Blackface, Call Out Culture, and the Evolution of Norms

(This article was first published in The American Interest on February 11, 2019.)

Blackface in the 1980s might reflect the cavalier, ill-considered racism that was pretty much in the water at the time; today it would undoubtedly reflect a belligerent assertion of white supremacy. The same behavior does not always correspond to the same motives or presuppositions.

Richard Thompson Ford is the George E. Osborne Professor at Stanford Law School and author of several books, including Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality and The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse. Follow him on Twitter.