On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. If you've listened to some of our previous episodes, like the other other Magical Negro or we might regret this episode later, then you know a little something something about menstrual shows and Vatteville. And if you haven't, well, then go back and listen to those episodes. But anyway, menstrual shows were theatrical performances where actors got up on stage and literally fixed their faces to become gross caricatures of
black people. One of the key visual components of the menstrual show blackface. Actually, let me just read this description from this eighteen ninety three compilation called the Menstrual Show or Burnt Quirk Comicalities. In the matter of making up the face, use only the best prepared burnt cork, which can be obtained from any dealer in theatrical face preparations. Moisten the hands with water and take a small quantity of the quirk, rubbing it in the palm of your
hand until it becomes a thin paste. Then apply to the skin. When it dries, brush the surface gently with some soft substance, and removing the cork. Use only cold water, a large sponge, and a soap that gives a generous lather.
Thanks to the enduring presence of white folks doing blackface in the twenty first century, many folks who never got a black face minstrel c one oh one in school are well aware of the history and problems with blackface. A viral video showing teens in a Cedar City Walmart dressed in costumes and in blackface.
On blackface is back on the job after a first grade teacher was photographed in blackface at a Halloween party. Flatful, Katie, I was so sick of these news stories, not because I was shocked, but because it was exhausting seeing all the hoops folks were jumping through to calculate the value of being well intentioned and white.
I think blackface is like a ray of passage for white people actually, so we should give them.
Some grace hot take. But all these examples we have of blackface today show just how deeply entrenched the practice is in US culture. It didn't come from nowhere, even though some folks would have us believe the blackface offenses are innocent gaps, divorced from any context.
Right, And let's not pretend that we're that far removed from a time of blackface performances.
Were hard for the course only a century ago. Really, and as much as some people want to say that it's an obsolete practice from a bygone era, we are very much not over. It ain't nothing changed, but the day and the technology and black stories are very much a part of the history of blackface. I'm Katie and I'm Eves. Today's episode bona fide blackface. So let's back up a little, yes, and talk about the birth of blackface,
a curse creation. Honestly, Yes, in Shakespeare's plays. In medieval Europe, blackness was associated with evil devil characters were blackface. But the exact origins of blackface as a whole are debated, but it definitely has roots in anti black acts that were pervasive before the eighteen hundreds. Blackface minstreul sy, though, is a distinctly American tradition that caught on in the early nineteenth century. Thomas Dartmouth Rice is considered the father of menstrul sy.
I feel like father is a little too pleasant of a term.
Let's call him the problematic patriarch. Then, sure, that's better. He did a one man show where he blacked up, dressed in shabby clothes, wore a wig, and danced and sung in a deceitfully clownish caricature of a black person. He called his character Jim Crow, and it became an archetypal character in menstrual shows in the US and written jump Jump, Jump, Jim Crow.
Take a little twirl and around you go wide and white your talk as a camomen you jump.
Tim Rice wasn't the first person to dawn blackface and do a little demeaning song and dance, but he did popularize the act shows where white audiences watched white men with their faces painted black with burnt cork caught on like wildfire. The performers got up on stage literally acted a full pretended to be cowardly and cow towing, and put on an exaggerated dialect. White audiences laughed, rinse, repeat all.
This was happening in the South and Northeast United States by the early eighteen thirties, while black people were still enslaved and the Civil War wasn't yet on the horizon. These shows were part of the entertainment industry. Sure, but I don't want to make it seem like it was just for funzies. Performers like Rice were not sweet summer children. They knew that they were inflating the value of the currency of white supremacy and at the same time making
actual money. Think of seeing the sheet music, the prints, the shows over and over and over, the mere exposure effect that allowed white folks to sell the racial inferiority of black folks in the neat little package of entertainment. Katie, what do you think the average person in the US, who pays attention to current events and has a standard interest in American history knows about blackface.
I think they know that black people get mad whenever they see a white person doing it. I think they know that, like, if you get caught doing it, you could get in trouble.
