so if
- modern clown makeup is rooted in blackface/racist caricatures of black people
- and one potential psychological explanation for why clowns are so scary is that they seem “less than human”
- what the fuck does that say
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The Racist Origins of Modern Clown Makeup (or, just one more reason to hate clowns)
This post was asking about a potential link between the afro-style wigs and big, painted lips of the modern clown and racist caricatures, so I decided to do what any good theatre history student would do - I did some research.
SPOILER ALERT: YUP, IT’S RACIST AS FUCK
From Janet M. Davis, The Circus Age: Culture & Society Under the American Big Top:
Some circus programs contained portraits of clowns in literal blackface, with huge red mouths and bulging eyes, strumming energetically on a banjo, but often the auguste clown’s blackface was metaphorical. He created his racial identity through the act of ‘‘whitening up’’ with thick pancake.
His greasy whiteness and exaggerated bodily zones—huge red mouth, lolling, paint-encircled eyes, big fake nose, ears, and feet—made his look strikingly similar to blackface. Showmen played upon this visual connection by arguing that African American men literally were clowns because of their supposed affinity for clowning and the circus. The Ringling Bros.’ route book from 1895 and 1896 contained a section, ‘‘The Plantation Darkey at the Circus,’’ which imagined—in almost orgasmic language—black men as minstrel characters.
[…]
Proprietors further conflated the African American man and the clown by arguing that both were completely controlled by their emotions, not reason.
Superlative examples of white manhood—the big cat tamer, the wire walker, and so forth—demonstrated little emotion during life-threatening acts. The clown, by contrast, howled in mock fear when he saw a mouse, or shrieked in pain at a mosquito bite. Showmen characterized male African American spectators in a similar vein as giddy and superstitious.
[…]
Actual big-top acts made this rhetorical relationship between the clown and the African American complete. In 1888 Eph Thompson trained the elephant John L. Sullivan at the Adam Forepaugh circus. Wearing a boxing glove at the end of his trunk, the elephant sparred with Thompson in the ring and frequently ‘‘punched’’ him so hard that Thompson went flying over the ring bank.
Unlike the white trainer who dominated powerful animals, Thompson played a clownish coward—constantly vanquished by the boxing pachyderm—and consequently remained unthreatening to Euroamerican audiences. Yet Thompson still had a difficult time finding employment with American shows. As a result, he moved to Europe where his career flourished.
In line with the tenets of nineteenth-century romantic racialism, show-men’s portrayals of black men and clowns reflected contemporary representations of white women: late-nineteenth-century scientists argued that ‘‘excessive’’ emotionalism defined women, racial ‘‘savages,’’ and children of all races. The German Darwinist Ernst Haeckel and the Americans Edward Drinker Cope and G. Stanley Hall were all proponents of recapitulation theory, positing that every organism repeats the life history of its ‘‘race’’ within its own lifetime, evolving through the less developed forms of its ancestors on its path to maturity. They contended that Euroamerican women and ‘‘primitives’’ remained mentally and emotionally fixed in lower ancestral stages of evolution. Accordingly, only white boys were physiologically and mentally capable of reaching the highest stages of racial and gender development as fully evolved men. This line of thought used pseudoempirical phrenological evidence to claim that African American men were perpetually emotional and juvenile, just like the clown.
The painted clown acted out childish behaviors and infantile pleasures. He reveled in dirt, cried freely, openly adored the serious ‘‘adult’’ acts, and played physical pranks on everybody, from ringmaster to the audience. If playing a hobo (popularized most fully by Emmett Kelly’s ‘‘Willie’’ tramp character during the Depression, when at times nearly one-quarter of the American workforce was unemployed), the auguste clown’s persona was defined by dirt. Laughing loudly at the clown’s antics perhaps transported audiences back to the unrestrained pleasures of their own collective infancy and childhood.
More than a ‘‘low Other’’ who simply represented a tantalizing version of what they were not, the unfettered clown symbolized what clock-bound, alienated adult Euroamerican men perhaps felt they had lost.
