Minstrelsy: Facilitating African Americans Into Popular Culture

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From my perception, I believe that minstrelsy was an unseemly method for assimilating African Americans into society when racial prejudice was a common practice and the environment became extremely hostile towards blacks who had just been freed from slavery as they were desperately trying to find an occupation that could be potentially fulfilling. Yet at the same time, it was vitally important in integrating and facilitating African Americans into popular culture at time when discrimination and bigotry of blacks was rampant. Especially since these minstrelsy shows portrayed blacks in a non-threating ways so that it could ease the tension of whites who were uneasy about them being part of society. Not to mention it allowed talented musicians,
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    white performers that took part in these shows would rub burnt cork, or greasepaint, on their faces in order to give the impression and pigmentation of an African American. In return these white performs would dress in outlandish costumes while presenting to the audiences that ridiculed and negatively characterized the culture of African Americans in an extremely demeaning way. As a result, whites were taking advantage of black anti-sentiment and stereotypes in order to procure substantial monetary

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