Understanding the history of 'blackface' — and why it's so harmful
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Dwan Reece |
TEDxMidAtlantic
• March 2019
Throughout history, portrayals of characters in 'blackface' — with white people made up to caricature Black stereotypes — have been used in ways that demean, denigrate, and trivialize people of African descent. Dwan Reece, Curator of Music and Performing Arts at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History Culture, offers a detailed history of this practice, and how it is still so harmful when it appears today.