'Cultural appropriation' is tantamount to identity theft of African Americans

The late Ralph Ellison, an African American author, wrote an essay on America’s identity in 1958. It has always been common knowledge that African Americans were never a part of America’s identity, as detailed in the three-fifths compromise, in which African Americans were not counted as full human beings. They were viewed through jaundiced eyes and discussed in negative language, 

Ellison wrote: “America is a land of masking jokers. We wear the mask for purposes of aggression as well as for defense when we are projecting the future, and are preserving the past … the joke is at the center of the American identity”. 

Blackface in America is the masked jokester. African Americans are targets of the jokesters seeking temporary identities at the expense of Black folks, some of whom get angry and are embarrassed by the showboating.

Jim Crow

Blackface is not a new phenomenon that's suddenly attaching itself to Black folk's history. Thomas Dartmouth Rice, an itinerant performer, was credited with popularizing blackface. His first performance was at a New York theater around 1830. Dressed in tattered clothes, Rice copied slaves’ dialect, their dance, their music and songs. His plagiarized “Jump Jim Crow” routine was such a hit in America, Rice took the act to England, where it was just as popular. 

There was also another blackface character called “Zip Coon”, first performed by George Dixon in

Zip Coon

1834. Zip Coon was created to mock free Blacks. 

“An arrogant, ostentations figure, he was dressed in high style, and spoke in a series of malapropos and puns that undermined his attempts to appear dignified. Jim Crow and Zip Coon eventually merged into a single stereotype called simply ‘coon.’” black-face.com

Blackface and buffoonery are not characteristic of African Americans. They do not strut around like simpletons proudly donning blackface, oversized red or white lips, kinky Afro wigs, plaits and braids going in all directions, consuming water melon, talking in broken dialect, mumbling unintelligently. 

Webster Dictionary . . . pickaninny: “a black child.”  African American girls are not  pickaninnies; boys and men are not oversexed brutes and rapists; older women and men are not Aunt Janes and Uncle Toms. Blackface, when worn by White folks, implies that African Americans are quick footed and ignorant, never not quick-witted and intelligent.

African Americans entertainers wanting to perform had to wear blackface to be accepted by White audiences. They could not perform in their natural state, even if they were naturally dark skinned.  They had to wear kinky wigs, black grease paint or burnt chalk on their faces, and white gloves to cover their hands. 

Depiction of a pickaninny

Looking at photos of racist memorabilia along the lines of "Little Black Sambo", first published in the U. S. in 1900; blackface yard jocks; jet black babies eating slices of watermelon; head-rag wearing, overweight Aunt Jemimas. Jet black skin and large red lips are not inherited by African Americans. It is not in their DNA, or passed down generation after generation. None of these assumptive portraitures are “cultural” realities in Black communities. During the era in which these images were created and performed by White folks, slaves did not have the power to fight back, or disagree with how they were portrayed.

Blackface.  In whose homes do you live? Cultural appropriation of blackface was summarily adopted by White folks and passed down from generation to generation. 

In Australia blackface is more common than in America. An Australian writer summed it up thusly: “At its heart ‘blackface’ is about power. Specifically, using one’s power to take something important from someone else, and use it for ridicule or entertainment.” Blackface is widespread in many European countries.

“Blackface performers have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by nature to make money and pander to the corrupt taste of their White fellow citizens”. Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, politician, writer.

Blackface is a tool to dehumanize African Americans. But how do White folks dehumanize a people that were declared three-fifths human in 1787 at the United States Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia? They were slaves with no power. They were partial humans. They had no American identity. 

Supreme Court Chief Roger Taney in the Dred Scott v Sanford case declared that Scott, suing for freedom for himself and his wife, had no right to sue the United States. As a Black man of African ancestry, he was never intended to be an American. Taney said slaves were not included in the Declaration of Independence. They were not naturalized citizens. Scott was born a slave in 1799, Southampton County, Virginia.

Centuries later, Ralph Ellison wrote: “I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquid—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me”.

