Understanding The Evolution Of Blackface In America

American headlines have blown up this month over the issue of blackface: First, there was the Virginia governor whose high school year book photo depicted him in blackface. A week later, Prada was forced to pull a series of display figurines—apparently unaware that they looked identical to racist depictions of black people throughout American history. Next, Gucci came under fire for including a sweater in their fall collection with a "bataclava" knit that covers the bottom half of the face, with a cutout of large red lips.

To help contextualize the headlines and explain why this issue keeps cropping up, Code Switch—a podcast produced by journalists of color that looks at how issues relating to race, ethnicity and culture play out in our lives each and every day—dedicated an episode to the destructive historical legacy of blackface in America and how representations have changed in different media over time.

The episode starts with a historical primer: Blackface essentially originated when white people began blackening their faces in the late 18th and early 19th century, which allowed them to act the fool in public. It then moved to the stage. By the mid 18th century, blackface "minstrel shows", which depicted derogatory caricatures of slaves, were the most popular form of entertainment in the United States and soon became one of the most important staples of Vaudeville. All of this overlapped with persistent institutional violence against black people in America, including Jim Crow laws and lynchings.

So why hasn't it gone away? Because it's essentially become an invisible part of mainstream culture, starting with Mickey Mouse's iconic steamboat sketch—a throwback to a popular racist Vaudeville show called "Old Zip Coon". From there, Gene Demby draws on expert interviews to show how racist "minstrel shows" became an accepted staple of American cartoons, making them simultaneously omnipresent and invisible. And that legacy persists today.