Which keeps a lot of people from doing a lot of things solely the fear of repercussion. Yeah, without any integrity behind it me. But yeah, several years ago, the media was ablaze with regular folks and celebrities getting outed, fired, and defended for wearing black face. You know that reckoning that came along with the Black Lives Matter wave.
Oh, I know, true, I know.
But now that blackface has kind of had its time to shine in the news cycle. Conversation about it really mostly rears its ugly head around Halloween, when the blackface brigade is itching to break out the oily face paint.
Folks have learned to keep their misdeeds on the low a little better now.
Mm hmm. Blackface was born of white folks, racism, and tired imaginations. True, it was about how white people co opted black stories and impersonated black folks, but it was also about how black people subverted those narratives and constructed their own. I've been thinking about blackface in the black imagination because back in the mid to late eighteen hundreds
black performers performed in blackface. Some of those performers had even been enslaved in the past and began making the rounds on stage, compelled to entertain again in a different setting. And black performers work in the early days of minstrelsy gave them experience in theater that cleared a pathway for many performers to come According to author Henry T. Sampson in his book Blacks and Blackface, most of the leading black comedians from the mid nineteenth century to the early
twentieth worked in blackface. Sampson says this about those early black performers who wore blackface. These black singers, composers, and dancers brought an original vitality never before seen on the American stage. They brought a great deal that was new in dancing, including the buck and wing, the stop time, and the Virginia essence, which constituted many of the fundamental steps in American jazz dancing.
Let me find out what the bucket wing is. So I feel like I'd be good at day.
You probably would.
So what you're saying is they were our who innovated and who were worthy of acclaim that they only really got from white audience based on the performer's ability to make them laugh.
Yeah, they were busting their chops working to gain skills in the craft. But to white audiences there were still like specimens in a menagerie, or maybe like seeing white folks performing black face was like seeing lions in a zoo in the city, and then seeing black folks performing black face was like seeing lions with their pride in the savannahs. White performers were making more money than the black ones, and there were still way more white folks
and black face than there were black folks. But black folks were limited in the jobs they could get that would make them decent money, and this was one option. So in this history, black people weren't just this like invisible force, providing fodder for a white ridicule propelling white folks to new theatrical heights. They weren't these powerless, silent entities relegated to tucking their tail between their legs as
they took a psychological beating. The history of blackface is not just about the unrestrained power of white people to tell stories, i e. Lies about black people's lives. As we set back with our arms folded. Black folks were the storytellers too. Watch this pawn shot foot and nothing in there with some guitars and banjos and saxophone and guitars and van Jules and saxophones, stealable.
What are you talking about?
The warning then started to watch them on tell you more after the break. Billy Carsands, Dewey Pig, Meat, Markham, John Mason, flornoy E Miller, Bert Williams. There were a bunch of black performers who did blackface. Some of them figured they might as well get a book, some experience and some recognition by blacking up and capitalizing on the spectacle that white folks had created. Actor and composer Eddie Green worked in film and on radio shows like Amos
and Andy and Duffy's Tavern. He sometimes were a blackface and a black post. He wrote. His daughter, Elva Diane Green, said this, the book I have written about my father has been a hard seale to some blacks today because of the era in which my father lived. Some people do not see and do not want to see the relevance of yesterday's all black cast movies or old time radio or vaudeville as it applies to progress. As for myself, I understand seeing my father and blackface has taken some
getting used to. It's still kind of embarrassing to admit my father was a blackface comedian. And if I am embarrassed, what do I expect from others?
So everyone wasn't really writing for it at the time either. I'm guessing you.
Would guess correct, because some artists talked about how they would take no part in it, how it was low tier performance, and some critics said that black folks doing blackface was an affront to the race working backward. But take Bert Williams and George Walker.
Good Morning, Going hung by Williams Walker.
They were a comedy team that did really well for themselves. They performed in blackface and called their duo the two real.
Coons Gangay, that's me and you girl.
