The Minstrel

At the same time New England and the Western expansion were bustling, the South was developing in its own right.  Opposition between North and South over slavery issues created a feeling of separatism.  Thus two different yet overlapping cultures were developing.  The South was primarily different from the North in that slavery and racial interactions were present everywhere one looked.  Having two interrelated groups meant having two different cultures.  Just as whites had a culture of their own, so did blacks.  What resulted was a crossover and an exploitation of culture in a the form of racial mockery.  A character who came to be known as the "minstrel," who was usually a white man with a painted black face, fulfilled this ridiculing of black culture.

As the human spirit of the slaves were brutally suppressed, forms of rebounding expression could be seen in song and dance sometimes referred to as juba.  This often had to be performed in the private space due to slave owners practice of suppressing any cultural utterance.  One such form of expression, known as a "stick dance" is relevant to the subject because it was one form of culture that was mocked by minstrels.  Most slaves found it in their best interest not to surface these expositions and instead would put on a masquerade of submission in the presence of the master.  "The slave eased himself into a pattern of becoming a comic creature--a simple, obedient, obsequious soul" (William Schechter, The History of Negro Humor in America p. 41).  Pleased and fascinated with this character and his mannerisms, white minstrels began to mock slave culture in a way that made it humorous to onlookers.  Minstrels gained immense popularity in the South were they would perform small stage acts.  But why was this found humorous?  And why was it racist?  Answers to these questions can be analysed by looking in todays culture.

In a situation where two cultures interact, mimicking will inevitably occur.  Today we see imitation in dress, talk, art, music and almost all mediums of cultural expression.  But this is not seen as racist even though it seems to be of the same same substance as minstrelsy.  I think the difference lies in when a certain trait or cultural bias is blown out of proportion and only seen as something of a marvel.  "The playwrights(minstrels) would choose one comic characteristic of a Negro, exaggerate this trait to the point of hyperbole to make it humorous and ignore all other possible human traits of the total Negro personality.  The outcome was a terribly degrading portrait that perpetuated prejudice" (Schechter, p. 41).

Another interesting attribute to the sentiment surrounding imitation is the relationship between the majority and minority.  Often when someone imitates another culture, he or she is said to have "sold out" his or her own culture.  But this is primarily when he or she is of a minority acting like the majority.  For example, when a stereotypical "black man" dresses as a stereotypical "white man" often his peers see him as abandoning his culture.  Conversely, a "white man" dressing as a "black man" is often seen as fashionable.  That is to say, when a member of the majority imitates the minority, it is usually seen as trivial and contemporary.  But is it humorous?  I think not.  If it was, it would be racist by today's standards.  In looking back on the days of slavery, however, we see that these terms seemed synonymous and this is why minstrelsy was seen as humorous.