Singer Joni Mitchell posed as an African American man in blackface for an album cover in 1977. She said she did the cover in blackface because she had “experienced” being with a Black man. One would assume that her intimate involvement with this Black man entitled her to plagiarize his perceived identity.

In 1993 Ted Danson, star of the comedy “Cheers” appeared in blackface at a New York Friars Club Roast. He

Ted Danson in blackface

performed a nigger laced comedy routine. Comedian and actress Whoopi Goldberg was the guest of honor, and Danson’s girlfriend at the time. His skit and blackface did not impress African Americans, but Goldberg said she had no problem with his routine or blackface.

Outlandish TV and radio personality, Howard Stern, posed in blackface, sporting large white lips, wearing a tux. A light skinned, kneeling mustached man smiled up at him. On the coffee table sat a quart bottle of Colt 45, a box of fried chicken, a black yard jockey on a stand behind him. Stern was holding a framed photograph of Aunt Jemima. He hit almost every stereotype of an African American he could think of.

Megyn Kelly, former TV host on Fox and NBC, was terminated by NBC, because of a noted entertainer she chose to imitate on Halloween. Although she did not paint her face Sambo black, she did darken her skin somewhat to imitate singer/actress Diana Ross. When she was at Fox, Kelly was chastised on Twitter for her racially charged posturing. In a heated dispute with a guest, she insisted that Jesus is not Black, and neither is Santa Claus. Kelly insisted that she had irrefutable proof to back her assertions. She merely believed they were White.

After the Ross flap, Kelly, on her NBC morning show, had a panel of three Whites to discuss race relations. She wanted to explain darkening her skin to imitate Ross. She said, “When I was a kid that was OK so long as you were dressing up as a character”.

 Kelly reduced Diana Ross, a world class singer and actress, to a Halloween “character.” Kelly could have achieved the look by simply wearing an extravagant evening gown and a long, black wig, two of Ross’s trademarks. Darkening her face in the slightest was not necessary.

In 2002 a Syracuse University student, and member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity, went bar-hopping at a college frequented bar one night. He did not go as himself, or a frat brother. He blacked his face and bar hopped as golfer Tiger Woods. It was not Halloween; he had not attended a costume party. With all the famous golfers in America, why a blackface Tiger Woods?

Is this identity theft a deep-seated desire of White folks to be African Americans, so long as they can return to who they are when the fun ends? Is the exaggerated imitation of African Americans symbolic of something deeper? Is that what tanning their skin is about? “. . . a complexion denied them by nature . . .” said Frederick Douglass.

“The stock characters of blackface minstrelsy have played a significant role in disseminating racist images, attitudes and perceptions worldwide. Every immigrant group was stereotyped on the music hall stage during the 19th Century. But the history of prejudice, hostility, and ignorance towards Black people has insured a unique longevity to the stereotypes. White America's conceptions of Black entertainers were shaped by minstrelsy's mocking caricatures. And for over one hundred years the belief that Blacks were racially and socially inferior was fostered by legions of both White and Black performers in blackface”. black-face.com

White women in this photo seem know that John Howard
Griffin is a White man pretending to be Black.

In my limited library of old movies I have “Black Like Me” and “Birth Of A Nation.” In Black Like Me, actor James Whitmore played White journalist John Howard Griffin, who decided to discover what life was like for a Black man living in the South. Griffin’s journey began in 1959. An adaption of his book was made into a movie in 1964. In real life Griffin wore sunshades to hide his the color of his eyes, but not in the movie. His skin transformation was not as dark as it was in the movie. There were no dark contact lenses in the 1960s, so James Whitmore eyes were light.

***Stares of disgust and wondering can be seen on the faces of these White women walking near Griffin. Perhaps the one's looking disgusted do not want Griffin walking on the sidewalk with them. Realizing that he is in danger as a pretend Black man, Griffin knows not to walk too closely to the White women, which could lead to trouble or his death. Keeping his distance from them is the realization of the time. Griffin had a photographer travel with him to capture his journey on film.

