Black Face essays

Black Face essays In Response to the movie I have a lot of matters to comment on. I was fortunate enough to be semi-educated on the topic of "Black Face" and racist advertising prior to the video. Therefore, the movie served as a thorough recap of the information that I discovered previously. One thing I cannot begin to understand about this time period is the number of African Americans who participated in these movies that degraded our people. I also have a problem with the continuation of the stereotypes of old as well as the upholding of the passive attitude towards these demeaning representations of our people. This film brought me to the realization that it is up to our generation to reverse all of this "nonsense" and instill in our seeds the true meaning and essence of what it is to be Black and Proud. I was shocked to find out by way of earlier research, as well as by recent observation of the film, about the number of African Americans who participated in the "Black Face Era" along with whites. In his only known essay, "The Comic Side of Trouble," Bert Williams wrote, "I have never been able to discover anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenientin America." David Krasner's book Resistance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African-American Theatre, 1895-1910, explores how Blacks who wrote and performed in musicals at the turn of the century dealt with the inconvenience in their productions through subtle and not-so-subtle lines and routines. Seeing the movie really disturbed me in that by our participating in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy we did nothing but gave truth to the stereotypes that whites handed to us. How could we, the descendants of African Kings and Queens willingly participate in productions entitled Two R eal Coons, Jes Lak White F'lks, The Cannibal King, and Bandanna Land? I have yet to understand. It seems to me that we were brought out of sl ...