Should You Wear Blackface? A Guide

I was yesterday years old when I realized how much white people love blackface.

I had always known it was a popular Caucasian Halloween activity because every year, a high school teacher or a bank executive pops up dressed as Kanye West or Esther Rolle at the local all-whites fall festival. It’s funny that these people never drape themselves in faux negro when black people are around...or maybe they do and they just haven’t made it out alive to tell the story. (I heard that’s what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. He went to the union All Hallows Eve shindig dressed as Shaft and...OK, maybe I’ve said too much.)

Anyway, according to a new poll from Pew Research, about two-thirds of white Americans believe blackface is acceptable on certain occasions while most black people feel blackface is “never acceptable.” And schools across the country are furiously rifling through old yearbooks only to find that most white fraternities in the ’80s required at least one person to paint their face with shoe polish before they could tap the keg.

Whenever someone is busted for wearing blackface, their excuse is always: “Well, I had no idea there was anything wrong with using a group of people’s skin color as a prop for my Saturday night shenanigans! Was I not supposed to do that?”

So, to help Megyn Kelly and other white people across America, The Root has put together this handy-dandy flowchart to help you determine whether or not you should wear blackface. Please print it out, share with friends, and include it as an insert in the ad booklet at the next global meeting of white people.

You’re welcome.