A troubling 34% of Americans are a-OK with wearing blackface as part of a Halloween costume, according to a recently conducted poll from the Pew Research Center.
On the heels of Virginia governor Ralph Northam’s recently surfaced medical school yearbook photos that allegedly show him wearing blackface and his public admission of wearing blackface at least once, more than one-third of Americans said that it was “always acceptable” (15%) or sometimes acceptable (19%) to use a substance to darken one’s skin in order to pantomime, parody, or ridicule someone of African decent.
Virginia’s attorney-general Mark Herring also admitted last week to having previously worn blackface. Both Northam and Herring have said they have no plans to resign from their posts.
The poll found that the divide between political parties on the issue is stark. About 75% of Republicans said that it was always or sometimes acceptable compared to 21% of Democrats.
Overall, the poll found, 39% of white people said blackface was fine. Some 18% of African-Americans and 28% of Latino agreed. However, 53% of African-Americans questioned said it was never acceptable to don blackface. A similar divide on the issue exists between those aged 18 to 29 and those over 30.
In January, NBC and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly reached a settlement to hasten Kelly’s departure from the network that was spurred by her on-air comments regarding her opinion that blackface was acceptable for Halloween costumes.
The poll found similar results for people thinking it was acceptable to wear the traditional dress of another culture, an act referred to as cultural appropriation.
