So the role of blackness in blackface is complex and simply cannot be chalked up solely as racism for it begs the question—what is racism? Do these ancient associations with the color black in themselves color how whites of the enlightened age regarded blackness? Even terms as “enlightened age” and opposed to the “Dark Ages” give us a clue. Whites also equated black with sickness, dirt and excrement. Can we simply assume these associations had nothing to do with the racism of the White world towards the colored races and Blacks in particular? So there were simply a lot of factors at play of which the hapless Africans of the Diaspora were often on the wrong end. The racism is itself a complex issue.
As we see from the old soap ads, the equation of black with low standing and dirt is global. In the Indian caste system, the shudra caste were said to come from the feet of Indra. While the shudra do comprise many types of people, they are often the darkest people and the implication is that they are dark because they came from the dust on Indra’s feet. In Brazil, the lowest social class or caste are called preto. Preto means black even though many white Brazilians are preto and many black Brazilians are not. Saint Nicholas was often the patron saint of the underclass such as sailors, prostitutes, prisoners, pawnbrokers and thieves harking back his Black Pete/Knecht Ruprecht origins. The anarchist flag is also black because it stands in opposition to all other flags of nation:
But sometimes the association of black is elevated. The name Krishna also means black and Christos was the name for Krishna in the Greek-speaking world. In fact, many Indians refer to Krishna as “Krista.”
Although whitened in a lot of the art we see, Krishna is properly black.
The Black Christ of Mexico City.
Kali or Kalika is known by some cults as the Black Mother of all life. Her name means “black” but also “time” and “death.” She represents change which is envisioned as taking what it wants by force (after all, none of us want to grow old and feeble but fight change in order to retain our youth—we lose but we fight it). Notice her tongue hangs out like Krampus—strange ancient associations.