Blackface Has Never Been A Good Idea And These High School Girls Gave Us A Reminder Why

Sullivan High School in Sullivan, MO had their annual powderpuff game earlier this month and nothing out of the ordinary happened. Just a dozen or so young ladies getting together one evening to play football and OH MY GOODNESS NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?

Here’s Sullivan High Principal Jennifer Schmidt describing her thoughts as she saw the girls out on the field in blackface.

“And then I thought, ‘Oh, they don’t mean anything by it. Just let it go. No one thinks anything of it.’ I didn’t think anyone did. Evidently, someone did.”

You don’t say. You mean someone was offended? By blackface? Please do go on.

Schmidt adds that it’s been common practice for the senior girls’ team to wear face paint during the powder-puff football tournament, essentially as a parody of the eye black football players normally wear to decrease glare from the sun and lights. The face paint also serves “to intimidate the underclassmen.”

According to Schmidt, in previous years the girls have wore combinations of the schools’ colors — black and gold. But when the senior girls arrived prior to the November 5 game, they discovered everyone had brought the same color face paint — black.

Well I’m satisfied.

“Hey Becky, what are you wearing tonight for powderpuff?”

“Well we had t-shirts made, so I’ll probably just wear that.”

“No, I mean on your face. What color face paint?”

“Well black, obviously. It’s one half of our school colors and also it’s not like I’ve ever heard anything about blackface proliferating racist stereotypes as a form of cultural appropriation.”

“Great. See you there. By the way, my t-shirt is too small so I may just wear my Redskins jersey.”

[Riverfront Times]

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