Blackface Quotes

Barack Obama is an educated fool. He is viewed as the white man in blackface in the community.

When I first saw a White Dutch person dressed up as Black Pete, I was both sickened and shocked. It's hard to stand next to someone who views your skin color and hair as a costume. As a filmmaker, whenever I get that feeling, I want to explore what motivates people to engage in such offensive behavior and enlighten folks about its origins.

When I first started comedy, me and my friends were kids. I claim - although I know that it's a spurious and probably untrue claim - that we were the first generation of kids to act black.

I extract what I consider the best material from different sources. But often the material I perform comes from a very strange location in history, which are minstrel shows.

Just reading that - just reading that a person can be black and still perform in blackface, making fun of black people for a living, and at the same time be a genius and be an incredible entertainer and at the same time be extremely conflicted and feel like - just feel terrible for doing that, essentially, which is what Bert Williams felt, from what I gather, from what I read - all of that just made - was so incredible to me.

It's barely OK for me to be dressed up as a black guy. But part of me kind of enjoys provoking people.

I thought Black Friday was when everyone puts on blackface and steals children from Wal-Mart.

No one actually cares about blackface.

Wouldn't it be a helluva joke if all this were really burnt cork and you people were being tolerant for nuthin'?

I think it is very ironic that most people think that the banjo is a southern white instrument. It came from Africa and even for the first years that white people played banjo they would put on blackface.

It's only in acting where I've heard in auditions, 'Can you black it up a little bit? Can you make her a little bit more urban?' And it's just like, 'What?' I don't even know the word for that.

Like, Australians definitely don't walk around dressed up in blackface going, 'Ha-ha.'

My dream part would be to play Mitt Romney's sarcastic black maid. We could call it 'Mammy & Me.'

I certainly don't stay out of the sun, and I also don't, as some of my critics have said, put on blackface as a performance.

I have a huge issue with blackface.

The Left wields blackface as a political cudgel, feigning offense and making excuses according to political convenience. Conservatives need not embrace the same cynical and vindictive tactics. We would prefer to live in a society marked by grace and civility rather than one marked by petty opportunism and cancel culture.

Al Jolson was one of the greatest entertainers who ever lived.

Speak out, educate, do not be intimidated by the apologists, and do not let extreme racism be mainstreamed. Hopefully there will come a time when we don't need to tell our kids that Halloween is no excuse for hate, and that blackface has no place in a civilized society.

Actually, the only thing that I can honestly say I really regret now is the blackface thing. I did not understand.

I've always gotten a positive reaction to doing African-American characters.

[Zwarte Piet] is unfortunate, and just like the early American blackface films, if it offends a segment of the population, it shouldn't be shown again.

I've seen a lot of Black content creators calling for white folks to stop using the voices of Black folks to make TikToks because it's like digital blackface. That's valid.

Even in the days when they did Othello, you didn't necessarily have to be black to play Othello. You wore the makeup.

I played Othello at RADA - blacked up. I didn't know it was going to be offensive now!

All people of goodwill object to racial hatred. But no one cares that Billy Crystal darkened his skin to portray Sammy Davis Jr.