Blackface

My favorite, Mr. Reginald Hudlin asked me to contribute to his blog.  Wooo, that’s major.  At least for a young, blossoming, soon-to-be television & film executive like me.  Soooo, should I make my first contribution something funny?  Eh, how ‘bout we just keep it real!  Let’s talk about Blackface.  Yep that’s right; Blackface.  I know its damn near 2009 and half of ya’ll probably don’t even know what Blackface is…well I take that back.  If you are enlightened enough to be on hudlinentertainment.com, then you should be conscious of American Theatre’s 19th Century performance tradition of Blackface. 

Currently I am traveling overseas in New Zealand; Queenstown, New Zealand to be exact.  The land of 4 million people and 90 million sheep.  Sounds great right?!!  Keep reading.  So Halloween night I go out with some friends…white friends.  Oh, did I mention I am THE ONLY black person in this town?  No seriously, I haven’t even seen a black sheep!  So, Halloween night we all decide to go to a bar.  We’re chillin, drinking, and in walks Sambo.  I freeze.  So many things are running through my head at this point.  I have always been one of those black people that look at racial situations from the past (i.e. slavery, sit-ins, etc.) and say “Oh Hell No!  If that were me, I’d snatch that whip from that slave master and beat him!”  Or “Oh Hell No!  If that were me, I’d go right up to the white’s only lunch counter and sit my black ass down and order a wing on wheat!”  But here I am, in probably [hopefully] the most serious racial situation of my life and I freeze.  I don’t say a word.  I’m hurt.  I’m angry.  I’m embarrassed.  I’m disgusted.  This 6 foot tall white man walks into a bar with shoe polish all over his face, white paint under his eyes, and red paint exaggerating his mouth, looks me in my eye, and I say nothing.  I look around to the 10 or so white co-workers that I’m with and they are laughing.  One even has the audacity to say to me “Hey Tiffany, you see that?”  Of course “I see that”.  It’s slapping me in my face right now!  How is one supposed to handle a situation like this?  I wanted to go up to Blackface and ask him ‘why?’ or ‘who are you supposed to be?’  But I said nothing.  Because if he would have answered me the wrong way, with any tone of disrespect, God only knows how I would have reacted.  So I left the bar.

I left the bar to find 3 other men, at three separate locations all in Blackface.  Wow!  Is this a nightmare?  Are they serious?  I couldn’t believe it.  But I got payback.  I got payback on November 4, 2008 when the United States of America elected Barack Obama the Leader of the Free World.

PEACE~

T.Mills

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John Hope Franklin, Another Angle

Between 1936 and 1938 more than 2000 former slaves were interviewed by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).  The following link is to excerpts from the narratives assembled from those interviews:
 
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snvoices00.html
 
Only a heart the size of a mustard seed and encrusted with steel would be unmoved by those testimonies.
 
The eminent historian John Hope Franklin, who died on March 25, 2009 at age ninety-four, was not a part of the Federal Writers’ Project, but he experienced the fellowship of former slaves.  He also met Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States!!
 
That his extended right hand touched the hands of former slaves as well as that of President Obama brings new meaning to the title of his celebrated 1947 book, From Slavery to Freedom.  His scholarship and life experiences should also remind us that American slavery isn’t too far from living memory.
 
Perhaps there should be a national effort to find and interview others who can remember conversations with former slaves.  There is probably no one else who, at eighty or ninety years of age, combines Professor Franklin’s scholarship, humanity and acuity of mind.  Even so, the fact that there are Americans alive today who met former slaves, yet lived to see a black man elected President, is powerful testimony to what is possible in our country.

David Evans

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