In a personal look at the shocking origins of minstrelsy, the actor speaks truth to power on the same channel that showed blackface in his living room when he was growing up
Ever since Thomas D Rice became the “father of American minstrelsy in the 1830s”, Black people have been mocked, bullied and humiliated by white performers darkening their skin to portray Blackness. Blackface runs the gamut of culture, appearing everywhere from Shakespeare productions to David Baddiel “impersonating” footballer Jason Lee on TV. But in 2023, the pendulum has swung in the other direction, with films, television shows and cartoons trying to erase blackface from its records.
As David Harewood on Blackface shows, scenes in which Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby and Judy Garland use blackface are now often edited out of their otherwise family-friendly movies. Many of the films and TV shows Harewood explains were once “mainstream British culture” can now only be found in archives where they are gathering dust, “shelved and put out of sight because the subject is too difficult or uncomfortable for people to face”.
