No Erika Kirk, you can't do blackface.
WITHIN the past week, comedian and influencer, Druski and his latest skit featured a parody of Erika Kirk, embodying her not only in his actions, but also replicating spot on makeup that included making himself resemble a white woman. While many took to social media to laugh, Erika Kirk and other right-wing influencers didn't find it so comedic, and Erika even threatened to do black face as a rebuttal to her mockery.
For years, there's always been this argument of "reverse racism" toward white people or even trying to address how problematic white face is. There's a complex history of why the implications of white face or even racism against white people doesn't work like people think it does. There's a very dark, and long history of black face and minstrel shows, especially the intent of the shows and what they were trying to communicate. These shows were strictly made to dehumanize, mock, and devalue black individuals. Many of the stereotypes that have risen from minstrel shows have even carried over into what we see with black representation currently and even with the argument of these shows "benefitting" black performers, they did not as it was built on a platform to mock us and only strengthen the arguments for white supremacy. One of the minstrel characters, "Jim Crow" was later used to call the laws that further segregated black people from society. There was a narrative that we were lazy, made to be the butt of the joke, that we were less than white people and weren't to be valued in society.
These systems were put into place to only oppress black people, and minstrel shows helped to strengthen institutionalized racism.
When it comes to white face, it wasn't created to oppress white people, dehumanize, or devalue them. How can you devalue something when the system was created for them to benefit from it? Same with racism against white people. Is it possible to be prejudiced to white people? Yes. However, will they ever experience this oppression from an institutional/higher up system that prevents them from achieving any benefits that help them thrive? No. So yes, Mrs. Kirk. You still would be being racist (like you already are) and dehumanizing black individuals all over again. You'd be contributing to the system that already devalues us as members as society and as human beings.
I fully agree. The concept of white face doesn't exist as cruelly as black face does.There are historic reasons behind black face like you mentioned to where it cannot hit as hard as black face does. There shouldn't even be a reason to make black face in the first place. White face and what Druski did was a skit poking fun at a specific person, putting on a mask that honestly represents the person physically to a T. While yeah there can be prejudice and hate or mean behavior, it does not and will never be able to oppress white people as society already serves white people. Oppression towards marginalized people is unfortunately true so it hits much harder with things like black face.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post. As a society, we don't talk about minstrel shows, and what kind of impact they had on black individuals in the performing arts, enough. The implications of these shows still persist in the theatre world today in casual racism that shouldn't be as normalized as it is. I remember reading these comments from Erika Kirk and feeling so angry because I can't understand how her logic makes sense to her. The history of blackface, and why it was and is so harmful, definitely doesn't get brought up as much as it should, so I was very glad to see you posted about it.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this topic because it needs to be talked more about!! White people don't understand how that years and years ago this was their entertainment but now they want to play victim and that's crazy!!
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