Week 6 thoughts

October 13, 2018

I can for sure say that this topic that we discussed for this week of class peaked, and kept my interest. It’s a topic that many people still have some hard feelings over including myself. The overarching topic we talked about was the all mighty minstrel show. The shows that depicted my people as slow and uneducated, but surly entertaining. The craziest part about it was it wasn’t any type of uncle toms to start out, but it was white men depicted as us as they would black face their faces. Sure it was entertainment, and sure they put on a great show, and a lot of music that set the foundation of our countries genre’s came from it, but you have to think at what cost though. The cultivation theory comes to mind when talking about this topic because though some people could separate the show from actual life, a lot of people couldn’t, and that’s how they perceived black, and brown people when they dealt with them. Black and brown people couldn’t be taken as seriously as they should be with a show like this. White people definitely looked down on black and brown people because of this show. Sure it wasn’t all white people at all including some of the people who were in the minstrel shows as they saw it as strictly entertainment, and some even saw it as an outlet to bring the music of black people to the light, but again you have to ask yourself at what cost because it was very evident that many people who saw the show had the mentality that black people were below them, and it only further that rhetoric. Though I can admit they put on a performance for sure, I hate the idea of the show, and how my people, black and brown people were depicted. No matter what anyone says, they didn’t have to put on black faces to do what they did, they could’ve just displayed their talents as the white men that they were, and I know it was an avenue for even some black people, but I know me personally I couldn’t do it because that’s the way that people perceived my people being all of the time, and it made black and brown people look bad overall. My point is though the show was filled with talented people, and is the core of a lot of American music, the show could’ve been put on with out the depiction of black and brown people being the way it was.

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