Unemployed journalist, Megyn Kelly, validated blackface on a worldwide platform last month. She said of the 150 year act of oppression: “That was OK when I was a kid, as long as you were dressing like a character.” I question her upbringing.

Blackface started as a sick way to make being black a joke and it continues that way today.

Blackface first appeared in show business as minstrelsy. White entertainers in the minstrelsy business used makeup and black cork to give themselves an exaggerated “black complexion” (brown skin, giant red or pale lips). They dressed up in woolly wigs and baggy wild clothing to put on outrageous acts. Actors also animated these characters using thick stereotypical “black” southern accents and hobbies.

The businesses began in the 19th century when the white men and women putting on these shows could have used black actors; however, show business was so racist, the idea to do so was unfathomable to them.

The motive as to why they didn’t use black people is both straightforward and questionable. Of course, due to the economic exploitation of black labor, during slavery and after slavery,  it is a wonder that white people would choose to perform these roles themselves. (It would be about time they did something without black people.)

Some people say they did so because they were afraid of black people, that they didn’t want to give black people credit for what definitely should have been theirs to act on, that it was a part of the shows’ tragic humor.