I grew up in a segregated South.  In my childhood, there were a few times I saw a white man wearing blackface, usually at some kind of talent show, where he’d sing a song like “Old Black Joe” or “Ole Man River”. On those occasions, there was no purpose in the blackface except as part of the singer’s costume identifying a black (we said “colored”) folk song.  He’d also be wearing worn-out field clothes, perhaps a beat-up straw hat. The performance evoked a kind of nostalgia. In the 1940s, adults might have had grandparents who remembered well the horrible times of Reconstruction when just about everybody, black and white, was share-cropping, and struggling, too often without success, to feed their families.

But I also remember seeing blackface as comedy: the entertainer wore outlandish clothes, garishly colored, intended, no doubt, to suggest lack of taste and restraint. Mannerisms of speech and behavior were exaggerated, and whatever the skit was, it was always intended to show limited intellectual acumen of the blackface character. The purpose, of course, was to make everyone laugh, but what did the comedic value feed on? The skit would have been just as funny without the blackface, so what was its purpose? I think it was that, although they were no better off than the colored family down the road, they could be persuaded by the comedy that they were superior, even if their circumstances were not.

Except perhaps for Canadian prime ministers, blackface is universally objectionable now. But this whole memory of blackface was awakened by the opening ceremony of the Olympics, an event met by rebukes from Christians and even non-Christian world leaders, and sadly, by the deafening silence of the pope.( Even my protestant neighbors were disappointed in that.) The ceremony was not just anti-Catholic; it was anti-Christ.

But, apart from its mockery of Christ, it brought to mind the whole world of drag queens, transvestites, female impersonators, cross-dressers, whatever the term is nowadays. I have noted that they never dress up as an ordinary woman, but as painted and plumed showgirls, prostitutes, or perhaps someone they want to ridicule even more—like nuns, for example. The dress, like blackface, is outlandish and extreme as are the mannerisms. And I think the motivation is the same as well. They ridicule women, but I have to wonder about the audience:  I imagine a black person in the audience of one of those blackface comedies. Do I think they’d find it amusing? Just so, I don’t find female impersonators amusing. I want to ask, Why do you despise us? Don’t tell me you love women. That’s a lie. That blackface comic might have said he loved black people too. Do you think a black person would believe that? One impersonator said in an interview that he dressed as a female prostitute because it was “who” he was underneath. A blackface comic might have said the same, especially those whose performance portrayed black people as hypersexual.

I see no difference between blackface comedy and female impersonation. Nor do I see any difference between those who are entertained by either.