Please read this article by Mark Sawyer, a UCLA professor. The article adds more information about the blackface issue, but unlike the NPR commentators - Mark Sawyer describes blackface as being an enduring and pernicious legacy, and not only in America, but still endures around the world! Is blackface ever okay? There are a lot of justifications flying around - the main one being that with comedy everything is okay. But even with comedy blackface is wrong - it mocks a group of people who had to endure a horrible and genocidal legacy - slavery. Sawyer makes a convincing case, which I agree with completely, that blackface is always wrong, presents distorted stereotypes and is always racist.
Harry Connick Jr. recently encountered this in Australia with white actors in blackface mocking Michael Jackson, and called them out on it. Should he have done so? You decide. By the way the picture on the right is a blackface Mickey Rooney with Judy Garland!
