Blackface Minstrelsy In African-American Culture

There is a clear through-line in our nation’s history of blackface. As a detrimental tradition, the practice reflects a collectively low opinion of African-Americans, so much so that it became feasible to reduce an entire group of people to caricatures. When Rondrich describes minstrelsy as the “first truly American band” based on its origin within and its reflection of our past beliefs, I found it a sickeningly accurate statement. It is rather astonishing how music has been used to disseminate racially charged imagery—in this situation, Adorno’s fears of music perpetuating group-thought was startlingly supported.

Beyond the racial elements, the growing popularity of blackface minstrelsy reflects how low-quality entertainment (more colloquially,

This is not to say it is a morally upright practice, or even morally-laden at all, but it is entirely feasible. Context versus content is a key consideration in examining any media artifact. The use of blackface versus the consumption of blackface performances demonstrates two different ideas—especially when African-American performers and even black sympathizers engage in the production practice. The use itself became such a standard mode of presentation that, for the sake of commercial effectiveness, was adopted. The consumption, then, is something

In a time where sampling is a staple of hip-hop and other predominant, modern genres, it is not unreasonable for an artist to take ownership of past artifacts, even those which once were oppressed or used for oppression, as a way to reclaim the artifact itself, to subvert it, or otherwise reconstitute meaning.

When we examine remixing and sampling in pop music in an academic way, we must consider how it is consumed by and therefore affects a non-academic audience. Understanding the audience is foundational to communication, after all. Radio listeners will not necessarily know where sampled pieces originate from, let alone their original contexts. And those effects should be further examined in the future.

That said, Sia’s use of “gray-face” paint in her new video for “The Greatest” as a way to unify the identities of all the young dancers, who vary in race and gender, could be seen, arguably, as a means of reconstituting the use of face painting in a modern era. As opposed to creating caricatures, this video creates a reality which we must