Walker said this about their act. We thought that as there seemed to be a great demand for black faces on the stage, we would do all we could to get what we felt belonged to us by the law of nature, and they profess to be pro black child. Walker also said this, over and behind all the money and prestige which move Williams and Walker is a love for the race, because we feel that, in a degree we represent the race in every hair's breadth of achievement.
We make it's to its credit. For first, last and all the time, we are Negroes. And Bert Williams was a pioneering entertainer and super successful comedian. The Silent Lost film Dark Town Jubilee Darren Williams marked one of the earliest appearances of a black comedian in cinema. His work poked fun at white caricatures of black people. He was
not simply an agent of white supremacy. So I think the element of black performers doing blackface, it wasn't even just about them wearing blackface too, Like they did blackface through audio work as well, in terms of the types of dialect that they would put on. They did blackface on the stage, and once the screen came around, they
would do it on the screen as well. But performing a blackface the interesting thing about it is that they were still performers who were working on their craft, who were interested in getting better at acting, and they chose blackface as the avenue for them to do so it was a more accessible avenue for them to be able to get work. So they were like, Okay, this is my lane. This is a kind of entertainment that's popular right now, and it's something that I can use to
get my skills up. And at the end of the day, their work was foundational in terms of early black theater instead of foundation for future actors and for future entertainers to be able to get their feet in the door as well.
Yeah, I wonder like if they felt like typecasted ever, Like you start doing black face hoping that you can not do that anymore, and you can just be an actor on your own merits. It kind of reminds me of how this conversation about black men in Hollywood having to wear a dress.
It's like, oh, they make you wear a dress.
And they won't let you move on if you don't like wear a dress first, or you get typecasted, you're like always in a dress. People who refuse to address all the conversations that go on with that emasculation of black men and the masculinization of black women. And it does seem like it is more accessible route for people, like you see people doing sketch comedies for free on YouTube and TikTok. There's just like so many like media Big Woman's House where the joke is a, oh, there's
a man in address here. So I wonder if was it a similar industry that was set up. I'm gonna just do this for a minute and then I'm gonna get out and put it on his black face, and then I'm gonna be a real actor. I'm gonna be really on the stage perfecting my craft. Or did they get stuck in that or did they prefer that and not want to leave.
I think that a lot of them would have said they wouldn't have preferred it, but that it was an avenue for them. But there were people, and I think it was Bert Williams. Please correct me if I'm wrong anybody who knows, but Bert Williams who said something about I kind of would rather do blackface or do this kind of performance in front of why audiences because the opportunities that were available to him within black performance weren't as like lucrative, or there weren't as many of them.
But I think a lot of people ended up doing it throughout the entire course of their career. And then there were some entertainers who didn't do it for the entire course of their career, Like there were some entertainers who moved on to doing radio work after they did scream work, like Eddie Green I think was one of those entertainers. I think it was kind of hard to make that decision, like we would think about it today, like how long am I going to be doing this
thing until I move on to something else. I do think in a way, for people who work in the arts and entertainment, it's kind of a privilege that we have in contemporary times to be able to think how we're going to move on when for them it was like, this is what I can see for now, and this is what I know is working for me, and this is how I'm choosing to move in the industry that
I'm in. And the question was more of how am I going to have integrity about the work that I do and continue to gain skills and then hopefully maybe one day in the future, even if I'm not creating a path for myself to move differently, then I'm creating a path for someone else to move differently.
So when a black person is doing black face, where they like still doing like the exaggerated caricature of what like a black person is, was it like similar themes as when a white person did it.
Yes. Yeah, they were still hamming it up. They were still blacking it up. They were still using that exaggerated dialect. They were still enacting the character of that foolish, naive, bumbling black person.
It's interesting you said that the guy Bert said he likes doing it in front of white audiences because it gets he gets paid more. I do think we see that not like literal black face, but like the exaggerated caricature of black people and black people participating that for white audiences because it is like good money at the end of the day.
