"We are still shuckin' and jivin'."
I started to make a small statement and it took every ounce of my being to not scream, cry, yell, berate, or simply expose 21 years of feeling like... like an octoroon. I couldn't stop shaking, and I was too afraid to make my real point, but saying "we are still shuckin' and jivin'" really hit me. Hard.
Times like these I wished I still wrote for the newspaper. This would have made a great column.
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, a form of popular entertainment in America is the minstrel show. Performers of these productions were white men who wore burnt cork, greasepaint, or shoe polish on their faces and exaggerated the features of the eyes and lips with makeup in order to caricaturize blacks. It was so successful that blacks got in on the show to escape menial jobs of the time. Swallowing any pride, they donned the blackface and began singing and dancing, shuckin' and jivin', at their own expense.
The era of the minstrel show is long past. Jim Crow, the most famous minstrel character, has taken his final curtain call. The smell of burning cork no longer haunts the backstage of the theatre. Today, we live in a "cultured" society and we demand that no differentiating characterizations be portrayed stereotypically on-stage, regardless of purpose or relevancy to contemporary society. Harrumph! We find blackface offensive.
Oh, excuse me, is it African-American face now?
Blacks have become acclimated into American society but an air of minstrelsy still lingers in our modern-day polluted air. A lot of the assumptions and stereotypes that arose from minstrel shows are still a part of our vernacular. It may not be alright for someone to paint their face black in blatant mockery, but you calling someone a big black man in order to describe how imposing he appears is certainly acceptable; we all know through cultural upbringing there is a vast discrepancy between a big black man and a big white man (sarcasm). We still think it inoffensive to mention how well blacks can dance, or attribute athleticism to race.
We no longer put on the makeup, but we are stilling selling the idea of what it is to be black. Instead of burlap, we wear baggy pants that hang far below the waist. Wearing shoe polish has been replaced with gold teeth. The music of Bones and Tambor is now called rap, and Mr. Interlocutor (the only figure of the minstrel show in whiteface) has gotten a job as a record label producer, helping to promulgate this image as far as possible.
We want to tell the world that we think it is unfair for them to mock us with minstrel shows and we would cry offense if one was to be performed today, while we are still on-stage giving everyone else a show of caricatures. We even take these roles to mean ethnic identity and anyone who does not share the similar features (not exaggerated mouths but use of slang and the phrase "you know what I'm saying" incessantly) is not black. And although I continue to say we, it is my very awareness of this show and refusal to be a performer that some individuals- black, white or otherwise- do not consider me "black."
Most of this piece is based on Irish author Dion Boucicault's play, The Octoroon, written in 1859 about a woman who is one-eighth black. While she doesn't look the part or talks in an elevated, more eloquent form than that of the other blacks in the play, she still has black blood running through her veins.
I can relate to her. I don't adhere to the ridiculous cultural norm that seemingly defines "blackness" but I am no less black because of my blood. And I am tired, almost 22 years of tired, of having people question that blood.
I am tired of people telling me or others that I am surprisingly eloquent, as if it isn't possible for a black male to be articulate. I am tired of people assuming I play basketball or that I must be a good dancer without having seen me do either. No, I have never played the drums. Yes, I can swim- fairly well actually. No, just because I want a career in the theatre does not mean I support Tyler Perry and the rest of the "chitlin circuit." The first play I write will have nothing to do with Big Mama. I'm not donning the ideal of "blackness" to entertain you any further.
The days of blackface are over, but we are still shuckin' and jivin'.
You know what I'm saying?
