Why Megyn Kelly’s Blackface Comment is Unforgiveable
By Sonya Dickerson
Cotton looks ridiculous next to the White woman who calls herself “Chick Watts”. Cotton stands there in an oversized suit, blackened face, and big shoes. He wears a leopard suit with a matching jacket and pants. A black shirt to match his black face. A bow tie and exaggerated white lips, with a hat slapped on top of his nappy hair.
Cotton stands there, completely oblivious to everything around him. He’s not even aware of his sexuality. He’s not allowed to, especially standing next to a White woman. The leopard suit that he’s wearing is supposed to remind the audience of the savage he comes from. He is one generation away from the jungle beast, beating his chest, and swinging from tree to tree. It’s supposed to remind you of his origin. Africa was the place where he and others like him, cursed with dark skin, could live like heathens in peace before the civilizing force of Whiteness came to rescue him from his reserved place in Hell and closer to his Creator.
Chick Watts looks at him with half pity and half disgust as she tries to urge him to get a job, while giving him the generous offer of working for her.
“How much you gon’ pay me, ma’am?”
“All that you’re worth!” she says confidently.
“No ma’am! I’ve gotta have some money!”
The audience laughs. They get the joke. A black man isn’t worth a dime anywhere.
The skit goes on. In an unintelligible manner, he tells the white woman that he’s taken the Civil Service Examination where he exclaims that he wants to be a “mail toter”. She cuts in and lets him know that the term was “mail carrier” and calls him stupid. Another weak joke ensues. The audience laughs again. They get it. Black people often speak in ways that are unintelligent to the rest of society in their minds.
Towards the end, she tells him to show up at the zoo with the monkeys. He tells the audience that he’ll bring his grandfather. The audience doesn’t laugh at this point. Perhaps it’s a step too far for them. Maybe the laughter was canned. I am not entirely sure at this point.
The skit ends with him doing a “jig” for the audience. His steps technically correct, while exuding no personality or rhythm. I know that I’m watching a White man pretending to be a version of Blackness that he believes exists. You have to believe that this portrayal of blacks is the correct one, or at least pretty close to it because if you don’t believe that it’s correct, you wouldn’t laugh nor find yourself participating in it. It would be foreign to you. Not familiar in any sense. However, it would be a lie, and there is nothing funny about that.
Blackface is not about someone pretending to be black. It’s about mocking blackness. It serves to degrade. Why did it start to begin with? Whites had plenty of examples of well spoken, articulate, intelligent, educated, and polite black people who were considered pillars of their community. Even those that were not formally educated worked side by side with Whites during every military conflict the country has seen, during slavery, and even after slavery during Reconstruction.
Some were even representing Whites in Congress and other federal and state positions. There is a scene in D.W. Griffith’s. “The Birth of a Nation” showing Blacks acting in stereotypical ways while sitting in a State house of Legislation even though the few Blacks that were elected to legislative bodies never thought to act in a manner close to the way they were portrayed.
Frederick Douglass has this to say about black face and minstrel shows…
“…or any of the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow-citizens.
What did this mean for African Americans and our relationship with White America? It meant that even though Whites had worked side by side with Africans to build this country, they fought in wars with the descendants of Africans, who are now called African Americans, they knew that the stereotypes of how Blacks were shown in Blackface and minstrel shows were to the contrary of how we truly were in reality, but made a distinct choice to portray Blacks to the contrary. How interesting is that? Whites knew that Black people were just like them but chose to portray the exact opposite.
During the Civil War, many former slaveholders received the unique opportunity to see their former slaves in positions of power over them. Many didn’t believe that Frederick Douglass was a former slave because of his eloquence. Booker T. Washington encouraged blacks to “cast their buckets down” right where they were in the South and become entrepreneurs and farmers. He beseeched them to become respected members of society, believing that it would take some time, but if Blacks and Whites would just work together, then the latter would begin to see the humanity of the former.
How naïve for Booker T. Washington. Either he didn’t understand the strength of White supremacy and its importance in the South or he understood it and was just saying it to placate the planter class that still held dominance in the South. He believed that Black people needed to earn the respect of Whites, which in my humble opinion was the very beginnings of Black conservative thought, which we see today in Sowell, Ben Carson, Colin Powell.
For others who had very little contact with Black Americans in general, they would get their views from the movies and films. With Blacks being portrayed as lazy, lecherous, uneducated, slow, stupid, inarticulate, and cowardly, it’s no surprise that many White Americans continue to rely on these stereotypes today. They haven’t gone anywhere. They still linger today.
You’ll see politicians speaking about large members of the population that look for free things. You’ll see members of the majority population screaming at minorities to “get a job”, without bothering to find out if they are under employment of some kind.
Where do these stereotypes about Black people come from? They aren’t buried in truth, so they come from these images of Black people that were created since we’ve been in this country. Blackface introduced a view of black life that some whites had not been introduced to. Since they didn’t hang around or know any Black people in their own personal circles, then watching minstrel shows and White people running around in blackface just served their own purpose of telling them what they already believed they knew about us. It served to tell them that White supremacy was correct and that there was no way that Black people had any business in any station in life except in the most menial positions.
