Blackface is representative of a safety valve for an explosive society, because the minstrel show encouraged the audience to work out their social frustrations by vicariously attacking blacks on the stage, instead of attacking their social betters on the streets.
Blackface is reflective not only of racial denigration; it is also representative of the fact that white people were attracted to and ultimately captivated by certain aspects of black culture and made it part of their own popular culture.
Blackface is representative of the establishment of a dichotomy between black and white that was directly related to good and evil
Blackface is an example of the fact that all historical representations of black characters, regardless of the conventions used, established a dichotomy between human and nonhuman. While she correctly argues that blackface established a dichotomy between black and white that was directly related to good and evil, I wish to expand this dichotomy to argue that representations of black characters, regardless of the conventions used, established a dichotomy between human and nonhuman.