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Race and Culture: Ethnic Notions, Study notes of Social Anthropology

Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University (FAMU)Social Anthropology
Prof. Nzinga Metzger

The impact of offensive stereotypical depictions of Black people popular in the early 20th century and throughout the 40s on society. It talks about how caricatures and stereotypes were used to cope with America's biggest contradiction/paradox - racism and discrimination in a country founded on the idea of human equality. The document also discusses the Minstrel movement and how it perpetuated stereotypes about Black people. It talks about how Black people participated in Minstrel shows but had to cover themselves in tar and soot (blackface) to fit the stereotype/character. The document also discusses the portrayal of Black women as the controller, head of the house of men and “ugly” instead of fragile and dependent like normal society.

Typology: Study notes

2022/2023

Available from 06/20/2023

jc-williams
jc-williams 🇺🇸

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Race and Culture: Ethnic Notions
• Offensive stereotypical depictions of BLK ppl popular in the early 20th century
and throughout the 40s- have had a tremendous impact on society.
• Racial Stereotypes we talked about in class are some of the most popular.
• Fueled/Molded Racial Tensions and Racist Ideology- for centuries.
• Caricatures and Stereotypes were the way of coping with the America’s biggest
contradiction/paradox - racism and discrimination in a country founded on the
idea of human equality.
• T.D Rice- (Sambo theatre creator)- an Ethiopian delineator (YT comedian
performing in black face). Name of his routine later became the symbol of
segregation in the South. Routine named: Jim Crow
o Jim Crow was a dance that started on plantations after dancing being
outlawed in 1690. Dancing was then defined as: crossing your feet.
Slaves created a way of shuffling/sliding to safely glide around w/out
crossing their feet. Legend has it, Rice saw a crippled blk man
dancing and exaggerated negro dance. Rice took the man’s tattered
clothes and imitated him on stage that night. Thus, the routine was
formed.
• Caricatures most effective in small towns where ppl had never seen negros. So,
the act/imitation was believable.
• In 1843, group of black face performers joined together to form a single troupe.
Called themselves Minstrels. Widely captivating, especially in the North.
America’s 1st form of nationally popular entertainment.
o Jim Crow became Happy Sambo
• Minstrel movement took off at the same time as the abolitionist movement.
• Caricatures also provided justification for “slavery is us saving their souls.”
Plantations presented as happy places. YT ppl bombarded with images of
slaves seemingly content. But YTs knew they couldn’t operate plantations with
“Sambos.”
• Brutes = Black Menace
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Race and Culture: Ethnic Notions

