Blackface is a term that’s used to describe the practice of “wearing makeup to imitate the appearance of a Black person,” as per the Oxford Language Dictionary. But its origins are much more nuanced than just that — behind the word (and the action) is a complex context and history rooted in racism and spectacle.

Historically speaking, the practice of blackface was popularized after the Civil War, in which people would “darken their skin with shoe polish, greasepaint or burnt cork and paint on enlarged lips and other exaggerated features,” rose as a response to the rise in calls for civil rights after enslaved people’s emancipation. While it may have originated as a component of many European theatrical productions such as Shakespeare’s Othello, actor Thomas Dartmouth Rice popularized its use when he created the infamous “Jim Crow” character in 1830. If that persona still doesn’t sound familiar, its use as a namesake should – after all, the sets of laws that would segregate Black Americans for another century after the Emancipation Proclamation are named after this very character.

Comparative ethnic studies professor David Leonard (WSU) cites the use of blackface as an “assertion of power and control” which “allows a society to routinely and historically imagine African Americans as not fully human.” Likewise, in an article for PBS SoCal’s Stephen Foster, critic Mel Watkins explains to author Stephen Foster how minstrel shows “presented the black character as being stupid, as being comical, as being basically a frivolous character,” and how this reinforced harmful stereotypes and allowed society to embrace their misguided and even outright racist beliefs: “They loved it. This was what people had thought about [Black people] all along. So Rice’s characterization… reaffirmed what mainstream America had been thinking.” At the core of these skits are dehumanization and ridicule; by mocking and exaggerating Black features (and pairing them with jokes that portray Black people as lazy, sleazy, hypersexual, promiscuous, and criminal, among other derogatory descriptors and stereotypes), blackface wearers were, and still are, perpetuating these pervasive and high-impact forms of racism.

While you may think these atrocities are a thing of the past, you’d be sorely mistaken. Just within this past week, organizers of the Zespol Wanta and Mloda Wanta Piknik hosted in Oak Forest, Illinois apologized publicly after a youth ensemble wore blackface and exaggerated costumes for a performance of a scene from “Sister Act.” Back in 2020, Republican candidate Dean Browning came under fire for impersonating a “black gay guy” to pick a fight about former President Obama’s policies on Twitter. Even more concerningly, blackface is not gone at all, just transforming as our digital age evolves. 

When it comes to digital blackface, you don’t have to scroll too far. There seems to be a recent uptick in AI-generated Black avatars (especially Black women) across all social media platforms depicting fabricated “influencers” having an outing with friends, updating followers on their OOTDs, or even worse, doing stereotypical actions like eating chicken wings and watermelon. As Danyale Freeman writes for EBONY: “When machines are programmed to mimic culture but not understand it, they inevitably exploit it. [With] Black culture – already routinely appropriated and undercompensated – the damage is multiplied.”