Blackface, Snapchat and Fall 2016
Written and reported by Shauna Golden, Sam Hooker, Nicole Kessler, Katherine Koretski and Lindsay Pytel
Since September, students on at least 11 campuses across the United States turned to Snapchat to share images or videos of themselves or others wearing blackface.
Most of the students included a caption with racially insensitive text. Students in five of the posts used text or video to mock the Black Lives Matter movement. All of the individuals in the photos and videos were caucasian and seemed to be wearing black paint or a dark facial mask (one wore black tape). All but one of the visuals originated on Snapchat and later moved to other social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Each incident sparked outrage among students and faculty on college campuses.
“My initial reaction is that enough is enough,” said Simone Fluker, a student at Xavier University where one of the blackface posts emerged. “I was fed up with all the racial ignorance that goes around on campus. I had a mixture of emotions — I was angry, scared and disappointed.”
Click on the images below to learn more about each post and the college or university’s response:
Liam Kingsley, a student at SUNY Potsdam, said he felt sad for the people of color who were hurt by a Snapchat video of two young women in blackface, and angry that the students did not receive any punishment.
“Their intent is sort of beside the point,” Kingsley said referring to the women in the post. “The important thing is the consequences of their actions, and the way that it reminds the people of color at our school that this institution and this society was not made for them to succeed in.”
The president of SUNY Potsdam, Kristin Esterberg, concluded that the students involved in the video would not be punished. She defended them under the First Amendment right to free speech.
Other universities responded similarly. When students from the University of North Dakota posted a picture in blackface with the caption, “Black Lives Matter,” the president of the university, Mark Kennedy, said in a statement that punishment was “unachievable under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”
He added: “If we value freedom of speech, we must acknowledge that some may find the expressions of others unwelcome, painful, or even, offensive. We can, however, speak out and condemn such expressions, and we can work to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment.”
Other colleges took a punitive route. For example, Paige Shoemaker, a former student at Kansas State University, was expelled after posting a photo of herself and another individual in blackface with the caption, “Feels good to finally be a n**ga”. Shoemaker initially accepted a request for an interview, but did not respond to further requests.
And at Abilene Christian University, students involved in a video of a woman in blackface wearing bright red plastic lips, also left the school, according to a university statement.
Regardless of the punishment for the students in the posts, the messages they shared have real consequences for students of color.
“Although it may seem innocent to white people, blackface is a sinister reminder to many black students of an often violent, usually degrading, and all-too-recent past,” said Alana Conner of Stanford University’s SPARQ group, a ‘do-tank’ in the department of psychology.
“Harkening back to that time is all the more a slap in the face to black students who have overcome racism and hardship to take their place in universities,” said Conner in an email statement. “It sends the message to blacks that they don’t belong, that they are not valued, and, indeed that their white classmates will mock them publicly if given the slightest pretense.”
Students on several of the affected campuses said they were not only angry, but disillusioned by the blackface posts.
“When I think of blackface I think of 1920s and there’s been multiple instances of blackface in just this year,” said Tom Conley-Wilson, a Quinnipiac University sophomore. “ And it just doesn’t make any sense to me. I thought we were passed it. I guess we’re not.”
Blackface originated in the early 19th century, when white actors would portray black men and women by covering their faces with black makeup and mocking common stereotypes, according to historian Ken Padgett, founder of black-face.com. Black entertainers were not allowed to perform, and instead white actors applied black makeup of “burnt cork” or “black grease paint.” Similar instances happened in vaudeville, Broadway and even in movies and radio.
Eric Lott, the author of Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, has written that the stereotypes from the 19th-century minstrel shows have continued throughout modern pop culture, and often define white people’s sense of who black people are.
White U.S. college students aren’t the only ones wearing blackface. This fall, Nancy Shurtz, a law professor at the University of Oregon was placed on leave after using blackface as part of a Halloween costume. Students at a French university were expelled for wearing costumes involving blackface. Many celebrities have also worn blackface in public, including Paula Deen’s son, Bobby Deen, as well as Shane Dawson, Julianne Hough and Tom Hanks.
And in the Netherlands and Belgium, the use of blackface is still a part of Dutch Christmas celebrations.
However, the creation of blackface selfies and videos mixed with text or racially insensitive commentary — and the amplification of these messages on social media — has been unique to college and university students.
“Blackface seems to be the way some white kids deal with racial difference,” said the author Eric Lott in an exchange on Twitter. “They’re curious but don’t know how to deal with their own curiosity.”
Tony Brown, a sociologist at Rice University who specializes in race and racism, says he believes that racial stereotypes are likely when interracial exposure is low.
“Many white students have little or no contact with non-white students outside of high school or university settings, and even in those settings, whites have the privilege of constructing their lives such that they can be surrounded by mostly other whites, at all times,” Brown said.
Messages from the media can play a role too, according to Brown, as they reinforce the differences among racial groups and the “high value of whiteness.”
Brown says he believes, however, that the blackface posts may hold educational value.
“Universities should do what they were designed to do: promote and allow critical and controversial thinking,” said Brown. “Allowing students to push the boundaries of what is acceptable while forcing them to be accountable for their actions seems reasonable.”
“I think universities should demonstrate how students’ current insensitivities are linked to Jim Crow, sharecropping and slavery,” said Brown.
Simone Fluker, the student at Xavier University, says she thinks that racial ignorance must be addressed at home, and that parents should teach children about acceptance at a young age.
“Even if it’s just having a one-on-one conversation with your child, or with a group of students. Racism is something that needs to be taught in places of higher learning. Maybe it’s a course required for undergrads. Just something to teach people and prepare them for life and learn about people,” said Fluker.