  • Offensive stereotypical depictions of BLK ppl popular in the early 20th^ century and throughout the 40s- have had a tremendous impact on society.
  • Racial Stereotypes we talked about in class are some of the most popular.
  • Fueled/Molded Racial Tensions and Racist Ideology- for centuries.
  • Caricatures and Stereotypes were the way of coping with the America’s biggest contradiction/paradox - racism and discrimination in a country founded on the idea of human equality.
  • T.D Rice- (Sambo theatre creator)- an Ethiopian delineator (YT comedian performing in black face). Name of his routine later became the symbol of segregation in the South. Routine named: Jim Crow o Jim Crow was a dance that started on plantations after dancing being outlawed in 1690. Dancing was then defined as: crossing your feet. Slaves created a way of shuffling/sliding to safely glide around w/out crossing their feet. Legend has it, Rice saw a crippled blk man dancing and exaggerated negro dance. Rice took the man’s tattered clothes and imitated him on stage that night. Thus, the routine was formed.
  • Caricatures most effective in small towns where ppl had never seen negros. So, the act/imitation was believable.
  • In 1843, group of black face performers joined together to form a single troupe. Called themselves Minstrels. Widely captivating, especially in the North. America’s 1st^ form of nationally popular entertainment. o Jim Crow became Happy Sambo
  • Minstrel movement took off at the same time as the abolitionist movement.
  • Caricatures also provided justification for “slavery is us saving their souls.” Plantations presented as happy places. YT ppl bombarded with images of slaves seemingly content. But YTs knew they couldn’t operate plantations with “Sambos.”
  • Brutes = Black Menace
  • 1867 - “the states and the ppl that favor this equality and amalgamation(union) of the white and black races, God will exterminate… a man cannot create so great an offense against his race, against his country, against his God as to give his daughter, in marriage to a negro---a beast.”
  • “benevolent” slavery prevented BLKS from reverting to savagery.
  • Racial Hysteria seen in Thomas Dixon books. (The Klansman, Birth of a Nation) o Emancipation made out to be a huge mistake. o YTs in black face in the movie, played brutes, chasing after YT virgins. Used in Reconstruction period to justify lynching and killing BLKS. Mythology narrative created and controlled to suggest black ppl need to be controlled.
  • BLK PPL began to participate in Minstrel shows but to participate and keep up the narrative they had to cover themselves in tar and soot (black face) to fit the stereotype/character. Some even changed their names to Italian names because most performers were Italian. So, the blk ppl took Irish names, and impersonated the impersonators thus impersonating himself. BLK ppl
  • performed bc they saw it as a doorway out of hunger and poverty. Evolution of BLKs into theatre = Further Perpetuation of a stereotypes
  • Nobody wanted poetry, they wanted coon songs and jokes.
  • BlKs migrated from the country to the cities, and from the South to the North in increasingly large numbers. Blk migration threatened the status quo of the North, and so caricatures of the urban coon emerged to alert the public of the unemployment threat/risk. They falsely depicted the BLK labor force. (Dice, gambling, pensions for a razor common depiction for these caricatures)
  • BLKs under impression that if they made it their own way in society, they would eventually be welcomed.
  • BLK veterans’ morale effected by the caricatures.
  • Burt Williams- A tall, dignified man applied blackface, stooped his shoulders, and adapted to the black minstrel patterns of speech and behavior. Became America’s preeminent blackface artist. Famous/Infamous?
  • Burt addressed segregation and other racial societal issues.
  • Yes, when you see hundreds of them persisting over a very long period of time they have to they obviously appeal to people they appeal to the creator look at the cartoons or read the novels or by the artifact blacks don’t really look like that so white
  • that they’ve had a great impact with about the inner desires of the people who create and consume them and, they tell us about some of the forces that shape reality for a large portion population.
  • now containing these cultural images is the history of our national conscience conscience training to reconcile the paradox of racism in a nation founded on human equality Sanchez coping with his profound contradiction through caricature.
  • What were the consequences of these caricatures? How did they move the mirror? The reality of racial tensions in America for more than 100 years early 1900s images and songs portrayed a simple laughing black man the sand bole.
  • Rhapsody in the black and blue 1932
  • Classic portrayals of black men: carefree, irresponsible, avoiding work and food dance and song as life expectancy, child like contentment
  • (Late 1820’s) a man named TD Rice
  • Ethiopian delineator: a white comedian, who performed in Black face; the name of his routine became the symbol of segregation in the south, started on the plantation to the result of dancing being outlawed in 1690.
  • JIM CROW
  • Dancing was said to be crossing your feet by the church,
  • Slaves created a shuffling and sliding to safely glide around the laws without crossing your feet.
  • the slaves had a saying: the slaves created away I’m shuffling a slide glide around the lost without crossing your feet. The slaves had a saying.
  • “Will about and turn them out and jump just so every time I will about, I jump job Jim Crow.”
    • TD Rice saw a crippled, black man, dancing in exaggerated Jim Crow; he took the boys battered clothes and imitated him on stage that same night, America loved and copied it immediately after and it became the Jim Crow Characters
  • It was all altered by a law, from a man who was crippled.
  • It was bought that it was a true image.
  • In 183 group of black face performers formed a troupe
  • They called themselves minstrels.
  • Mostly in the north, first from of USA’s national entertainment
  • One of the significances towards slavery
  • Although there were many fighting to abolish and end slavery, there were many still boosting the immoral stigmas of black people in America.
  • Minstrel Caricatures portray that slavery was good for Blacks, natural inferiority and expected to graciously serve. The idea that slaves were content on plantations and falsely depicted the plantation being somewhat of a haven.
  • Whites were bombarded with the look of happy slaves, so they believed they were okay with it = if the slaves were happy and master was kind (period before the civil war)
  • Zip coon: adapting to freedom, imitating white people.
  • Pitted against the Sambo
  • The black nanny became a southern ideal.
  • Thelma my was used as a defense of slavery, presented as fat, pitch black, obedient.
  • Docile, loyal, and protective of White House/white people
  • Presented as though she understood the value of “white life” compared to blacks.
  • Pitted against the white lady & deemed of lacking fragility and beauty.
  • Stripped of sexual tension due to becoming a threat to a white mistress or wife; hair was kept wrapped up and body fully covered to not be desired by the master of the house —- much friction and tension occurred often because of this.
  • Presented as the controller, head of the house of men and “ugly” instead of fragile and dependent like normal society.