CONTENT WARNING: RACISM, BLACKFACE

This was originally a Twitter thread in the wake of all of the news out of Virginia of politicians having dressed in blackface in their past. In response to these stories, I saw several takes like those screencapped below where (presumably white) folks that aren’t from the southern United States performatively ask whether blackface is an explicitly “Southern Thing.” 

The reason I wrote about this on Twitter and decided to repost it here is because, as I’ve said before, the United States is racist. It’s not a “South” problem. It’s a “United States” problem. Performative smug takes like the below irritate me because they’re easy-points-scoring for certain white folks. They can go after an easy punching bag, like the south and its horrible history of racism, and never have to examine their own state’s local history of racism, which is frequently just a cruel, violent, and horrible.

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Many people that have tweeted about Virginia and its recent bout of blackface news have claimed that they either had never heard of the practice until recently or never practiced it at all. Many of them chalk this up to having been raised in the northern US–“it must be a Southern thing.”

First, I want to mention that while the South has its own unique demons to exorcise, the South does not have a monopoly on racism. The United States, as a whole, is a racist country of which we, meaning white folks in the US, remain largely ignorant.

The South deservedly gets a lot of hate when discussing race because it was the region of the US that built its economic backbone on slavery. But to act like the north was morally exonerated from the riches the slave economy brought the rest of the nation is foolish.

“The slave economy of the southern states had ripple effects throughout the entire U.S. economy, with plenty of merchants in New York City, Boston, and elsewhere helping to organize the trade of slave-grown agricultural commodities—and enjoying plenty of riches as a result.”

Forbes: “The Clear Connection Between Slavery And American Capitalism” by
Dina Gerdeman, 5/3/17

“Although often associated with the South, slavery was part of Colonial life in the North as well. Northern merchants profited from the transatlantic triangle trade of molasses, rum and slaves, and at one point in Colonial America more than 40,000 slaves toiled in bondage in the port cities and on the small farms of the North. In 1740, one-fifth of New York City’s population was enslaved.”

History.com: “Deeper Roots of Northern Slavery Unearthed” by Christopher Klein, 6/25/14

Additionally, the South was a hotbed of racism and anti-black violence during the Civil Rights era of the 60s. My own state, Arkansas, called in the National Guard to try to prevent integration, and President Eisenhower had to call in the US Army to force the integration. That’s the legacy of the South, and it’s a bad one.

However, many white folks aren’t aware that Martin Luther King, Jr shifted his focus to housing equality in Chicago after finding successes in the South. About those efforts, here’s a quote from him: “I’ve been in many demonstrations all across the South, but I can say that I have never seen, even in Mississippi and Alabama, mobs as hostile and as hate-filled as I’ve seen in Chicago.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“On Aug. 5, 1966, in Marquette Park, where King was planning to lead a march to a realtor’s office to demand properties be sold to everyone regardless of their race, he got swarmed by about 700 white protesters hurling bricks, bottles and rocks. One of those rocks hit King, and his aides rushed to shield him, as the photo shows.”

Time: “The Surprising Story Behind This Shocking Photo of Martin Luther King Jr. Under Attack” by Olivia B. Waxman, 1/12/18

Although, as the article mentions above, there were early, violent, hateful clashes between whites in Chicago and MLK’s demonstrators. That’s part of what made racism in the north so much harder to combat than in the south:

1. There were no explicit Jim Crow laws like in the south. Instead, they found ways to target black folks without explicitly calling out their skin color, like targeting poor folks, which they knew would catch mostly black folks. Poor whites were considered acceptable collateral damage.
2. The north learned from the south’s mistakes. They avoided the damning imagery of attacking black folks with hoses and dogs. The mayor of Chicago played along with MLK’s concerns until people stopped paying attention. It gave him plausible deniability.

This way “not saying the thing, but secretly saying the thing” practice (called dog whistling) is the same reason many white folks thought racism was dead under Obama. Since the racism is never explicitly stated, it’s shielded by ignorance and plausible deniability.

“Any opposition to the Mayor, then Richard J. Daley, was dangerous because of his power over city services and influence over public housing and welfare. Whenever Dr. King would raise an issue, Mayor Daley would institute a response to present the illusion that the city was concerned, and then withdraw the services that were distributed. The Mayor’s ability to mobilize services weakened Dr. King’s claims of city negligence.”

Huffington Post: “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Failure and America’s Future: A Reflection on the 50 Year Anniversary of the Chicago Freedom Movement” by Devon Jerome Crawford, 5/31/16

MSo what about blackface in particular? Is that a particularly southern thing? 

