Customer Reviews

Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture

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AMAZING! Great writing, humorous and frank. Finally, a book about American culture, black culture, (and now, since we have discovered we all came "out of Africa") world culture, that's really worth the time it takes to read a book! Couldn't put it down. Takes you right up through to Rap, Rock, Pop, Gangsta'Lit, and Broadway. Hard to believe that John Strausbaugh's a white guy. You might want to check out his article and video in the New York Times Online Arts section (Strausbaugh is the host of the video podcast series on New York "Weekend Explorer"). Look for "On the Trail of Brooklyn's Underground Railroad." It pertains to Black Like You. Strausbaugh gives an expert tour about Brooklyn's abolitionists and shows a section of Brooklyn that was just (September, 2007) dubbed "Abolitionist's Place" supposedly acknowledging the historic importance of the underground railroad. It is obviously a hypocritical move on the part of New York's politicians, since, as Strausbaugh points out, all the "abolishonist" houses are about to be razed to put up a parking lot. But, back to the book: it covers the abolitionists, entertainment and every reality about race and culture that has been hush hush until Strausbaugh had the balls to speak up!

The first thing to say about "Black Like You" is that it's fearless. The second is, John Strausbaugh is a pretty funny guy.

There are so many themes in this serious book - no reason serious has to be solemn - that's it's hard to know where to begin, but a main theme is that blackface entertainment can be understood as youth rebellion, as much as or even more than some fundamentally racist trope.

Although "blacking up" can be traced way back, it erupted into popular culture on the Bowery in the 1830s, and the patrons were mainly young (often Irish) marginal white boys, who were under economic pressure from the proletarianization of American labor in the 19th century (a process explored solemnly and in great depth by Sean Wilentz in "Chants Democratic." Strausbaugh does not seem to have read Wilentz, but his conclusions are similar.). The same phenomenon, Strausbaugh says, erupted again and again, youth thumbing its nose against stodgy authoritarianism and dull order, as with the blues, rock and roll and hiphop.

Another theme is that America is a mutt culture,. It is not possible, in Strausbaugh's view, to make a bright line between racist blackface and the other kind. There were black minstrel performers, and in fact at some points they were predominant, and black blackface minstrel shows outlasted the white blackface.

Clearly, this is a cultural phenomenon that is not easy to pin down. Some blackfacing was viciously racist, some not so much, and maybe some not at all. Strausbaugh has no patience for either the antiblack racists nor the moralizing racists of the multiculti school.

He forthrightly calls the so-called diversity crusaders of the present day racists, and no one can doubt it. Although he does not put it quite this way, it is a question for philosophers: Who, in a country that is 70% white and 70% Protestant, is more "diverse," an African-American Baptist or an Italian-American Catholic?

Some of the book gets pretty far away from popular culture. Strausbaugh spends many pages on crappy movies, which may have been popular in the sense that they were not "high," but were not popular in the sense that many people were aware they existed. Their bare existence may tell us much about American attitudes - Strausbaugh would say they do, and I mostly agree with him - but there's a big difference between cult films and "Amos & Andy."

For example, Strausbaugh starts out with a report on a modern blackface comic, Chuck Knipp, whose character is Shirley Q. Liquor, but who also has a white persona, Betty Butterfield. Of the two, the white character is a vicious portrayal, a pillpopping Southern dimwit; while Shirley Q. Liquor is self-proclaimed "ignunt" but really a woman with few of the opportunities of Betty Butterfield doing the best she can in an unforgiving world. Knipp is not obviously a racist, but he is definitely misogynist.

In any case, not many Americans know Chuck Knipp, who is rather a cult figure with white homosexual men, and (I venture) not even many of them. It is hard to say to what extent Knipp represents 21st American popular culture.

Anyhow, Strausbaugh is right to think that "blacking up" reflects "a tremendous emotional, sexual and political confusion," and "Black Like You" does about as good a job of sorting it out as anyone ever has.

It's about time somebody had the guts to tackle a "taboo" subject like this one! Strausbaugh's careful reseach, keen perceptions and biting sense of humor make this book an enthralling and mind-expanding read.

This is a highly readable book with some interesting and thought-provoking ideas. I can't vouch for the accuracy of everything presented here, but for the most part the data seems fairly plausible and convincing. For me, the first 3/4 of the book were far more interesting than the final chapters which analyze black influences in modern culture. Toward the end of the book I was anxious for it to end so I could move on to something else. I didn't buy some of the premises here, especially regarding "ebonics" and influence of Black speech on American English language. And though not too heavy handed, I did sense some sort of gay agenda wisping through some of the content of the book. Not making any accusations, but not sure what the author was trying to say about that and I didn't care to dwell on it.
Not a book that many people will love, but worth checking out if you are interested in the topics presented in the pages of BLACK LIKE YOU.

After reading John Strausbaugh's new book, Black Like You, I am stunned. As a scholar of Ohio history, I protest the cavalier libel of Dan Emmett, and Ben and Lew Snowden. The author has NO PROOF of his contentions. Where is the evidence that Dan Emmett was taught to play the fiddle by an African-American? (pg. 102) Strausbaugh doesn't even attempt to footnote that. Where is the proof that Ben and Lew Snowden "claimed to have taught [Dan Emmett] the song [Dixie]?" (pg. 104)

It is incredible to me that the source cited for this is a REVIEW of Howard and Judith Sacks' book, Way Up North in Dixie--and the review is misrepresented.

The second source cited is John Leland, in Hip: the History, who wrote that, in answer to Emmett's claim of authorship, the Snowdens "disputed this credit." (Leland, pg. 29) THEY DID NOT. It is telling that Leland--who also writes for the New York Times, also cites a review of the Sacks' book. (pg. 359, n29)

Mr. Strausbaugh's error is most egregious. How in the world did he deduce from Norm Cohen's review that "Ben and Lew Snowden, who'd been Emmett's neighbors back in Ohio and who claimed to have taught him the song." (104)

This material ABOUT the Snowdens did not surface until both were conveniently dead. IT IS HEARSAY, told by others ABOUT the Snowdens, never by those brothers. I shudder to think what other errors are incorporated into the book.