Halloween or ever: Blackface is much more than just dark makeup used to enhance a costume.
Its American origins can be traced to minstrel shows. In the mid to late nineteenth century, white actors would routinely use black grease paint on their faces when depicting plantation slaves and free blacks on stage. To be clear, these weren't flattering representations. At all. Taking place against the backdrop of a society that systematically mistreated and dehumanized black people, they were mocking portrayals that reinforced the idea that African-Americans were inferior in every way.
The blackface caricatures that were staples of Minstrelsy (think: Mammy, Uncle Tom, Buck, and Jezebel) took a firm hold in the American imagination, and carried over into other mediums of entertainment.
Blackface has also been seen in Vaudeville Shows and on Broadway. Yes, black actors sometimes wore blackface, too, because white audiences didn't want to see them on the stage without it.
We have blackface performances to thank for some of the cartoonish, dehumanizing tropes that still manage to make their way into American culture.
Beyond that, blackface and systematic social and political repression are so inextricably linked that, according to C. Vann Woodward's history The Strange Career of Jim Crow, the very term "Jim Crow" — usually used as shorthand for rigid anti-black segregation laws in force between the end of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement — derives from an 1832 blackface minstrel number by Thomas D. Rice. There's no way around it: this particular costume choice has a terrible track record. No, minstrel shows don't really happen anymore, but keep in mind that it hasn't been all that long since blackface in its original form existed. And it was regularly seen on television as recently as 1978 in The Black and White Minstrel Show. If respect for people who had to live through a time when blackface went hand-in-hand with day-to-day hateful and discriminatory treatment isn't enough to keep you from wearing it, consider this: there's a case to be made that it's tied up with some of America's worst racial dynamics.
David Leonard, chair of Washington State University's department of critical culture, gender, and race studies, explained it this way in his 2012 Huffington Post essay, "Just Say No To blackface: Neo Minstrelsy and the Power to Dehumanize"
He told Vox that, today, blackface reinforces the idea that black people are appropriate targets of ridicule and mockery and reminds us of stereotypes about black criminality, and danger. This, says Leonard, can serve to support implicit bias and discriminatory treatment and in areas from law enforcement to employment.
Plus, in a society that allegedly values racial integration, isn't there something unsettling about the idea that the closest thing to an actual black person at your party could be someone smeared with face paint and wearing an Afro wig? Leonard says this creates a false sense of diversity in at atmospheres that include "everything but the actual person, the community, and the culture." Does that sound like somewhere you'd be proud to be?
A common refrain in defense of blackface is that it is all in good fun, a joke, harmless, or not done with the intent to bother anyone. Some have even gone farther. Reason's Thaddeus Russell once wrote that the practice could be understood as a positive thing. But here's the thing: not feeling racist when you're wearing blackface does nothing to change how it affects those who see it (and today, thanks to social media, that doesn't just mean your trick-or-treaters, or the guests at the party you attend — it means the world).
Your innermost thoughts don't change the impact blackface has on the people of all races around you, or the way it reinforces stereotypes and the idea that blackness is, at best, a joke.
"In many ways, one's intent is irrelevant," said Leonard. "The harm, whether it's harm in terms of eliciting anger, or sadness, or triggering various emotions or causing [black people to feel] both hyper-visible and invisible at the same time, is there. When someone says, 'I didn't mean it that way,' well, their real question should be not 'Did I mean it?' but, 'Am I causing harm?'"
In "Just Say No to Blackface," Leonard wrote that some people feel they should have the option to live in ignorance about what's wrong with blackface. That itself, he argued, says a lot about how racism works:
"The ability to be ignorant, to be unaware of the history and consequences of racial bigotry, to simply do as one pleases, is a quintessential element of privilege. The ability to disparage, to demonize, to ridicule, and to engage in racially hurtful practices from the comfort of one's segregated neighborhoods and racially homogeneous schools reflects both privilege and power. The ability to blame others for being oversensitive, for playing the race card, or for making much ado about nothing are privileges codified structurally and culturally." So, maybe you don't know anything about the history of minstrelsy, and maybe you don't know anything about the pain and trauma of living in a society that imagines blackness as comical or criminal.
That, according to Leonard, is the problem.
The question, to ask yourself if you claim ignorance is, he said, "Why do you not know, and what have you done to make sure that you continue to not know?"
After all, embracing the chance to mock, dehumanize, and to dismiss the feelings and demands of others, all while re-imagining history so that only things you deem wrong are wrong, is a pretty great way to perpetuate a racist society that treats black people like crap.
Finally, if you really cannot understand what's wrong with with blackface, challenge yourself to figure out what seems so right about it. Leonard suggests that blackface fans ask themselves, "Why do I derive pleasure from this? What's the investment in doing it, and what's the investment in defending it?"
If you can't answer that, but you're still set on doing something predictable and kind of embarrassing, there are plenty of ridiculous topical costumes to choose from this year: may we suggest a sexy undecided voter Ken Bone?
