Blackface is something that we all agree is racist and derogatory today (even though some people still do it and get flamed on social media for it). It’s one of those parts of American History that reminds us that maybe America wasn’t always that ‘great’, or maybe it was, but only for wealthy white men.

It makes sense that minstrel shows had a deep impact on American music. It’s just something no one ever thinks about, or wants to think about. Minstrel shows are weird. Why were they popular? What was the attraction? I will never understand, but I have a greater historical perspective than the people had back then.

An interesting question he asked was ‘how did the Irish, Germans, English people and others all become white?”. They hated each other in Europe, but in America, they were just white. They were, in their view, better than black people.

White people still kind of steal black culture and make it their own. That’s something that never ended.

I honestly think that this class was really just a lot of hot air. O’Malley sometimes goes on long rants and stretches ideas really far, to the point where they almost don’t connect with the ideas he’s trying to get across. I kind of get what he was trying to say about black people doing ‘black face’ but I just don’t think it’s true. It doesn’t seem possible to me for someone to dress up as their own culture.