The Medium is the Message

This blog post is for the lecture on October 1, 2018.

The idea that the Minstrels, where white people would paint themselves black and perform as black people, were a way to widen the gap between the two races holds certain validity. The shows, while being highly insulting, seemed to be a way to broaden the gap between white and black populations, but also a way to lessen the gap between the “white population” which did not include other “white” people like Italians. I’m not sure if they are exactly the reason that the “white population” was able to integrate to include all European nationalities.

However, I can say that it popularized the music form that was used in Minstrels. The music was so popular, that by the time Minstrels were no longer popular, the music form turned into country music. This music it STILL POPULAR TODAY. The last viral video of this form of music was the yodeling boy that was singing in Walmart, and he was so popular that he went to perform at Coachella alongside people like Lady Gaga and Rihanna. It was shocking for me to find out that the form of country music that I adore was from such racist background. Then, if attacking country music wasn’t enough, the state song of Texas was also racist! I was raised and spent most of my educational life in Texas, so I can say that their education system is more of a way to hide what they don’t want their population to know. So, I did not know that the state song had such a background, and that was probably intentional. Texas, and America as a whole, have a lot of hoops to jump through before we can officially say that there isn’t a race problem. That being said, I do think the music industry has made many advancements in the field of racism. It is still slightly present in the way that certain races are “typical” for certain music styles. As mentioned earlier, country music was created “by and for” white people, and rap seems to be dominated by black people now. Plus, each race has to express the typical country or rap artist regardless of their background or even race. In the case of Eminem in rap, who appears white, he mentions how difficult it is to be taken seriously as a white man in rap. And now that I think about it, all of the black country artists I know are more recent (as in the last 20 years). At least I can be comforted by the fact that, even if it started as racist entertainment, the music industry seems to have broadened their horizons to be slightly more inclusive.

Side note: The Minstrel posters were highly unnerving for two reasons: the facial expressions were unnaturally stretched or emphasized and the emotions of the person were nearly impossible to read. These two things would unnerve any normal human being since humans are innately able to determine people’s emotions based on their facial expressions, but when the expressions are not only difficult to look at, but difficult to analyze, it’s very unnerving.