John Howard Griffin, himself

A SparkNotes summary states: “John Howard Griffin, the author and main character of Black Like Me, is a middle-aged White man living in Mansfield, Texas in 1959. Deeply committed to the cause of racial justice and frustrated by his inability as a White man to understand the Black experience, Griffin decides to take a radical step: he decides to undergo medical treatments to change the color of his skin, and temporarily become a Black man. 

"After securing the support of his wife and of George Levitan, the editor of a Black-oriented magazine called Sepia, which will fund Griffin's experience in return for an article about it, Griffin sets out for New Orleans to begin his life as a Black man. He finds a contact in the Black community, a soft-spoken, articulate shoe-shiner named Sterling Williams, and begins a dermatological regimen of exposure to ultraviolet light, oral medication, and skin dyes. Eventually, Griffin looks in the mirror and sees a Black man looking back. He briefly panics, feeling that he has lost his identity, and then he sets out to explore the Black community”.

Griffin makes friend with shoes shine man in New Orleans

A Black man in skin color only, Griffin witnessed, experienced, felt and tasted the bitterness of being a Black man in the South. He learned that a Black man’s life simultaneously tittered on the edge of hell and earth, fraught with uncertainty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Griffin was lucky and blessed with White Privilege and White skin. He could make choices about his life. He could embrace White Privilege or reject it. No choices were available to the Black man Griffin was imitating.

“Griffin expects to find prejudice, oppression, and hardship, but he is shocked at the extent of it: everywhere he goes, he experiences difficulties and insults. The word ‘nigger’ seems to echo from every street corner. It is impossible to find a job, or even a restroom that Blacks are allowed to use. Clerks refuse to cash his checks, and a White bully nearly attacks him before he chases the man away. After several traumatic days in New Orleans, Griffin decides to travel into the Deep South of Mississippi and Alabama, which are reputed to be even worse for blacks. In Mississippi, a grand jury has just refused to indict a lynch mob that murdered a Black man before he could stand trial”.  SparkNotes

After six weeks Griffin decided that he had enough of the unadulterated hatred for his black skin, the endless name calling and unprovoked discrimination. His article was published in Sepia magazine, 1960. TV and the print media wanted to interview him. The story went world-wide. The old adage, “You can always go home” did not apply to Griffin. When his hometown learned what he had written, how he changed his skin to be a Black man, White folks in his hometown burned him in effigy. Hometown folks made his life so miserable and drama-filled, Griffin and his family moved to Mexico to escape the hate. He had betrayed White folks. He had exposed the ugly, racist side of them.

A White actor in blackface captured by the KKK

In the 1915 movie “Birth Of A Nation” African Americans were played by blue-eyed White actors, wearing terrible kinky wigs and blackface. The few real African Americans in the movie played minor, demeaning roles. The movie was over three hours long, and debuted in Boston. African Americans held demonstrations in front of the theater. The NAACP and Black folks protested in whatever states the film was shown. They confronted politicians—from mayors to governors--and initiated petition drives. Some scenes offensive to Black folks were edited out of the film. By today’s standards it was a blockbuster among White moviegoers.

Actors in the 1903 movie “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” were Whites in blackface. The “Amos and Andy” radio show were two White actors pretending to be Black, as was a supporting cast member called “Kingfish.” For years African Americans actually thought they were Black because of their jokes and dialect. “For its time, it was perfectly ok to portray Blacks as generally poor and uneducated. But in time, civil rights groups would object to the way it depicted Blacks in America”. Classic TV Archive

Universities, colleges and graduate students are checking their yearbooks for photos that are totally inappropriate. Some universities are already offering belated apologies. Blackface, KKK and Nazi costumes seems to be the most popular. The snapshot of an Auburn High School student wearing a black face mask wrote a caption that asked: “Is this what being a nigger feels like”?

Ralph Northam's yearbook page in med school

The blackface scandal that hit Virginia in February 2019, spread like a wild fire. Because two politicians wearing blackface are White, the media jumped on the story immediately. Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam, 59, got a butt shock when a 1984 photo of him in blackface leaped off the page of the Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook. 

Northam, then a tall, skinny 25-year-old White male, and a medical student, was standing next to a shorter male (or woman) dressed in full KKK regalia. The tall male was smiling. His white teeth were a contrast against his shiny black face. 

