Origins/ portrayals of Blackface and its use in politics

The article I have been focusing on this week is titled "'Jim Crow", "Zip Coon": The Northern Origins of Negro Minstrelsy". This article begins by looking at the first noted use of Blackface, which is believed to be in Ancient Greece.  It takes this into perceptive, and looks at the origins of the Blackface seen in the period from 1860-1920, where most of the imitation of Blacks were based off the viewpoint of the performer copying what he believed he was seeing from the slaves, taking their lives and either making them seem negative  or positive depending on the interpretation the actor was wanting to show.

The "stage Negroes" as they were called, were the White men who were dressed in Blackface, and this article exams the fact that with the people on stage representing Blacks, the way the Whites interacted with the stage Blacks on and off the show portrayed the "attitudes toward "real" Negroes"Often, these performers were always portrayed as very patriotic, with a satirical side, and used to express opposition  for eqlual rights for the Blacks. The article uses the example of performers imitating a drill for military, but doing it poorly and slowly, as if they were supposed to have a hard time understanding the concept. The common reaction was simple, and is stated in the article as "This emphasis upon incompetent martial exercises reveals that a Negro in military service continued to seem incongruous and amusing to White Americans"

However, the article is also quick to point out that any African who actually was on the stage, and there were a few, were suppressed and left mostly to comedy. Africans who participated in tragedies were considered to be "not full-blooded Negroes", and that the only portrayal of Blacks that was considered acceptable was "the combination of blackness, rags, grotesqueness, song, dance and dialect".