Antoine Griezmann, Gérard Darmon and even the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau have faced the lightning of Internet users. And for good reason, all made a black face: they made up themselves to look like a black person. We explain to you why this practice is deeply racist.
“I thought it was super cute, but obviously it was very badly interpreted suddenly, that’s why I removed the photo on Insta.” In June 2021, the star of the reality TV Jazz posted a photo on social networks far from being unanimous. We see the influencer with her face half painted in black or rather, in brown. What Jazz did is called a blackface. And if the mother of a family wanted to launch a challenge and assert herself as an ally of the anti-racist cause, it fell completely flat. In fact, by posting such a photograph on social networks, the reality TV star is only encouraging stereotypes and discrimination against black people. We explain why.
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What is a blackface?
“No, it’s not racist”, can we often hear when someone laughs at a black face or, worse yet, actually one. However, painting your skin black has everything racist. Indeed, having black skin is not a disguise; it is a dimension of a person’s identity and it is accompanied by systemic discrimination that cannot be removed like makeup. “To disguise oneself” additionally contributes to stereotypes about people of color (not or badly combed hair, racist accessories such as animal print clothes, stereotypical attitudes like wide-eyed …) and despite all the goodwill of Jazz to serve an anti-racist discourse, if it is not racist, his act is profoundly so. Not to mention that from the moment a black person is offended by a blackface, no need to wonder if this practice is racist: it is obvious that it is.
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Who had the false good idea of blackface and what are their networks?
But then, if blackface is racist, why is it still trivialized? This false good idea of blackface, who got it? Originally, blackface was a very popular theatrical form in the 19th century in the United States. Black people were stigmatized and ridiculed by white actors. Specifically, this practice was used in the Minstrel Show. It is the character of Jim Crow, of Thomas Rice, who popularized the blackface on the other side of the Atlantic. This cartoonish character will even give his name to segregationist laws: the Jim Crow law.
If blackface is rooted in the segregationist history of the United States, Europe has not escaped this racist practice in the performing arts. In France, the theater of Veaudeville, in the thirteenth century, is full of representations of white actors dressed in black with plays such as for example The Negress Where The power of recognition by Radet and Barré. “This piece also marks the beginning of the use of the ‘little nigger.’ That is to say that Radet and Barré invented a form of unstructured language which participates in the invention of the figure of the “little boy.” And we will find many other small vaudevilles of this order throughout the end of the 18th century. It is important to see that there are multiple influences which have nourished the progressive construction of a denigration, of a humorous game with otherness, with the race of the other “, explains Sylvie Chalaye to France Culture, an anthropologist specializing in the history of the performing arts and representations of Africa and the black world in Western societies.
If we evoke practices dating from the eighteenth century, the racist legacy of the Vaudeville theater in France has continued, in peace, into the twentieth and twenty-first century. The most cult sketches of Les Inconnus or even Michel Leeb, for example, are full of blackface.
In the 21st century, black face is still common and it’s a problem
If the 80s saw the worst representations of black people on screen, the 21st century has not escaped the trivialization of blackface. In 2017, footballer Antoine Griezmann thought to pay tribute to Harlem Globetrotters players by making his face in black, basketball jersey on his back, during an 80s party. Despite the popularity of our national Grizou, this does not do not pass. “It is unquestionably a racist act”, affirmed Louis-Georges-Tin, at the head of the representative council of black associations.
The same year, the youtubeuse Shera Kerienski also puts the feet in the dish. If the young woman wanted to show the difficulty of applying makeup to black skin, the method was not the right one. Shera appears with tinted skin and uses makeup intended for black skin … “I didn’t know what blackface was. I didn’t want to offend or make a community uncomfortable, I just wanted to show how hard it is to wear makeup with a shade that is not ours and denounce the fact that cosmetics do not black to very black tint and that I find outrageous ”, she replied after the scandal.
On Instagram, employees of the Le slip français brand were also pinned on social networks after posting stories where we see them dressed in “African” outfits and their faces painted black… We don’t even talk to you no animal noises and ultra-stereotypical facial expressions that you could see in their videos. One more proof that being black is not a disguise and making up your skin contributes to racist stereotypes. More recently, in May 2021, Gérard Darmon was at the heart of a controversy when he wanted to promote the play. Othello, in which he played.
And if some blackface are recent, others are resurfacing to the dismay of some personalities. Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister, paid the price in 2019. A photo of his face painted black, dating from 2001, resurfaced in the American magazine Time. “A youthful mistake”, according to the Canadian Prime Minister, who apologized during a press conference. “I admit today that it was racist, and I am deeply sorry about it.”
Read also : A blackface photo with Justin Trudeau resurfaces and it does not pass
If the origins of blackface go back a long way, it is urgent to know the racist heritage in which it is part and the fact that our contemporary society remains very steeped in racist stereotypes of another age.
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