A light rain falling in March. Almost a mist. 1852 is the year. Wisps of rain streak across your face as you cross a New York Street.  It almost tastes sweet. Steam rising in the distance. You can hear it hiss. The knock of horse and carriage against a cobblestone street comes closer to you. Knock-Knock, Knock-Knock…Knock-Knock, Knock-Knock. A faint neigh behind you now. A street vendor motions toward you, urging you to buy something that you don’t need. You’re late. Your right arm, tired, as you maintain the umbrella your father gave you this morning. Hurrying across, from corner to corner, to meet friends at the theater, you almost slip. Laughing at yourself, your insides are teeming with the joy you’re about to have with friends. Rushing to get to the latest show. The Minstrel Show.

“First on de heel tap, den on the toe
Every time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow.
I wheel about and turn about an do just so,
And every time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow. “

-Jump Jim Crow by Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice-

For what was more than 100 years, Blackface or Minstrel Theater, and it’s offensive, disgusting, nature of African American stereotypes, has further blackened the eye of American History. This “art-form”, chock full of racist images, attitudes, littered theaters as early as 1830. While this form of theater began to be frowned upon in roughly 1878, it seems that history repeats itself as we are experiencing several scandals in public news, and the skeletons are beginning to be dug up. Ironically, during this Black History Month, we are experiencing what I would call a phenomenon of ‘Racist Archaeology’, most recently from the college yearbook of prominent politician Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. While Northam has since, after initially denying that the photo was him, apologized for the ordeal, he refuses to resign, as many of his constituents are calling for.

Earlier this week, Northam decided to restore voting rights to almost 11,000 people with felony records. Of course, it is difficult to believe that this is anything more than a political ruse as Northam states in the release, “I believe in second chances and making our Commonwealth more open and accessible to all”. If anyone would be looking for a second chance here, it would be Ralph Northam.

Northam’s past transgressions were unearthed after Michael Ertel, former Florida Secretary of State, resigned from his position for being found in blackface at a Halloween party 14 years ago. Below you’ll see Northam portraying blackface, in an Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook, happily standing next to a character in a KKK costume, and Ertel at a halloween party dressed as his depiction of a hurricane Katrina victim. To remind you, hurricane Katrina took more than 1800 American lives and caused billions of dollar’s in damage to New Orleans back in August of 2005.

Even the fashion world seems to be witless when it comes to the phenomenon that is blackface. Gucci, Prada, Moncler, and now – Katy Perry are all under scrutiny and have had to issue apologies as they’ve released products that are obviously celebrating the disgusting history of blackface. I say this time and time again – Diversity matters. Who you have around your marketing tables, in your boardrooms, and on your leadership teams matters. Representation matters. The easiest way to avoid these idiotic “blind spots”, as Francois-Henri Pinault would call them, is to diversify your teams, and then support said diversity. It is not merely enough to hire these worldly views, you must find avenues to foster them within your organization. If you do not have anyone around the table that would speak up and call for pause in this instant, then you are failing. Inherently failing. This is all that it takes. One vile joke, one Halloween gag, one putrid marketing scheme gone wrong to totally annihilate your moral standing as a human being or as an organization. Everything, and I mean everything, is questioned afterwards.

So… Where do we go from here? Now that the damage is done and the racist bones of America have, yet again, been unearthed.  Where do we begin to understand the fine line between appreciation, appropriation, and flat out stupidity? Although we may grow and evolve from these base and vapid ways of processing thought, we must find ways, other than public apology, or utilizing voter disenfranchisement, or resigning from public office to make amends for the ugly of the past. What work are you doing to move your personal needle in terms of multicultural understanding and acceptance?  In what ways are you pushing yourself to be a leader of emotional intelligence among all constituents that you may represent or that you sell your products to before the proverbial dung hits the fan? To what extent are you pushing a personal agenda that steps away from the mistakes of a younger self?

The next time you think of, or reference blackface, I urge you to do so with disdain. Whether you are deciding to throw a themed college party, to dress for an adult Halloween outing, or to appreciate another culture apart from your own – I assure you, you can do that without blackface. When it comes to the archaeology of racism, please know that your skeletons will be in shallow graves. In regards to moving personal needles, all Americans would do well to dig a bit deeper.

James Baldwin was never more correct than when he said, “I can’t trust what you say, because I see what you do.”

-Daymyen T. Layne

February 13, 2019