In fact, no.

In 1844 the Ethiopian Serenaders played before President John Tyler at the White House. Eight years later, Buckley’s Serenaders performed in the new state of California. In New York City, a synagogue was converted into Wood’s Minstrel Hall, one of at least ten major minstrel houses in the city in the 1850’s.

American Heritage: “Behind The Blackface” by Robert C. Toll, April/May 1978

Takes like the one screencapped below, as I said, are easy because the South is an easy punching bag, and these blackface stories are so obviously racist and terrible that one can get some high fives for pointing their thumb and going, “These assholes, amirite?” This rankles my feathers because when they look down their noses at or write off an entire state as a lost cause just because a Republican is in charge, it writes off the hard work of local progressives, particularly people of color, who are fighting a damn hard fight and being lumped into the same smug scorn.

So if blackface isn’t an antiquated holdover from the antebellum days in the south, and I demonstrated above that it’s not, then is it possible to find examples of blackface in these so-called bastions of liberal purity where these white people have never heard of such depravity?

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Well, here’s California:

1. Blackface Leads to Fraternity Suspension at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo – https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/us/blackface-fraternity-cal-poly.html
2. California Christian School Apologizing After Teacher Wore Blackface During School Presentation – https://www.essence.com/news/california-christian-school-blackface/
3. Kanye West-themed frat party at UCLA sparks protests, claims of racism – https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ucla-blackface-kanye-party-20151008-story.html

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Here’s some examples from Connecticut, tied for 4th most liberal state in the US in 2017.

1. NAACP seeks meeting after teens seen in apparent blackface – https://fox61.com/2019/02/06/naacp-seeks-meeting-after-teens-seen-in-apparent-blackface/
2. Yale’s Halloween Advice Stokes a Racially Charged Debate – https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/nyregion/yale-culturally-insensitive-halloween-costumes-free-speech.html

Plus, here’s a bonus article about how Connecticut beaches were whites-only until the 1970s:

Racism Kept Connecticut’s Beaches White Up Through the 1970s – https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/connecticuts-beaches-were-largely-limits-african-americans-through-1970s-180969494/

Here’s New Hampshire.

1. UNH racism latest: Students in blackface, n-word scrawled on teacher’s door and swastika graffiti – https://thetab.com/us/2017/05/15/unh-racism-blackface-67993
2. Student’s ‘Blackout Day’ Photo Stirs Controversy – https://www.necn.com/news/new-england/Students-Blackout-Day-Photo-Stirs-Controversy-Pinkerton-Academy-Derry-New-Hampshire-NH-Blackface-Confederate-394643471.html

New York:

1. Blackface Video Has Elite New York Private School in an Uproar – https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/nyregion/poly-prep-blackface-scandal.html
2. Brooklyn Assemblyman Defends Blackface Costume – https://www.nhpr.org/post/brooklyn-assemblyman-defends-blackface-costume#stream/0

Massachusetts:

1. Tufts launches investigation after social media post allegedly shows student in blackface – https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/massachusetts/2019/01/24/tufts-launches-investigation-after-social-media-post-allegedly-shows-student-blackface/ncAdVieMAYsCgIFNVddalI/story.html
2. Outcry after Wheaton College student dons blackface for Halloween – http://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/local_news/outcry-after-wheaton-college-student-dons-blackface-for-halloween/article_c945c284-e0e6-57bf-b598-f2529c09ff7a.html

Ohio:

Sharonville, Ohio UPS worker fired for wearing blackface Halloween costume – http://www.fox19.com/2018/11/02/sharonville-ups-worker-fired-wearing-blackface-halloween-costume/

Pennsylvania:

Elementary school principal disciplined after wearing blackface during staffing event – http://www.wtoc.com/2019/02/05/elementary-school-principal-disciplined-after-wearing-blackface-during-staffing-event/

And so on.

The point of this isn’t to be “whataboutism.” It’s not to make excuses for the south or Virginia or blackface. Fuck that. The politicians deserve the dragging that they’re getting. However, chalking blackface up as a uniquely southern problem that educated liberals don’t have to deal with is just foolish. Blackface is a symptom of the US’s larger problem: white supremacy. It’s in our country’s very DNA, in its foundational documents.

If folks in the north really think that the KKK and blackface and dogs and water hoses turned on black folks is a uniquely southern thing, they should Google “Northern Sundown Towns” for a very eye-opening education.

Speaking of, if you’re interested in learning more about our country’s terrible history with race, I have three phenomenal books that I think consider must reads for anyone, but ESPECIALLY for white folks in the US.