Bonus 4: Cultural; Blackface by Kendra ZeMenye

During the 19th century in America, there were entertainment and performances for all whites only. There were no color people allowed to be involved in a theater play. Even though there were black people in a century who dreams of performing in theater play or wanting to become a famous actor, they got rejected at the color of their skin. Plus not all white audience wanted to see a black performance. They created a performance called Blackface, which is about white actors or performers painting their face black just to resemble a black person. The whites made all those stereotypes and insults to how black people behave and their culture which was very offensive and ignorant. It’s affecting on how the real black people feel. Today, there are still more white people making fun of black people’s perception. All these past about black and white culture is never going away.

 

The Blackface performance became popular around in the 1800’s, and the 1900’s when they put a first play called Minstrel show, which was an American entertainment performed by a bunch of Caucasians who were dancing, acting, singing and mocking how people of African decent behave in society during the plantation. It turns out Minstrel shows were one of the successful Blackface performance before slavery became abolished. The show appears before black people had their freedom.

For my argument, I would describe Blackface performers as the filthy scum of white society, because those whites don’t even have a clue on what it feels like to be black in society. Plus they had no right to mock black people’s appearances; it’s just disrespectful. All these white actors want to do is to make money. 

For my reaction to the Blackface performance, it was very shocking because I feel like those white performers wished to humiliate black culture just to make black people feel bad about themselves by putting them down and mocking their appearances. The whites were probably giving African-American a message that they should not accept the color of their skin. Like they should forget about their African blood and start living in a white world. According to Cultural Appropriation: When ‘Borrowing’ Becomes Exploitation, they were stating, “The idea of cultural appropriation has recently entered mainstream debates about how African artistic creations are used, borrowed and imitated by others. In fashion, art, music and beyond, some people now argue that specific African cultural symbols and products are off-limits to non-Africans.” What this quote was saying that all the culture and tradition that belong to the Africans were taken away by the Europeans or other countries. The whites today still wanted to dominate over black people.

As a half black person, I find that very offensive about the Blackface performance because the whites have no respect for black people, and they think it’s okay to make fun of color people or other racism, but it’s not okay. According to Cultural Appropriation: When ‘Borrowing’ Becomes Exploitation, they were stating, “Debates about appropriation aren’t always limited to cross-racial borrowing. An online discussion about African-American appropriation of African cultural symbols also went viral. It began with journalist Zipporah Gene asking black Americans to stop appropriating African clothing and tribal marks.” She argued this indicated “ignorance and cultural insensitivity.” What this quote was saying, that the whites were stupid to tell the black people to stop wearing African tradition clothes. The society’s nowadays when whites are telling blacks to go back to Africa where they belong.