The white actor "blacking up" really stems from the days of segregation in the US. In many states black and white actors couldn't perform on the same stage and certainly couldn't share a dressing room. A black man seen with a white woman, for instance, holding hands would probably be beaten up or shot in some Southern states.
Because of the colour bar film studios used white actors wearing black make up, so I suppose in the USA rather than here, the subject of people like Al Jolson playing a black man is more sensitive. If you also bear in mind that the black man was also portrayed in films as having no "spine" and being frightened by anything and everything, Hollywood didn't do black people any favours.
Even performers of the stature of Frank Sinatra had to fight really hard to have black musicians in his orchestra. People like Count Basie, Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis Jr., wouldn't have been allowed to perform with him on stage. Arguably one of the greatest jazz musicians of the 20th Century was a black guitarist called Charlie Christian, one of the first to perform and record using an electric guitar. He wouldn't have been able to perform with white musos.
Even as recently as WWII, (and possibly the Korean War) black and white soldiers were segregated, in fact the blacks were not allowed to serve in front line combat units like the Infantry, Armoured Regiments and many Artillery batteries. The reason was that the US military didn't trust them and felt they would LMF; Lack Moral Fibre, and run away at the first sign of the enemy.
With this background it's not surprising many in the US objected to the whole Minstrel thing. In this country the stereotypical image of Blacks didn't exist in the same way.
To be honest, the Black and White Minstrel show was pretty much on its last legs by the late '70s so it wasn't long for this world anyway. When you consider that on British TV and radio by that time we'd had The Frost Report, That Was The Week That Was, The Goons and I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again all of which launched the likes of Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, John Cleese. David Frost, Eric Idle, Bill Oddie et al. They in turn gave us Monty Python, The Goodies, The 2 Ronnies and so on. Mainstream TV and radio was about to be taken over by the Satirists and become far more anarchic. The Black And White Minstrels really belonged to the war time generation. My late Paternal Grandmother lived with us for a while in the mid-'60s. Every Sunday night through her bedroom door I used to hear the theme music to Sing Something Simple. She was born in 1903 and that show contained music performed in the kind of style you'd have heard in the '30s. Actually I think it might still be going.
Anyway, go and have a good time, but maybe you should take some mates with you. A racist incident is anything that is peceived to be that by anybody, not necessarily someone who may be the "victim" of it.
If anyone has a go at you just tell them you are an anti-racist and are making you stand by means of satire. In this way you are higlighting the plight of your Afro-Caribbean brothers and the right wing fascist preachings of the BNP.
Unless of course there is a BNP meeting in progress in the pub, in which case, raise your right arm at about 30 degrees from the horizontal and goose-step out of there. Once outside, run away.
Because of the colour bar film studios used white actors wearing black make up, so I suppose in the USA rather than here, the subject of people like Al Jolson playing a black man is more sensitive. If you also bear in mind that the black man was also portrayed in films as having no "spine" and being frightened by anything and everything, Hollywood didn't do black people any favours.
Even performers of the stature of Frank Sinatra had to fight really hard to have black musicians in his orchestra. People like Count Basie, Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis Jr., wouldn't have been allowed to perform with him on stage. Arguably one of the greatest jazz musicians of the 20th Century was a black guitarist called Charlie Christian, one of the first to perform and record using an electric guitar. He wouldn't have been able to perform with white musos.
Even as recently as WWII, (and possibly the Korean War) black and white soldiers were segregated, in fact the blacks were not allowed to serve in front line combat units like the Infantry, Armoured Regiments and many Artillery batteries. The reason was that the US military didn't trust them and felt they would LMF; Lack Moral Fibre, and run away at the first sign of the enemy.
With this background it's not surprising many in the US objected to the whole Minstrel thing. In this country the stereotypical image of Blacks didn't exist in the same way.
To be honest, the Black and White Minstrel show was pretty much on its last legs by the late '70s so it wasn't long for this world anyway. When you consider that on British TV and radio by that time we'd had The Frost Report, That Was The Week That Was, The Goons and I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again all of which launched the likes of Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, John Cleese. David Frost, Eric Idle, Bill Oddie et al. They in turn gave us Monty Python, The Goodies, The 2 Ronnies and so on. Mainstream TV and radio was about to be taken over by the Satirists and become far more anarchic. The Black And White Minstrels really belonged to the war time generation. My late Paternal Grandmother lived with us for a while in the mid-'60s. Every Sunday night through her bedroom door I used to hear the theme music to Sing Something Simple. She was born in 1903 and that show contained music performed in the kind of style you'd have heard in the '30s. Actually I think it might still be going.
Anyway, go and have a good time, but maybe you should take some mates with you. A racist incident is anything that is peceived to be that by anybody, not necessarily someone who may be the "victim" of it.
If anyone has a go at you just tell them you are an anti-racist and are making you stand by means of satire. In this way you are higlighting the plight of your Afro-Caribbean brothers and the right wing fascist preachings of the BNP.
Unless of course there is a BNP meeting in progress in the pub, in which case, raise your right arm at about 30 degrees from the horizontal and goose-step out of there. Once outside, run away.
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