This is an unbelievable story.  Do you know why blackface is so offensive to black people?  It’s kind of complicated, so bear with us here.  You’ve seen the Jim Crow Segregation Laws mentioned in these discussions, and hopefully, you listened to the Jim Crow Laws song from Pledge #1.  Logically, you’d think that the Jim Crow laws were written by a guy named Jim Crow.  Here’s the crazy part!  Jim Crow was a fictional character who was invented to make fun of Black people for entertainment.  

In Louisville, Kentucky, a white comedian named Thomas Rice saw a disabled slave doing an animated dance and singing an African folk song called “Jump Jim Crow”.  Rice got the idea to turn this into a show, which became known as a minstrel show.  The first one debuted in 1828 in Louisville, Kentucky, and they were a hit.  

Rice wore blackface and performed as his Jim Crow character, touring around the United States and England, and becoming rich and famous.  Other minstrel companies with 30 people in them popped up, and making fun of Black people became the most popular form of entertainment for White people for 100 years.

The Jim Crow character was portrayed as a Black slave who was dumb, lazy, unintelligent, and buffoonish.  The term Jim Crow eventually became synonymous with all black people.  Now, get this!  The federal and state governments thought so little of Black people in 1898 that they named laws to suppress their rights after a fictional character that was invented to memorialize them as being dumb and lazy.

So, when you hear a black joke today, it’s a continuation of the spirit of this Jim Crow character and these minstrel shows.  Once you know the history, you can plainly see the connection between these shows and the black jokes you’ve heard throughout your life.

Any reasonable White person who can put themselves in the shoes of a Black person will see how mean-spirited and hurtful these shows were.  They will never make light of a black joke or blackface again because they wouldn’t want their families or themselves to be treated this way.

As far as Confederate flags and statues, most White people do not like to see them defaced or torn down, but given what they represent, it’s easy to see why people would be angry enough to take action on them.  Had society been more astute, we would’ve seen an eventual rebellion coming, addressed it proactively, and built museums around them.  Something similar to how they encased the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.