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Japan: Keeping Blackface Minstrelry Alive into the 21st Century

Hey look! It’s the Gospellers, a popular Japanese R&B group! I had never really heard of them until this morning, when I saw that their new single is #2 on the charts. The above photo is from one of their previous albums. Here is the cover of their new album:

Gospellers: now with more soul.

Notice anything different about them? Apparently blackface minstrels, which went out of style in post-segregationist America, are currently cool in Japan! In a TV interview they commented that they were glad to be back in blackface again, joking about being black Japanese.

Rock on, Japanese colored folk.

They are produced by Sony records. Check out there site here(contains audio samples).

Mr. Jolson would be proud.

The Gospellers don’t hate black people. They probably feel like they are honoring black people by putting on a blackface act and singing R&B in deep voices. It is extremely unlikely that they know about the fact that blackface minstrelry is considered racist in America. When it comes to issues of racial sensitivity, most Japanese are clueless.

14 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - April 25, 2006 at 12:54 am

Categories: Celebrity News, Discrimination, General Japan, Japanese TV Tags:

http://beppuhatto.blogspot.com Joel

Yup! Japanese are clueless about racism for sure. They even reissued Little Black Sambo last year and I think it sold out…

aurora

oh, no. you are quite mistaken.

the japanese are by no means clueless about racism. they understand it completely.

just go to any large city in japan (if you are a person of color) and you will see that the japanese are quite knowledgeable and skilled on the finer aspects of racism.

i have been to japan 3-4 times in the past 4 years. they know exactly what they are doing.
Ashcan

Blackface is only racist when white Americans do it, there is no history in Japan of the Japanese putting on BF for the sole purpose of demonizing Blacks, however in America such a history does exist.

The Japanese do it to pay HOMAGE, whites do it to demonize. May Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor rot in hell eternally, and may racist Jew Jamie Kennedy join them soon.

http://beppuhatto.blogspot.com Joel

Yup! Japanese are clueless about racism for sure. They even reissued Little Black Sambo last year and I think it sold out…

aurora

oh, no. you are quite mistaken.

the japanese are by no means clueless about racism. they understand it completely.

just go to any large city in japan (if you are a person of color) and you will see that the japanese are quite knowledgeable and skilled on the finer aspects of racism.

i have been to japan 3-4 times in the past 4 years. they know exactly what they are doing.
Ashcan

Blackface is only racist when white Americans do it, there is no history in Japan of the Japanese putting on BF for the sole purpose of demonizing Blacks, however in America such a history does exist.

The Japanese do it to pay HOMAGE, whites do it to demonize. May Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor rot in hell eternally, and may racist Jew Jamie Kennedy join them soon.

D-San

They’re just cosplaying black singers!
D-San

They’re just cosplaying black singers!
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Uncle Joe

Yes, and if the President does it, it’s NOT illegal.

What a foolish, foolish statement you made.

You make allowances for people of other nations but not for Americans of a different era. Those who used blackface in the early part of the 20th century were not employing it in manner of traditional blackface minstrelsy which so many find offensive. It was, for Jolson, Cantor, and the prominent black monologuist, Bert Williams, more of a “mask,” in the tradition of the commedia dell’Arte.

Jolson was advised as a young vaudevillian to try blackface (which he had not used to that point) as a mask. He was told it would “free him up.” And it did. The instant he put it on he became a more polished funnier and spontaneous performer. There is magic in the mask.

Furthermore, Jolson used blackface more to “take on” the negro personae which he admired, which is evidenced by his many acts of magniminity and generous to black performers and friends. He was the ONLY white man allowed into Leroy’s (a “black-only” nightclub in Harlem).

Think about what that might mean.

As for Japanese, who knows?
Uncle Joe

Yes, and if the President does it, it’s NOT illegal.

What a foolish, foolish statement you made.

You make allowances for people of other nations but not for Americans of a different era. Those who used blackface in the early part of the 20th century were not employing it in manner of traditional blackface minstrelsy which so many find offensive. It was, for Jolson, Cantor, and the prominent black monologuist, Bert Williams, more of a “mask,” in the tradition of the commedia dell’Arte.

Jolson was advised as a young vaudevillian to try blackface (which he had not used to that point) as a mask. He was told it would “free him up.” And it did. The instant he put it on he became a more polished funnier and spontaneous performer. There is magic in the mask.

Furthermore, Jolson used blackface more to “take on” the negro personae which he admired, which is evidenced by his many acts of magniminity and generous to black performers and friends. He was the ONLY white man allowed into Leroy’s (a “black-only” nightclub in Harlem).

Think about what that might mean.

As for Japanese, who knows?

Japan: Keeping Blackface Minstrelry Alive into the 21st Century

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