Uncle Tom is the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The character was seen in the Victorian era as a ground-breaking literary attack against the dehumanization of slaves. Tom is a deeply religious Christian preacher to his fellow slaves who uses nonresistance, but who is willingly flogged to death rather than violate the plantation's code of silence by informing against the route being used by two women who have just escaped from slavery. However, the character also came to be criticized for allegedly being inexplicably kind to white slaveowners, especially based on his portrayal in pro-compassion dramatizations. This led to the use of Uncle Tom – sometimes shortened to just a Tom – as a derogatory epithet for an exceedingly subservient person or house negro, particularly one accepting and uncritical of his or her own lower-class status.
Blackface is the practice of performers using burnt cork or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a global perspective that includes European culture and Western colonialism. Scholars with this wider view may date the practice of blackface to as early as Medieval Europe's mystery plays when bitumen and coal were used to darken the skin of white performers portraying demons, devils, and damned souls. Still others date the practice to English Renaissance theatre, in works such as William Shakespeare's Othello.
Thomas Dartmouth Rice was an American performer and playwright who performed in blackface and used African American vernacular speech, song and dance to become one of the most popular minstrel show entertainers of his time. He is considered the "father of American minstrelsy". His act drew on aspects of African American culture and popularized them with a national, and later international, audience.
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of comically portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows stereotyped blacks as dimwitted, lazy, buffoonish, cowardly, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent.
Aunt Jemima was an American breakfast brand for pancake mix, table syrup, and other breakfast food products. The original version of the pancake mix was developed in 1888–1889 by the Pearl Milling Company and was advertised as the first "ready-mix" cooking product.
Sambo is a derogatory label for a person of African descent in the Spanish language. Historically, it is a name in American English derived from a Spanish term for a person of African and Native American ancestry. After the Civil War, during and after the Jim Crow era the term was used in conversation, print advertising and household items as a pejorative descriptor for black people. The term is now considered offensive in American and British English.
Marlon Troy Riggs was a Black gay filmmaker, educator, poet, and activist. He produced, wrote, and directed several documentary films, including Ethnic Notions, Tongues Untied, Color Adjustment, and Black Is...Black Ain't. His films examine past and present representations of race and sexuality in the United States. The Marlon Riggs Collection is open to the public at Stanford University Libraries.
Tongues Untied is a 1989 American video essay experimental documentary film directed by Marlon T. Riggs, and featuring Riggs, Essex Hemphill, Brian Freeman. and more. The film seeks, in its author's words to, "...shatter the nation's brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference."
Rastus is a pejorative term traditionally associated with African Americans in the United States. It is considered offensive.
Stereotypes of African Americans are misleading beliefs about the culture of people with partial or total ancestry from any black racial groups of Africa whose ancestors resided in the United States since before 1865, largely connected to the racism and the discrimination to which African Americans are subjected. These beliefs date back to the slavery of black people during the colonial era and they have evolved within American society.
Color Adjustment is a 1992 documentary film that traces 40 years of race relations and the representation of African Americans through the lens of prime-time television entertainment, scrutinizing television's racial myths. Narrated by Ruby Dee, it is a sequel to Riggs’s Ethnic Notions, this time examining racial stereotypes in the broadcast age.
Black Is... Black Ain't is a 1995 award-winning feature-length documentary by Marlon Riggs. It explores the multiplicity of expressions of African American identity.
There are stereotypes of various groups of people which live within the United States and contribute to its culture. Worldwide, a disproportionately high number of people know about these stereotypes, due to the transmission of American culture and values via the exportation of American-made films and television shows.
Anthem is a nine-minute music video released in 1991. The film was produced and directed by Marlon T. Riggs. The film displays mixes images of mainstream African-American pride, such as traditional African tribal dances, alongside images representing gay pride, such as ACT UP's "Silence=Death". The film uses powerful imagery and poetry to explore, celebrate and revolutionize black gay culture.
The representation of African Americans in speech, writing, still or moving pictures has been a major concern in mainstream American culture and a component of media bias in the United States.
The watermelon stereotype is an anti-Black racist trope originating in the Southern United States. It first arose as a backlash against African American emancipation and economic self-sufficiency in the late 1860s.
Patricia A. Turner is an American folklorist who documents and analyzes the stories that define the African American experience. A professor in World Arts and Cultures/Dance and African American Studies at UCLA, Turner is the author of five books on topics ranging from rumors, legends and conspiracy theories to African American quilters and images of African Americans in popular culture. She is the 2021 recipient of the Linda Dégh Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Jolly Darkie Target Game was a game developed and manufactured by the McLoughlin Brothers which was released in 1890. It was produced until at least 1915. Other companies produced similar games, such as Alabama Coon by J. W. Spear & Sons.
The Jim Crow persona is a theater character developed by entertainer Thomas D. Rice (1808–1860) and popularized through his minstrel shows. The character is a stereotypical depiction of African-Americans and of their culture. Rice based the character on a folk trickster named Jim Crow that had long been popular among enslaved black people. Rice also adapted and popularized a traditional slave song called "Jump Jim Crow" (1828).
A video essay is an essay presented in the format of a video recording or short film rather than a conventional piece of writing; the form often overlaps with other forms of video entertainment on online platforms such as YouTube. A video essay allows an author to directly quote from film, video games, music, or other digital mediums, which is impossible with traditional writing. While many video essays are intended for entertainment, they can also have an academic or political purpose. This type of content is often described as educational entertainment.
