The
minstrel show, or
minstrelsy, was a US form of entertainment developed in the 19th century of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in
blackfaceor, especially after the
U.S. Civil War, by
black people.
Minstrel shows lampooned black people as dim-witted,[1] lazy,[1]buffoonish,[1][2] superstitious, happy-go-lucky,[1] and musical. The minstrel show began with brief
burlesques and comic
entr'actes in the early 1830s and emerged as a full-fledged form in the next decade. By 1848, blackface minstrel shows were the national artform, translating formal art such as opera into popular terms for a general audience.
[3]
Blackface minstrelsy was the first distinctly US theatrical form. In the 1830s and 1840s, it was at the core of the rise of a US music industry, and for several decades it provided the lens through which the white US saw the black US.
Minstrel show - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yall gotta learn how embedded racism is into every single aspect of american society.