Laugh at ourselves

New Paltz, N.Y.: I read with interest W. Fitzhugh Brundage’s Op-Ed “What blackface is really about” (Feb. 7) and its correct assessment of blackface ultimately rooted in prejudice, stereotype, and objectification. Yet, his analysis falls in murkier waters when he ascribes whites blackening their skins to be “as much about white male desire for and jealousy of blacks as it was about white bigotry.” Would he consider a black woman whitening her skin as a black female desire for and jealousy of whites as about black bigotry? Similarly, does he think Al Sharpton’s longtime practice of “conking” his hair had anything to do with an envy of whites? Perhaps Brundage might consider an alternative explanation for these phenomena — humor. When whites have worn blackface or blacks have imitated stilted white speech or Archie Bunker cried against “jungle bunnies” or George Jefferson railed about “honkies,” could it have been America’s imperfect attempts to comes to terms with its racial past through amusement and comedy — as flawed, hurtful, and inappropriate as it might be in our current politically correct times? Russell Paul La Valle