Even the red noses have their origins in racist stereotypes.
From Mikita Brottman, Funny Peculiar: Gershon Legman and the Psychopathology of Humor:
While the Native American plains tribes had their own various manifestations of the Trickster figure, the main clown type of non-Native Americans was not the August, as it was in Europe, but the character clown… After the [Civil War] ended, however, one particular style of character clown came into prominence: the Hobo.
Eric Lott describes how the Hobo figure was originally based on the blackface minstrel clowns (hence the exaggerated white mouths) who portrayed the figures of African Americans made homeless by the ravages of the Civil War.
Lott explains that the Hobo character clown is a distinctly American invention, with his tattered hat, huge white mouth, three days’ growth of beard, torn clothes, and cartoon alcoholic’s big red nose. […] It seems ironic that such mawkishly appealing personalities had their roots in the miseries of poverty and oppression and the disfigurements of alcoholism and venereal disease.
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» if you find me, hide me: radphlegm: A Collection of 4c Hairstyles: Something that annoys the...
A Collection of 4c Hairstyles: Something that annoys the sh*t out of me…
I always wondered why clowns use afro wigs. I’m sure there is a racist reason behind it. Ill look it up.
I literally just thought about this and am now fighting a panic attack and praying to the Lord God that there is no connection.
But obviously there is…
i’m about 1000% sure it’s based in racism.
when was the last time you saw a clown wig that resembled anything close to typical white people hair?
even if people wanna claim it’s a “jew fro,” pretty sure that it would still be based in racism.
It’s like subliminal (except not) blackface cos the red around the mouth etc
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Fat and cute is an oxymoron, just like black and personAnonymous
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Here’s some Meme Monday to distract you from finals hell!
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Hi guys i’m looking for Antiblack videos, particularly from asian countries, can you link me please?
signal boost
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Hundreds of Chicago Students Walk Out of Standardized Test
Hundreds of Chicago students are taking up the mantle in the fight against the role of standardized tests in public school closures as they walked out of a state exam Wednesday. Their message: “We are over-tested, under-resourced and fed up!”
Over 300 students from over 25 different Chicago public schools boycotted the second day of a state-wide standardized test.
Ahead of a school board meeting, at which the demonstrators were banned from speaking, the students rallied outside the district headquarters carrying placards and forming a human chain.
“We’re just trying to make a statement that tests should not determine our future or the future of our schools,” said student organizer Alexssa Moore, a senior at Lindblom High School.
Brian Sturgis, senior at Paul Robesan High School and boycott organizer with the group Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools (CSOSOS), declared in an op-ed “We are Chicago students and we are here to save our schools!”
He writes:
Mayor Emanuel and his Board of Education want to close 54 grammar schools around the city, all of which are in black and Latino communities: this is racist. These schools are also being judged based on assessments and tests given throughout the year: this is foolish. These school closings will leave neighborhoods dismantled, parents lost, students unaccounted for, and more importantly, will put children in harmful situations: this is dangerous.
Sturgis explains that Mayor Emanuel and the Board of Education
are putting too much pressure on standardized testing and threatening to close schools that don’t have high test scores. When schools are under so much pressure to raise test scores it leads to low-scoring students being neglected, not supported. This is what happened when 68 low-scoring juniors were demoted to sophomore status at a southwest side high school in Chicago last month, right before the state test.
The student boycott follows a protest earlier this month, Occupy the Department of Education, during which teachers and education activists descended on the Capitol to draw attention to the rampant privatization of public schools and the rash of recent school closures.
In February, a nationwide day of action led by the Seattle school teachers’ boycott of a standardized test brought this issue to national attention.
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post mlk party continuing updates
The director of the school of theatre was toooo geeked to tell me they just hired new acting faculty and he’s black and Leslie god bless her who is i think the only black theatre faculty rn was like squealing to herself and apparently he’s just the greatest person soooo
And they’re planning 6 Theatre and Race symposiums for the upcoming year and the director was talmbout telling faculty to put it in their syllabi and make it required and the faculty are still doing their diversity retreat next semester to learn about privilege and they’re all getting a copy of this book about microaggressions and she was saying everyone on campus knows about the issues in the department so now they need to step up ans be a good example and they were saying they might look into bringing this guy who specializes in boal and theatre of the oppressed and we might host the YWCA racial summit in the center for the performing arts
Like
Y’all.
