Despite the endless options for Halloween costumes, it seems that every year there is at least one report of a white person doing blackface under the guise of “just being a costume.” Back in 2013, immensely popular dance icon and actress Julianne Hough donned her own version of black face for Halloween to replicate Uzo Aduba’s Orange is the New Black character “Crazy Eyes.” After extreme backlash she released an apology on Twitter:
“I am a huge fan of the show Orange is the New black, actress Uzo Aduba, and the character she has created. It certainly was never my intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone in any way. I realize my costume hurt and offended people and I truly apologize.”
She uses her adoration for the hit Netflix show as the motive behind her “accidental racism”, despite the show’s multiple white characters (including the literal main character) she could have chosen from. It is easy to hate and abhor Ms. Hough for her derogatory choice of Halloween costumes but she is not alone.
Black face has a disgusting and dehumanizing history in the United States in America. Minstrel shows, a form of stage and film entertainment in which white and light-skinned black actors painted their faces with black polish and over-lined their lips in attempts to portray black people as foolish and favorable of slavery, were the leading source of entertainment during the 19th century through to the early 20th century. One of the first minstrel characters, Jumping Jim Crow, created by Thomas Dartmouth Rice, depicted a “black” slave in tattered clothing playing tricks and swindling white people. This character had such popularity that it became the namesake for Jim Crow laws which deprived African-Americans of many basic human rights for almost a century.
The true repugnance of black face is the deeply rooted stereotypes they created that still have lasting effects to this day. Before the advents of the television and the internet, many white people had no access, either by choice or region, to actual black people. The only exposure they had to “black people” was through minstrel shows, giving them, a huge chunk of society, repulsive definitions of what African Americans truly are.
The stereotype of African Americans being thieves comes from Jumping Jim Crow and characters of that sort who’s only purpose is to swindle. The stereotype that black people are inherently illiterate and undignified comes from the character of Zip Coon, who was a slave with negative feelings towards free African Americans and blurted them out freely. The stereotype of black women being whores and temptresses comes from the character Jezebel, who had curvaceous features and tried to sleep with every man she had access to. The extremely harmful and sometimes deadly stereotype of black men lusting after white women (i.e. Emmett Till) comes from the character of Buck, a loudmouth, bug-eyed black man who always craved white women.
To pass off a black face “costume” as simply a fun thing to do on Halloween is completely dehumanizing and diminishing of the pain and suffering black people face and continue to face because of the lasting stereotypes created by minstrelsy. Be Tina from Bob’s Burgers. Be Harry Potter. Be Tinker Bell, for Christ’s sake. But please, do not do black face.
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