Before multiculturalism, blackface in pop culture

Blackface, other insensitivities had a part of 1980s pop culture before multiculturalism began changing racial sensibilities.

At the time Virginia’s future political leaders put on blackface in college for fun, Dan Aykroyd wore it too — in the hit 1983 comedy “Trading Places.” Sports announcers of that time often described Boston Celtics player Larry Bird, who is white, as “smart” while describing his black NBA opponents as athletically gifted. Such racial insensitivities ran rampant in popular culture during the 1980s, the era in which Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and the state’s attorney general, Mark Herring, have admitted to wearing blackface as they mimicked pop singer Michael Jackson and rapper Kurtis Blow, respectively. Meanwhile, Chicago elected its first black mayor, Michael Jackson made music history with his “Thriller” album, U.S. college students protested against South Africa’s racist system of apartheid and the stereotype-smashing sitcom “The Cosby Show” debuted on network television. It would be another 10 years before the rise of multiculturalism began to change America’s racial sensibilities, in part because intellectuals and journalists of color were better positioned to successfully challenge racist images, and Hollywood began to listen. “We are in a stronger position to educate the American public about symbols and cultural practices that are harmful today than we were in the 1980s,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. During the ‘80s, college faculties and student bodies were less diverse, Gates said. Some scholars who entered college during the 1960s had yet to take on roles in which mainstream culture would heed their cultural critiques, he said. At the time Northam and Herring put on black makeup, Hollywood and popular culture still sent messages that racial stereotypes and racist imagery were comical and harmless, despite pleas from civil rights groups and black newspapers. Herring was a 19-year-old University of Virginia student when he wore brown makeup and a wig to look like rapper Kurtis Blow at a 1980 party. Three years before that, white actor Gene Wilder darkened his face with shoe polish in the movie “Silver Streak” costarring Richard Pryor. He used a stereotypical walk to impersonate a black person living in an urban neighborhood.

GENE BLYTHE — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE Atlanta city councilman, Rev. Hosea Williams, in overalls, leads a march against efforts to keep Forsyth County in Georgia all white past counter-protesters near Cumming, Ga., as a crowd waves Confederate flags and jeer the marchers. Racial stereotypes and racist imagery in popular culture seemed to be everywhere in the chaotic 1980s when future Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and future Attorney General Mark Herring admitted dressing up in blackface.