Yeah, And I think the other interesting thing to think about in this conversation is how, yes, the black people who were doing black face were still entertainers, There were still gathering their skills, and they still set a foundation for people who were to come. There's also an argument that in doing that, they were creating more lanes for black culture to make its way into mainstream popular culture
because menstreal shows were a popular form of entertainment. It was a way that black music was able to be put on a stage, and black entertainment was able to be put on a stage before a lot of different kinds of audiences because it wasn't just white audiences who were watching black face performances either, it was also black audiences. And there's also much ado that scholars have made over what that actually meant for black people to enjoy and
laugh at and see white and black performers. What is some of that I do some of that ADU is like, okay, a kind of like psychoanalyzing of why a black person would laugh at their own image being demean So, like, what does it mean for black people to sit in front of an audience and see this portrayal of them that they know isn't true, but they're enjoying it.
Wow, this is literally nothing new in the sun. Because I feel like people say that now, like how could you laugh at all the share we laugh at? Yeah, how can you laugh at media? How could you laugh at insert whatever, like foolish character you see that's black?
Like this is a bad representation for the race, right, but like people like it, And it wasn't even like that back then too, Like people like Williams M. Walker were like, I'm doing a good job for my race. And there's a comment that I don't know the origin of the comment, but it said that Booker T. Washington said that he was a fine man of the race is basically what his comment was. Er Williams was, yeah, which was funny to me, Like he was one of
the best representatives of the race. He did a really good job at ving ane grow. Yeah.
I feel like the representation of it all, like that's kind of like the peak that people say.
It's like, well, you're.
Getting representation, Like black people are on screen, black people are on stage, black people are on the radio. This is representation, like you should be happy. It's kind of like a cyclical thing that we see, like kind of no matter what iteration or whatever timeline we're in, or whatever medium or whatever genre is popular that we're debating, it's like, it's representation.
The end of the day, it's representation. Yeah, And the comment held a little bit more weight back then in the early nineteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds, because it was less representation exactly. There weren't that many people there so to say, like, you represented us. Fine. It's kind of like it's kind of one of those things we had to get through to get to where we are today,
to where we can't complain about it, I suppose. But yeah, I was thinking about the idea of the commercial viability and success of the work that black people in blackface were doing, and how it made it so that black people were able to enter the mainstream. And I think that's kind of a complicated conversation because what is the value of black culture being in the mainstream and other people being able to co opt it, to be able to use it as they please, to be able to
make their own determinations over it. I don't think that has a very straightforward answer, like, I definitely definitely acknowledge the value of how black people did whatever was available to them back then to be able to work on their own art and then share and spread that art and their love for it and create those foundations and
open those doors for future people. But I don't think it's a wholly positive thing, like, not one hundred percent to say that this made black people's culture be able to be mainstreamed commercial viability basically is not the end all, be all great thing. I think. Yeah, I agree, Yeah, we got to go to a break, but we'll see
you again soon. In the conversations that we have about the history of black face today, we're really trying to get people who aren't black to just realize how bad it is, and then we tell them to just not do it or reprimand them for doing it. In the flattening of history that we have to do to course correct, I can't shake the feeling that we end up erasing black folk's presence in that narrative. Black folks stories, black
folks control of their own narratives. I don't want us to forget about their achievements, their art, and the foundation that they laid. So I think in all of these conversations that we have when these instances of black face pop up in the media, kind of like you said earlier, white people don't do it again. And it's a lot of black people and quote unquote allies who are the
ones who are saying this about these instances. And I do think that that flatten the history of blackface, like there's a big batty in this situation, and it just condenses the nuance of the conversations around blackface, because the history of black people doing blackface is a long one, and it's very evident that the impact that blackface had on the entertainment industry in the United States is one
that is huge and it's long lasting. So I just think we need to talk more about the complexity of blackface and about the roles that black people had as storytellers and as artists within that realm, and that they weren't just these invisible, silent characters who are to the
side that white people were enacting their violence upon. That there was agency that some of these artists had, that they did have thoughts and feelings that they shared about people who are about the about black face in general.
