A whole hell a lot of people felt comfortable in going out in blackface in the 80's.

[boston bean]

In Virginia especially.

[LisaM]

1. Yeah, it's weird, I never saw this in my whole life growing up in Michigan.

I live in Washington state now, and I don't think I've ever seen it here either, not to say that it's never happened here, but certainly not at this kind of casual and/or institutional level.

I'm very surprised.

[fleur-de-lisa]

3. I grew up in Mississippi and went to college there and never saw it.

I have lived in Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Louisiana and never saw anyone wandering around in blackface.

I think these assholes knew it was racist as hell and didn't want anybody other than their racist buddies to see them. They knew it was wrong.

[moriah]

6. The only person I ever knew who felt it necessary to add cosmetics...

... to a costume portraying a person not of their race was my future brother-in-law, Halloween of 1993. He was going as a Jamaican Bobsledder, Cool Runnings had just come out.

Now, I highly doubt he used shoe polish -- I never actually SAW the costume (my mother did under a burned out porchlight as her first introduction to him when he was picking my sister up for a date, yikes) but still, he had the poor taste to decide that the outfit, the bobsled, and the wig weren't enough to make the costume. Mom was not exactly impressed. But while it's not an excuse, more a reason... he was born and raised in Sheridan, AR. Aka, with white privileged and immersed in so much racism that given the things he'd seen and heard, he didn't think about it.

This wasn't college either, no, he was older than that -- it was for a costume contest at the bar he and my sister worked at. He was known to go all-out for costumes -- dressed up in a sheet one year too, but that sheet was wrapped around him like a cloth diaper. Glad it was a warm October.

As far as I know, when controversy came out about someone doing the same thing my BIL did, at least one member of the original team Cool Runnings was based on said he wasn't offended even with the addition of dark makeup to the costume. And no, it's not entirely in the same class as dressing up as a minstrel posing next to a guy in a KKK conehead hat -- wtf was the theme of THAT party? -- but I was still aware enough at 13 to think, when I heard about it, "What the fuck? Carrying things a bit too far, wasn't he?" when I heard Mom describe his attempt to win the contest.

He shoulda stuck with the diaper idea, he won that year.

[LuvNewcastle]

14. I've been in Mississippi my whole life and I

never saw a white person dressed up as a black person. I'm sure it's happened, but I've never seen it, and I grew up in the 70s and 80s. That sort of thing happened at pep rallies and frat parties mostly, I think. Spectator sports and drunken bashes brink out the worst in people.

[Funtatlaguy]

2. A whole lot of officeholders and journalists scouring yearbooks.

[EffieBlack]

4. Well, they didn't really go "out" in it

They did it in private, with a few select friends who shared their belief that this was a hoot and kept their secret because they knew that most people outside of their little privileged circles wouldn't think it was so funny.

Notice how they never did this in public or around any people of color? Why is that?

BECAUSE THEY KNEW IT WAS WRONG!

[boston bean]

5. They weren't exactly holed up in their houses either.

[EffieBlack]

9. Actually, it looks like they were. The pictures appear to be in a home or dorm/frat house setting

They certainly weren't doing any of this out in public.

[boston bean]

13. They posted them in year books.

[EffieBlack]

15. Yearbooks that apparently no one but they saw.

Very different than showing up at the football game or local bar dressed like that.

[boston bean]

17. They obviously weren't trying to hide it. Goodness we are on the same side. It is disgusting.

And I find it astonishing it was so accepted in so many circles. Public enough if you ask me.

[EffieBlack]

19. There's hiding and there's hiding

This is the kind of "hiding in plain sight" that privileged people enjoy. They behave badly in certain circles, knowing everyone else in the circle will protect them and also know that they would never behave that way outside of the very cloistered atmosphere.

The first time I went to a country club for a private party with my (all-white except for me) law firm, I was astounded at how badly many of the other attorneys behaved. They got sloppy drunk, pawed several of the women, and generally acted like obnoxious asses - it was like a 1980s version of Mad Men. A couple of them got so drunk, the staff arranged for them to sleep it off at the club rather than go home.

When I told my father about it, he just smiled and said, "Why do you think they have country clubs?" And then he told me about his experience working as a caddy and waiter at a country club during his youth. He was excited to have an opportunity to be around the upper echelon of the legal, business and medical communities - the prestigious law partners, top executives of local industries, etc. And then he was crushed when he heard the way they spoke on the golf course, the dining room and steam rooms when they thought no one could hear them - they just thought he was invisible so they spoke freely around him as if he didn't exist. He said it took him years to trust white people again after he heard the way these people spoke in private.

But you can bet, they never talked like that in their medical offices, law firms or corporate boardrooms.

Like the guys who posed for pictures in blackface, they were hiding in plain sight with full confidence that their compatriots would have their backs and not reveal their secrets.

[apnu]

16. I heard of this at SIU in the 90s

News of what was going on at frat parties flew around campus and everybody would hear stories. One frat, in particular, was known for themed costume parties and stories got around campus that some people showed up in black face. I remember in particular a cave man party were a few guys (and gals) showed up like caveman-witch doctor mashups. Everybody I knew thought it was gross and the African American fraternities and sororities were particularly, justifiably, appalled and made noise about it. Not much happened but some tense days on the quad, school paper ignored it.

Then Rodney King Verdict happened and all hell broke loose. AA frats dressed in black combat pants, turtleneck, berets, and sunglasses and spent an evening marching up and down the Strip where all the frat bars were in a military parade. People were fucking terrified, and the point was made loud and clear. After that, no stories about blackface at parties.

Though I'm sure plenty of white frat boys took pictures of themselves in blackface at these parties just as we are seeing in VA. It wasn't unusual to go to any house party (frat or otherwise, in Carbondale there were a few party houses that were not frats, just party hounds) to see someone with a camera taking snaps of the scene.

[LexVegas]

7. I am from Virginia and never saw it. nt

[Blue_Tires]

8. You'd best make sure your house is ultra-clean before throwing shade on the Commonwealth

and that's all I'll say.

[boston bean]

18. That's all I've heard about thus far. But I am sure it happened in MA too.

[TheBlackAdder]

10. I wonder why there are so many yearbooks missing from Classmates.com. Could this be partly it?

[Mr. Quackers]

11. sure

[apnu]

12. Saw it on occasion in the early 90s in college in Southern Illinois

A few frat houses would occasionally have parties where a few frat boys (and dates) went in black face.

It was rare, but it happened, and pretty much everybody on campus thought it was gross. Then Rodney King happened and we never saw that again while I was there.

[Whiskeytide]

20. I saw it three times in the 80s in Alabama...

... it was at a college party each time. Some present thought it was funny. Some thought it was stupid. Some thought it was inappropriate. But it was always at a private party with no people of color present. They didn’t go to a bar or to the mall. They knew what they were doing was inappropriate outside their general circle of acquaintances.

It’s really kind of silly to be defending this.

[ismnotwasm]

21. I don't understand why it's so hard to accept

The sheer prevalence of racism. Actually I do understand it. It makes me very sad.