Backside Albany and Early Blackface Minstrelsy by William Mahar

The focus of this article is that it looks at dialect songs, looking at the language within them, and examining the historical accuracy that is presented within the language. He also looks at the stereotyping within minstrelsy, and the shift that he believes occurred toward those stereotypes.

One of the central focuses of the article is the “change from occasional 'characteristic songs' … to the racially stereotyped 'characters' found in post-1843 minstrel songs(19). He believes that since there is so much focus on the negativity of the stereotypes, that there has been little appreciation of the deeper meaning of the use of the stereotypes. From here, he lists two characteristics of stereotyping. 1) the “justly criticized derogatory image of black Americans presented by a character who speaks or acts in ways that blacks resent” (19), and 2) the stereotyping that he believes was not essentially negative but “part of the normal process of classifying individuals of different nations, regions, or races to understand how those other peoples fit into the larger and more familiar patterns of human behavior” (19).

This is important to recognize the difference, since one was demeaning and against Africans to the point they would not be involved, and the other relates to other secondary sources who believe that there were moments of the Blackface performers celebrating African culture, and Mahar explains that since the Africans themselves had little to no political power and social distinction, that they were outsiders to the white society that was taking place, the second welcomed them and allowed them to have a particular and useful role in society, one where they could openly criticize the “society with relative impunity” (20), and express their political stance, such as seen in the song “Babylon is Fallen”, without worry, since the general public believed it to be acting and non-threatening.