I did this. With y’all’s help and support lil ol me actually had an impact
Don’t listen to people trying to shut you down or saying that talking on the Internet doesn’t accomplish shit because they are dead motherfucking wrong and you can tell them that straight from me.
Next stop… autism ~awareness~ month… I’m comin for y’all.
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THE MYTH THAT “MINORITIES” GET MORE SCHOLARSHIPS DEBUNKED SINCE 5EVER
This is something that comes up time and time again like clockwork.Here’s a”just the facts” post.
Racists LOVE this tired old saw. The problem is that it’s complete and utter bullshit, it always HAS been, and IT IS THE OPPOSITE OF REALITY.
Caucasian students receive more than three-quarters (76%) of all institutional merit-based scholarship and grant funding, even though they represent less than two-thirds (62%) of the student population.
Caucasian students are 40% more likely to win private scholarships than minority students. These statistics demonstrate that, as a whole, private sector scholarship programs tend to perpetuate historical inequities in the distribution of scholarships according to race.-The Distribution of Grants and Scholarships by Race
BUT WHAT ABOUT FINANCIAL NEED BASED SCHOLARSHIPS????
OH HEY IS THERE ANOTHER SOURCE FOR THIS?
It debunks the race myth, which claims that minority students receive more than their fair share of scholarships. The reality is that minority students are less likely to win private scholarships or receive merit-based institutional grants than Caucasian students. Among undergraduate students enrolled full-time/full-year in Bachelor’s degree programs at four-year colleges and universities, minority students represent about a third of applicants but slightly more than a quarter of private scholarship recipients. Caucasian students receive more than three-quarters (76%) of all institutional merit-based scholarship and grant funding, even though they represent less than two-thirds (62%) of the student population. Caucasian students are 40% more likely to win private scholarships than minority students.
STOP PARROTING RACIST MYTHS INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY FACT CHECKING
Scholarships Go Disproportionately To White Students
White Students More Likely To Win Scholarships
White students get Minority Scholarships
Texas State Offers Scholarship EXCLUSIVELY FOR WHITE PEOPLE
So stop saying this shit. you’re just plain fucking WRONG. Also, racist.
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lol bye.
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Towson University, Maryland: Students and civil rights activists rally against racism after white supremacist student group announces plans to “patrol” campus, April 2, 2013.
Photos by Light Brigade Maryland and Beth Emmerling
“The White Student Union at Towson University, one of 17 recognized hate groups in the State of Maryland, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, has announced plans to conduct night patrols, even though the university is one of the safest colleges in the area. The group’s president, Matthew Heimback, a former member of Youth for Western Civilization (YWC) and the American Third Position Party (ATPP) – a recognized White Supremacist Group — was responsible for scrawling “White Pride” on the campus during his time as president of YWC, and recently ranted at a local conservative convention about how “blacks” should be grateful to their slave masters for providing them food and shelter. Mr. Heimback is an unrestrained racist who has no interest in conducting public safety patrols. Instead, he seeks to recreate witch hunts and lynch mobs to ‘protect white women from thuggery.’
“Take a stand against racism and hate! Send a message to university President Loeschke and the administration at TU!” -
The director of the theatre department read a whole book on microaggressions and were probably using the rest of the leftover crossroads committee money to buy copies for all the faculty as she is onna set up a day for poc in the department to just come talk to her about microaggressions in class and te apl and she’s gonna order pizza and I’m so proud of the world righ now I feel like I did a good deed y’all like real shit is happening
:’)
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SHOOT ME.