Yeah, I do think it's important to acknowledge the black people's agency, but I will say every time one of these instances happens in the news, I kind of do not want to hear about the nuance about black face, about black people doing it, because I can see it quickly devolving into like how when black people talk about slavery and then white people's first thing is like, well, yeah, sold jass I was in slavery. There was a black plantation on us too, so it was just like to
avoid all that. I don't think MSNBC should be like expousing all the black black face actors, just because I think it will just give white people too much length to continue to do it basically like, well, actually, I am participating in a long tradition, and you know they had agency and I have agency, so fucky, I can definitely see that happening.
Yeah, I agree with you. I wouldn't want it to be like here there is there that rebuttal and oh my goodness, that conversation around black people sell slaves too is a whole thing. But I also think it's related to like how there are so many people today who feel like, well, racism doesn't present itself in the same ways that it used to present itself, So it no longer exists and we shouldn't be talking about it anymore.
I just I don't think that it should be presented necessarily at the same time we're talking about these But I think in general, just having a larger view of blackface and how it operated is beneficial.
Yeah, because like I think now, when you say black face, it's seen is like wholly negative, yes, wholly just like bad bad. This is what white people did to us, and they're making fun of us. But you know, like you said, black people did it too, and they chose to do it like they weren't.
Being forced to Well.
I guess capitalism. Yeah, capitalism will force you to do a lot of strange things.
It sure will. And I think force is an interesting word to use, actually, because that did that was a way that some people viewed black people's work and doing blackface minstrreulcy, like they were forced to do it, like coerced.
They were coerced. Yeah, And I think a better word is just compelled sometimes because of things like capitalism, racism, their economic status, whatever their social status was at the time, having a family, all of those things could have made a person more compelled and compelled to the point where they had to do it to be able to survive. There's a difference between I think being four to and compel to, but sometimes that that line is pretty thin.
Yeah and blurry, yeah and blurry. So all this said, blackface has its hooks in American culture and it's not so easily shaken.
It's time for role credits, the segment where we give credit to a person, place, or thing we encountered during the week. Ease, who are what would you like to give credit to?
This week? I want to give credit to black historians. It is the beginning of Black History Month, and there is a lot of a do around Black history this month, of course in the United States specifically, so I just wanted to shout out black historians for all the work that they do digging through the archives, being able to dig up the stories so we can even share them through this month. Doing the good work of highlighting the things that need to be highlighted throughout the year and
every year. It's really important work and a lot of the stories that we share on this show that I care about all of the people that we learn about when be possible without the work of black historians.
I'm sort of like, kind of related, what is it? So I don't think this person would call themselves a historian, but they will call themselves a journalist. But there's this book out called Madness, which is about a segregated like mental institution in Crownsville, Maryland, and the writer Antonia Hilton, is who I would like to give credit to you.
This week I went to see her at the Carter Center in Atlanta, and it was like a really good book talk, Like she's a debut author and it was just like a masterclass on how you do a book talk. I've like I was blown away truly, And she's a reporter, so she's really good at speaking. Like I said, it's
she's her first book. She's a debut author, so she still had that like excitement of like people coming to see her, Like you know how some people will be like here here, Nigadam when they sign in your book. But she was like very happy that everyone was there,
like very personable, told great stories. And what I like about nonfiction books and nonfiction book talks is you can't spoil the book, Like the more you talk about it the more I want to read it more, because of course you can't like get every detail into your hour and a half talk. So yeah, I'd like to give credit to Antonia Hilton. She has madness out in the world right now. It's a really important story that not
a lot of people were looking at. And yeah, I think it has a potential to shake some shit up. And I think that's what good writing does, like when you're uncovering history and putting stuff on the forefront that a lot of people were trying to hide. And with that, we will see you next week.
Bye y'all. Bye. On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us on Instagram at on Theme Show. You can also send us an email at hello at on Theme dot Show. Head to on Theme dot Show to check out the show notes for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is my best friend sleep Adieton and this is my best friend man Tan and we are to realco