In this class we talked about Minstrel Shows. I only have three word that would describe what I saw: unnatural, disturbing, and bad (to the point of being funny). I do not understand these shows. Or to be more clear I don’t understand the purpose of these shows. I feel that the mocking that was being done of black people, by using black face might be a type of jealousy from the white people of that time.

Here’s my reasoning. These people would get black people teach them to dance, and the songs they sing, where it would then be imitated by a white person with black face on stage. They would even imitate how a black person sounds for a laugh. So it seems that they are picking on black people right? Growing up I was taught/ teased that if a person was picking on me that must means they like me or they are jealous of me. In those terms I don’t see much of a difference. I think those Minstrel Shows where away to show what they admired about black people/slaves, to the point that as years go by it becomes rooted in history as their own sound known as country music.

I would also like to note that a lot of the instrumental part of the music sounded like it was used in cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes.

-Andrea Moye