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Day 13 of White History Month: Chinese Immigrant Exclusion from the United States
The Burlingame Treaty of 1868 attempted to establish a friendly relationship between the United States and China, in contrast to earlier actions the United States had taken against China. From this, you would not predict that Chinese immigrants would be the first group whose immigration would be restricted, as in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, or completely barred from immigration and citizenship, as in the Immigration Act of 1924.
Chinese immigrants first arrived in significant numbers in the late 1840s, around the time of the California Gold Rush. Until gold became scarce, tensions were low and violence was not common against Chinese immigrants. Chinese immigrants who stayed in the United States were recruited to work on the First Transcontinental Railroad. Later, Chinese communities developed with restaurants, laundries, fisheries, domestic work, and an assortment of shops.
Chinese Americans had cohesive communities, but were recruited and manipulated by white factory owners. Chinese Americans were unknowingly used as strikebreakers, providing unions with anti-Chinese propaganda. Chinese Americans accepted low wages since they often sent money back to their families in China, so white workers argued that they brought their wage potential down. This was untrue, as many Chinese American workers did difficult, menial, and sometimes life-threatening work that white workers were hesitant to accept. Propaganda, intimidation, and violence did not force Chinese immigrants out of the country, so numerous pieces of legislation were put into law.
Anti-Chinese Immigrant Legislation
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 halted immigration, which also prevented many of the young Chinese immigrants (who were largely male) from reuniting with their families, and due to anti-miscegenation laws, from forming families.
The California Alien Land Law of 1913 (expanded in 1920 and struck down by the Supreme Court in 1946) prevented Asian immigrants from owning land. The Immigration Act of 1917 restricted immigration to the United States to a number of groups (such as gay people, alcoholics, “feeble-minded persons”, and anarchists), but only singled out people from a constructed “Asiatic barred zone” which included much of Asia (and included parts of China).
During World War II, China was a major ally to the United States, leading to the Magnuson Act of 1943. This act reversed the complete ban on Chinese immigration put in place by the Immigration Act of 1924, allowing Chinese immigration and also the naturalization of select Chinese Americans. However, it still limited Chinese immigration with a yearly quota of only 105 visas to Chinese citizens. This was disproportionately low, as the Immigration Act of 1924 allowed yearly immigration of two percent of the number that was already present in the United States as of 1890. This meant that at the very least, 2,150 Chinese citizens should have been admitted to the United States. Only in 1965 were Chinese immigrants allowed back into the United States in larger numbers.
Many historians attribute the Chinese Exclusion Act to insecurity over employment and wages, but they gloss over the racism. No other immigrant group was recruited for the benefit of United States citizens and particularly wealthy industrialists, and then singled out for exclusion. Additionally, Chinese immigrants were held to be racially inferior and made a scapegoat for economic problems. Chinese immigrants were viewed as impossible to assimilate, yet Irish immigrants continued to pour into the United States. Additionally, the Immigration Act of 1924 may have restricted immigration from European groups, but it meant that Asian Americans were barred from entry and also from possible naturalization.
This was not simply nativism, but also racism.
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OKAY SO BASICALLY I GOT A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK BECAUSE I WENT TO THE SOCIAL JUSTICE INSTITUTE EARLIER THIS YEAR
and I was already SUPER HYPE about it and then I found out that it’s a Routledge Reader, which I am OBSESSED WITH
I mean look at this Table of Contents (also here) and it’s also got a corresponding website with additional resources
but basically why I’m making this post is that while this book looks fucking amazing, it also retails for nearly $50 because it’s a Routledge Reader, so I’m throwing all this info up here to say if anybody sees a specific essay that looks really good that doesn’t turn up by Googling, my library at school has this pretty bitchin’ book scanner and I can make it into a pdf for you.
I’m probably gonna eventually scan the whole book, but if there’s anything anybody wants first I can prioritize that. (it’ll probably be at least a week before I can, though, because of spring break and the library’s closed this weekend and stuff)
so yeah!! just shoot me an ask and I’ll take note when I’m able to use the scanner again
because knowledge should be free
<3
(holy shit it has a table of intersections to show which essays deal with intersectionality i’m gonna die)
