Stereotypes As a hidden Critisism

Black-face minstrelsy, clearly shows the relationship between a Minstrel show and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn's character Jim, which plays the role of "Minstrel Darky" in the King and Duke's  presentation. It shows this relationship as a stereotype, when while reading essays about Minstrel shows, the author started thinking about Jim as this character.

Minstrel shows where born in the 1830's when working class white men started mocking the Black slave's way to dance and sing. It became famous when our author Mark Twain said how he remember ed the "old time nigger show" (Twain). With this statement it also became Respectable and it started to be used as a way of entertainment for land owners. At the beginning white people would put make up on and act as Black people, it then started being actual Afro-American people until they where not permitted to be on stage after the civil war. This didn't stop them because they would act as white's playing as slaves. 

I think the author of this essay is wrong, because first of all as already said, minstrel shows where a way to mock the slave's way of life, singing and dancing forms.  Furthermore, It was a way to entertain and humiliate the Afro-American people in the United States after the civil war. It even included black people for some time which acted on this shows that mocked their own people. If it was a stereotype then minstrel shows would be an ignorant type of entertainment in which only white people would participate. On the contrary, minstrel shows are scenes in which they mock the way in which they see the slave's sing and dance, and during a certain time period even black people where part of this mocking. 

Twain used the minstrel shows to show the reader the way Afro-American traditions where seen at those times. An example of this, is when the Duke and the King used the character "Minstrel Darky" as part of their show. Slavery was not only the heavy work on the plantations but also the own entertainment form of the land owners.

In conclusion we can see how Twain uses minstrel shows to show how Black people where mocked by society. Secondly, it is a mistake to show it as a stereotype, because it is a way that even the black people make fun of slave's traditions. Finally we can see that although minstrel shows where respectable, they where a manifestation of how landowners mistreated and humiliated black people.

Gabriela