“If it is necessary every Negro in the state will be lynched; it will be done to maintain white supremacy.”-James K. Vardaman
Here is another gem…
“I am opposed to the nigger voting, it matters not what his advertised moral and mental qualifications may be. I am just as much opposed to Booker Washington, with all his Anglo-Saxon re-enforcement, voting, as I am to voting by the cocoanut-headed. chocolate-colored typical little coon, Andy Dotson, who blacks my shoes every morning. Neither one is fit to perform the supreme functions of citizenship.”-James K. Vardaman
Vardaman was a politician from the state of Mississippi, even serving as Governor for one term, or four years. He was called “The Great White Chief”, due to his beliefs of White supremacy in the South. He stated that he would “lynch every Negro in the South in order to teach them their place”. I quoted this gentleman because it is clear that the segregation and disenfranchisement of the Negro was not something that just happened. It was systematic, purposeful, and especially designed.
Why did I include his quotes? They were indicative of how most White people thought regardless of geography. It was popular to believe in the inferiority of Black people and politicians of the day actively encouraged violence and the dehumanization of black people in general. Blacks had no humanity according to these people.
You can still see these racist caricatures today in television. The Mammy, the Dandy, the Jezebel, the Buck, and the Coon. They’ve never gone away and exist today. They are not hard to find if you look closely at a few black sitcoms on television and streaming services.
It was never a secret that blackface was considered racist. It’s been part of our national conversation. Frederick Douglass sand other influential blacks have spoken out against this racist and degrading practice for almost 200 years. But Megyn Kelly, a journalist, claims not to know why blackface is considered racist in 2018 and we’re expected to believe this nonsense? She claims to her panel, almost pleading with them, saying that “it’s okay as long as you’re dressing up like a character.” She states, “Who doesn’t want to be Diana Ross?” Why certainly. We all sit here and wonder just how we can be a little more like Diana Ross and a little less like ourselves?
I don’t think so. Megyn Kelly has a long history as a “journalist” providing editorial commentary on Fox News, a news network known to promote a conservative viewpoint. She made national headlines as she reassured white children that Santa looked just like they did. There was no need for them to worry that Santa, a completely fictional character that no one has actually seen nor had a conversation with, was suddenly going to be Peruvian or perhaps a nice Indigenous American. Native American Santa would show up at the house and grant presents to them.
As if this idea would be the most horrible idea in the world to a child. We live in a world where young children realize that Amazon is Santa and that he’s simply a character that they have to color for their primary grade art project. I hardly doubt that there are millions of children upset with Santa and ask that he provide a 23 and Me saliva sample to test his true origins. I have never seen a kid leave out a DNA test along with the milk and cookies that Mom has taken a big bite out of for years.
Things have gotten completely absurd. While Megyn obsesses over the Left and their ability to somehow ruin every holiday that she enjoys, she doesn’t realize that in her hatred of PC nonsense, she’s spreading her own.
The desperation is clear in her voice and in other pundits that she once shared a network with like Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson. They use their program every night to worry White Americans that the country they love is changing because the people coming in it don’t look like they do. While people like Meagan Kelly throw up their hands in shock over the loss of their so-called culture, they don’t understand the other side of the argument. She doesn’t want to understand. She’s used to what her privilege has always afforded her; the last and final word.
She gets to have the last word on what is racist and what isn’t racist, even knowing that white people have been notoriously bad in the past in recognizing racism and/or putting a stop to it. If whites didn’t recognize it, they’re very good at telling you to have several seats and stop being an alarmist over everything. They tell you that you’re the sensitive one, if you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky, they will just turn the tables and call you the racist one. As you sit there, scratching your head and wondering since when does speaking out about racism make you a racist, they’ve moved on to another conversation. If they do recognize it, they are champions at telling you that you simply must wait for change.
It doesn’t come easy and that the people who need to change are not present in the room. They live in the back country, wearing white hoods, and swastikas on their armbands. It is not people like themselves who are racist and if you dare to insinuate it, you are the alarmist and/or racist that needs to have a seat.
Again.
Blackface is seen all over the world, and why it is still offensive no matter what country is doing it, the wound is still pretty deep here in America. Because some believe that simply having the conversation is enough, they applaud her for even having the “courage” to speak what she believes to be her truth. They applaud her while shutting out any voices of dissent, as they did in that segment. There were no people of color there that could raise their hands and straighten this parade of white privilege out. Since this conversation went unchecked, Megyn Kelly got to bang her gavel on the table, declare herself correct in all things racist, and move on to who was sleeping with who in Hollywood; her other favorite target as she charges forward to destroy this Leftist inspired PC culture that we live in.
Megyn isn’t a racist. She’s a warrior and how dare we don’t put her in that role? She’s politically incorrect. She wears the shield of all who choose to remain blissfully ignorant. A woman making millions of dollars to get on television every day to push her crusade got away with an insincere apology. There will be no consequences for Megyn this time around. She gets to snicker and sneer at minorities, whose lives are actually affected by these grotesque images. It’s not her children that have to see themselves on television being portrayed by a clueless white person with the sensitivity of a jackass. It’s not her family that gets to be mocked on television and reminded that they simply aren’t good enough. These are not the worries that enter into her head.
Megyn Kelly will continue her crusade on NBC while the executives continue to enable her madness. And every Halloween, Black people remain vigilant. We’re on the lookout to put this in the dustbin of history where it belongs. I find it interesting that some Whites tell Black people to “get over it”. This was all so long ago, so why keep bringing it up?
I ask you the same question. Blackface is so 1839. Can you please tell me why I’m having this conversation with you and explaining why this is racist in 2018? Can you please let me know why I have to educate you on an issue that has already been settled as being incredibly racist over 150 years ago? Why haven’t YOU gotten over it?
