美国国家公共电台 NPR Virginia Scandals Draw Attention To The Dehumanizing History Of Blackface

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

This week has people across the country looking back at their yearbooks. That's because Virginia has been rocked by political scandal involving an old yearbook photo and blackface. Both the state's governor and attorney general have admitted to wearing blackface decades ago. Florida's secretary of state recently resigned for posing as an African-American Katrina victim. And this week, the fashion house Gucci pulled a sweater that looked like blackface. NPR's Debbie Elliott has this look at the history and prominence¹ of blackface in American culture.

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE²: At the Virginia capital this week, Fredericksburg businessman Kevin Williams struggled to understand why anyone would blacken their face.

KEVIN WILLIAMS: Who is that funny to? It's just - it's not funny. There's nothing funny about blackface.

ELLIOTT: Williams is African-American and has lost faith in the elected officials caught up in the scandal.

WILLIAMS: It's unnerving to me that there are people still today that think that that's OK, and it's just not.

ELLIOTT: At the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, CEO Christy Coleman says there is a lack of understanding about blackface.

CHRISTY COLEMAN: They are literally³ watching black people in their moments of levity⁴ and privacy. It's being invaded and then co-opted and distorted. There's a violence to that.

ELLIOTT: Blackface has been around since the 1830s, first showing up in minstrel shows where white actors would perform as black characters.

GREGG KIMBALL: It's really the first truly American theater.

ELLIOTT: Historian Gregg Kimball at the Library of Virginia says it was an early form of popular entertainment and largely in Northern and Midwestern cities.

KIMBALL: I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire. When I cleaned out my great aunt's house, there was a minstrel program (laughter). Our town had no black people in it, so this was not, like, a Southern thing. It was an American thing.

ELLIOTT: An American thing that used exaggerated stereotypes⁵ of black people, says Dwandalyn Reece. She's curator of music and performing arts at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

DWANDALYN REECE: They're lazy. They're unintelligent. They're prone⁶ to thievery - crooks⁷.

ELLIOTT: By the turn of the century, the racist⁸ caricatures were popularized in vaudeville⁹, and eventually radio, TV and film. Here's a record from 1928.

(SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY ACT, "THE TWO BLACK CROWS")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Did you rob John Smith's henhouse?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Oh, no, I never robbed no henhouse. No, sir. I was home that night.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What night?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) The night I robbed a henhouse.

ELLIOTT: That's a recording¹⁰ from New York of a comedy act called "The Two Black Crows." The white actors wear blackface, floppy¹¹ hats and have big, white lips. Reece says a roster¹² of these kinds of recurring¹³ characters developed.

REECE: The mammy figure. There is also the figure of Jim Crow, "Jump Jim Crow."

ELLIOTT: A PBS series recreated "Jump Jim Crow."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUMP JIM CROW")

THOMAS RICE: Come listen, all you gals¹⁴ and boys. I'm just from Tuckahoe. I'm going to sing a little song. My name's Jim Crow.

REECE: And creating that caricature, it proliferated¹⁵ and came to stand for segregation¹⁶, racism¹⁷ and treatment - unfair and inhumane treatment - of African-Americans.

ELLIOTT: Reece says for many Americans, particularly outside the South, these popular images were the only lens to view African-Americans, and it was a distorted view. You can see that through exhibits at the museum.

REECE: Over here, up here, we have a Sambo figure with a blackface with enlarged white lips and then the laughing figure with the big, bulbous eyes and red lips and mouth.

ELLIOTT: The minstrel caricatures started showing up on toys, games, books, even postcards, everyday household items. Reece says there was a tremendous market for them.

REECE: You really see how it starts to shape people's attitudes along race and the prejudices and biases¹⁸ that come out of that.

ELLIOTT: What's happening in Virginia, Reese says, provides something visceral and concrete to have an honest dialogue about race and the dehumanizing impact of blackface. Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Richmond, Va.

1 prominence   

n.突出；显著；杰出；重要

参考例句：

• He came to prominence during the World Cup in Italy.他在意大利的世界杯赛中声名鹊起。
• This young fashion designer is rising to prominence.这位年轻的时装设计师的声望越来越高。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

4 levity   

n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变

参考例句：

• His remarks injected a note of levity into the proceedings.他的话将一丝轻率带入了议事过程中。
• At the time,Arnold had disapproved of such levity.那时候的阿诺德对这种轻浮行为很看不惯。

5 stereotypes   

n.老套，模式化的见解，有老一套固定想法的人( stereotype的名词复数 )v.把…模式化，使成陈规( stereotype的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Such jokes tend to reinforce racial stereotypes. 这样的笑话容易渲染种族偏见。
• It makes me sick to read over such stereotypes devoid of content. 这种空洞无物的八股调，我看了就讨厌。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

6 prone   

adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的

参考例句：

• Some people are prone to jump to hasty conclusions.有些人往往作出轻率的结论。
• He is prone to lose his temper when people disagree with him.人家一不同意他的意见,他就发脾气。

7 crooks   

n.骗子( crook的名词复数 )；罪犯；弯曲部分；（牧羊人或主教用的）弯拐杖v.弯成钩形( crook的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The police are getting after the crooks in the city. 警察在城里追捕小偷。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The cops got the crooks. 警察捉到了那些罪犯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

9 vaudeville   

n.歌舞杂耍表演

参考例句：

• The standard length of a vaudeville act was 12 minutes.一个杂耍节目的标准长度是12分钟。
• The mayor talk like a vaudeville comedian in his public address.在公共演讲中，这位市长讲起话来像个歌舞杂耍演员。

10 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

11 floppy   

adj.松软的，衰弱的

参考例句：

• She was wearing a big floppy hat.她戴了顶松软的大帽子。
• Can you copy those files onto this floppy disk?你能把那些文件复制到这张软盘上吗？

12 roster   

n.值勤表，花名册

参考例句：

• The teacher checked the roster to see whom he would teach this year.老师查看花名册，想了解今年要教的学生。
• The next day he put himself first on the new roster for domestic chores.第二天，他把自己排在了新的家务值日表的第一位。

13 recurring   

adj.往复的，再次发生的

参考例句：

• This kind of problem is recurring often. 这类问题经常发生。
• For our own country, it has been a time for recurring trial. 就我们国家而言，它经过了一个反复考验的时期。

14 gals   

abbr.gallons （复数）加仑（液量单位）n.女孩，少女( gal的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. 这时，吉姆手里提着一个锡皮桶，嘴中唱着“布法罗的女娃们”蹦蹦跳跳地从大门口跑出来。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• An' dey thinks dey wants mousy lil gals wid bird's tastes an' no sense at all. 他们想要的是耗子般的小姑娘，胃口小得像雀子，一点儿见识也没有。 来自飘（部分）

15 proliferated   

激增( proliferate的过去式和过去分词 )； （迅速）繁殖； 增生； 扩散

参考例句：

• Books and articles on the subject have proliferated over the last year. 过去一年以来，论及这一问题的书和文章大量涌现。
• Influenza proliferated throughout the country. 流感在全国蔓延。

16 segregation   

n.隔离，种族隔离

参考例句：

• Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初，许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
• They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。

17 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

18 biases   

偏见( bias的名词复数 )； 偏爱； 特殊能力； 斜纹

参考例句：

• Stereotypes represent designer or researcher biases and assumptions, rather than factual data. 它代表设计师或者研究者的偏见和假设，而不是实际的数据。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• The net effect of biases on international comparisons is easily summarized. 偏差对国际比较的基本影响容易概括。