At a news conference Northam conceded that one of the individuals in the photo was him but would not say which. The next day he recanted, saying he was not in the photo. He did not take responsibility for submitting the photo for the yearbook, suggesting that someone else submitted it. 

There were three other photos of him alone in various poses. At the time his nicknames were “Goose” and “Coonman.” Harlem Globetrotters Reece Tatum was nicknamed “Goose.” Did Northam steal that nickname from Reece, wanting to imitate him? “Coonman” has racial overtones any way you look at it.

Hosting another press conference the next day, Northam admitted that in 1984—the same year as 

above--he entered a dance contest in San Antonio, Texas. He put black shoe polish on his cheeks rather than his whole face. No photos have been uncovered so far. Taking on the persona of Michael Jackson, Northam said he dressed like the famous singer, and danced the moonwalk. 

In an interview with NBC’s Gayle King, Northam said he did not understand the power of his white privilege. As an adult he said, “I’ve learned why the use of blackface is so offensive. And, yeah, I knew it in the past, but reality has really set in”. 

A few days after Northam’s confession, Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring, 57, admitted that as a 19-year-old college student he wore blackface to a party in 1980. He dressed like Kurtis Blow, a popular rapper that he and his friends listened to at the time. Instead of black polish, Herring said he put brown polish on his face and wore an Afro wig.

During a February 8 interview with TMZ, Kurtis Blow let it be known that he was not impressed upon learning that Herring imitated him wearing brownface. He said Herring’s characterization of him was “disrespectful, ugly and degrading”.

Michael Ertel, hurricane victim

Florida’s Secretary of State Michael Ertel, 49, was asked by the governor to resign in January (2019), after a 2005 photo of him in blackface was uncovered. He was dressed like a female victim of Hurricane Katrina. The devastating hurricane killed an estimated 1,800 New Orleans residents, the majority of whom were Black and poor. The hurricane left even more victims homeless. Attending a Halloween party, Ertel wore a colorful bandanna on his head, large colorful earrings and a T-shirt bearing the words: Katrina Victim. His insensitivity reduced the hurricane victims to caricatures.

“Blackface is the joke that comforts White Americans, who consciously or otherwise, are terrified of nonwhite people. . . . The critic Elias Canetti argued in “Crowds and Power”, that laughing allows us to take power over the one we laugh at; perhaps this is why, even now, blackface still exists, a crude attempt by certain White Americans to retain a sense of racial superiority. Blackface as a ghost we may never be able to exorcize. It is too deeply, painfully American”.  The Guardian, 2/2019.

It is not unusual to read about White fraternity members posting blackface photos of themselves and friends in their yearbooks and social pages. They exhibit no sense of right, wrong or shame. Blackface is fun! It doesn’t hurt Black folks. The most basic excuses they use is: “I was young. I didn’t think I was hurting anyone.” Some assert African Americans are “too sensitive” when they complain about the images and stereotypes. Opting for blackface fun can ruin careers. These bite-you-in-the-ass images usually pop up when an individual runs for a political office, or some other high profile occupation. 

Rev. Al Sharpton, long time civil rights activist and MSNBC TV host, spoke February 7 at Virginia Union University, Virginia’s oldest historically Black college. He told the audience, “If you sin, you must pay for the sin. Blackface represents a deeper problem where people felt they could dehumanize and humiliate people based on their inferiority. When we’re reacting to blackface, we’re not reacting to what the act represents. Forgiveness without a price is not forgiveness—it’s a pass”. Richmond Times-Dispatch

Elvis Presley stole and copied Black folks music and rhythmical styles of singing. That is cultural appropriation. Pat Boone never had a hit song until he stole Little Richard's music and claimed it as his own, making it "acceptable" to White folks. That is cultural appropriation. In the day of tap dancing, Hollywood's Gene Kelly, Fred Astire and Ginger Rogers stole steps from Black tappers like The Nickholas Brothers and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who did not get credit for the stolen choreography. That is cultural appropriation, not the popularity of blackface so acceptable to White folks.