The critics rave, the crowds roar, you spend your last dimes to capture it. Niggaz in Blackface (aka the Modern Day Minstrel Show) starring your favorite hip-hop artists and African American actors. I know many of you are reading and wondering what exactly I mean by a Modern Day Minstrel Show. You heard the term brought back to life as the title of Little Brother’s new album The Minstrel Show but many of you don’t really understand the significance of that album title being applied to our culture. So here’s a definition of it…
minstrel show- n.
A comic variety show presenting jokes, songs, dances, and skits, usually by white actors in blackface.
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, is an indigenous form of American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, usually performed by white people in blackface.
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As a highly popular form of entertainment, blacks were parodied as naive buffoons who sang and danced the days away, gobbling “chitlins,” stealing the occasional watermelon, and expressing their inexplicable love for “ol’ massuh” while still being treated like shit when the cameras go off.
Each and every character is overly exaggerated to a level that black folks were like “That’s not how we all are!” but during that timeframe one had to accept the fact that we were Toms, Coons, Mammies and Bucks in order to break down the barriers so the children (us) would not have to make fools of ourselves to be accepted (or so we thought).
Today, years after we assumed that these racial barriers were somewhat broken down by our ancestors, we take little notice that these very things are happening once again yet it isn’t as obvious as the watermelon spittin’, yes massuh, shuckin and jiving that took place almost a century before. But it is now disguised in less evident terms where we aren’t characters in our movies and music yet caricatures (A caricature is a humorous illustration that exaggerates or distorts the basic essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness).
So we can term this Modern Day Minstrel Show as Niggaz in Blackface. Why? Well they don’t need white people to paint their faces black in order to make fools of African Americans, we do that shit ourselves nowadays and don’t even know it. You want an example? Well here’s one…
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Hustle and Flow was heralded by white critics across the nation. For its “real” depiction of hip-hop in the hood it took home the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival. But you have to wonder why a movie with a deplorable character like Terrance Howard’s Dee Jay and such a simplistic plot was held so close to America’s busom? Is it because of white America’s fascination of African American culture? Or was it reconfirming what they saw us as all along? This isn’t a movie that would go over well with white characters because…well…white people aren’t pimps! They don’t disrespect their bitches in public (but will disrespect the hell outta them behind closed doors). We do. Don’t believe me? Tune into MTV, BET or grab that Ying Yang Twins CD and check out all the half naked women getting told “Wait til you see my dick!”
And what makes this so bad is the fact that our great black actors and directors praised its simplistic plot and felt as it was a dawn of a new era that has broken down barriers. I mean why couldn’t Dee Jay (Howard’s character) be a garbage man, telemarketer, postal worker or something? A Pimp??? C’mon man. The basic premise of this movie was “Hey I’m a wack ass pimp who can’t provide air conditioning for my hoes so what is the quickest way to make money? Rapping! So I’ma pick up a toy casio keyboard, make up some raps, shoot a nigga or two, go to jail and BOOM I’ma be rich!”
Now while Craig Brewer (the white guy who wrote the movie…go figure) contends that this movie is about a dream deferred, you have to wonder why the dream deferred had to be this. It’s entertaining to white folks as well as black folks to watch the mishaps and downfall of African Americans. But the funny thing is that if we didn’t make it cute to be pimps, hustlers and thugs this movie wouldn’t have happened and been as successful.
Today’s hip hop culture has made it cool to be ignorant. For example, remember about ten years ago when Snoop Dogg was cast as a malicious, immoral, criminal that was demonized by white America? Now look, Snoop Dogg is the cutest fucking thing on television! He even rolls with a pseudo pimp gotdammit! How many white folks you know toss in a “Fa Shizzle” into their casual conversation jokingly? We think it’s corny while they are inadvertently mocking us. But we have made it acceptable.
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Over the past decade we have put on the dinner plate sized medallions, bought rims more expensive than the cars they are fitted on, started phony ass beefs, got thugged out and basically given the vision that black life consists of nothing of moral merit. And much to the surprise of the corporate structures that makes these movies and music visible, that shit sells! So why not make another Hustle & Flow because the white people loved it! They create us. Like Jay-Z said in Fade to Black when a young emcee protested about HAVING to rap about guns “Yo, you (meaning us consumers) got rappers scared to be themselves.” We give 50 Cent a big kiss on the cheek because that nigga is a thug! Look at ‘em go! Two retarded niggas making millions (or so we think) whispering about their penis!
And here’s the fucked up part, black folks have embraced the ignorance! BET’s “Blackbuster” movie of the week is ALWAYS some lame ass movie (South Central or Baby Boy anyone?). Where the hell is Do the Right Thing, Bamboozled, Higher Learning or something like that? Why not show A Different World, What’s Happening or The Cosby Show instead of The Parkers or that lame ass Comic View remix show (Am I the only one annoyed by that “comedy mix” they put in between comedians)? And don’t tell me BET can’t afford it. They are all ran by the same company (Viacom). Why do I have to see Weebie’s “Bad Bitch” or Pretty Ricky’s “Grind With Me” over Little Brother’s Loving It. Oh yeah…because BET deemed that shit as “too intelligent.” Uncut is right up our alley with terrible songs but some terribly fat asses. Making good hip-hop or simply balancing things out is just “too intelligent” for us. This should outright insult you as a viewer and show you exactly what the powers that be think about us.
So at the end of the day it is “Come here aspiring black actor/director, you want to make it? Here paint your face black and do that Big Ballers film! Play that cooning, sorry ass nigga that speaks broken English and has gotta shoot somebody before the movie ends (Have you all noticed that damn near every black movie ends in some violent climax? Like we can’t go without bustin a cap in somebody’s ass before the credits roll) cause that will make massuh very happy!” or “Come here aspiring rapper, you want to make it? Paint your face black and rap about bitches, rims, jewelry, how many niggas you shot, and tell them ‘Wait til you see my dick’! Then let’s make a video with some naked black bitches, put you in this dope rented house that you can’t afford complete with rented Hummer on 26’s and more jewelry than King Tut and voila! Massuh loves it!”
But what they don’t tell you is that when the camera’s go off you gotta give all that shit back. And while you sit your aspiring ass home hoping someone will really get you paid, some kid at his house is admonishing over what he just saw on his television and figures “Damn that’s what I want to be like!” But you just don’t know how phony the character is and just how truly disposable you are.
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If you need proof that those who perform in Modern Day Minstrel Shows are disposable, look no further than Hurricane Katrina. No matter how much we please the powers that be with our shuckin and jiving skills, at the end of the day you find out just how much they really care about you. We need a “Hurricane Katrina” in our culture, a “natural disaster” that unearths all the REAL problems in our culture. It’s not like the people of New Orleans just got poor overnight, structural poverty has been in effect for years. The hurricane exposed everything that they didn’t want you to see. It unsheathed blatant racial discrimination (and financial because poor white people are damn near niggas too) to the excessively slow response to our needs as a people. We need something that exposes the Modern Day Minstrel Show for what it is in hip hop culture.
Little Brother has come pretty damn close to exposing a plethora of problems in hip hop with the hoopla over The Minstrel Show. From exposing a magazine or two’s shady rating systems and perceived payola (i.e. buying ratings, magazine covers, etc) to showing just how much BET thinks of your intelligence, Little Brother has inadvertently become a “natural disaster” in hip hop. Now hopefully some other natural disasters will come and bring to light a much needed balance in our philandering culture. Just as long as thousands of people don’t have to die in the process but I’m just a critic…Who the Hell Am I?
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