This week’s chapter on Stephen Foster mentions the blackface minstrel show tradi

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This week’s chapter on Stephen Foster mentions the blackface minstrel show tradition, but it also underestimates how widespread and influential it was. Minstrelsy is a very complex and fraught subject, but a productive way of understanding it is to think of it essentially as musical propaganda. One main purpose was to promote the pro-Confederate “Lost Cause” version of history, which minimized the violence of slavery and its role in the Civil War, as seen in songs like “Dixie.” Minstrelsy also popularized dehumanizing and demeaning stereotypes about Black Americans, justifying their continued subjugation under Jim Crow laws after the end of Reconstruction. But at the same time, minstrelsy was an important seed of American music and theatre and its legacy stretches to the present day, sometimes hiding in the most wholesome of places. As just one example, in this article the author tries to come to grips with the fact that the Ice Cream Truck song (“Turkey in the Straw”) had a former life as a minstrel show tune with a deeply offensive title: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/05/11/310708342/recall-that-ice-cream-truck-song-we-have-unpleasant-news-for-you (Links to an external site.)As these things usually go, the article was controversial enough that the author felt the need to post a follow-up: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/05/21/314246332/talking-about-race-and-ice-cream-leaves-a-sour-taste-for-some (Links to an external site.)Beyond “Turkey in the Straw”, blackface minstrel tunes from the 19th century remain a part of our national musical culture, including standard children’s songs like “Camptown Races,” “Oh! Susanna,” and “Jimmy Crack Corn.” Blackface routines also made regular appearances in Hollywood films and cartoons by Disney and Warner Bros. well into the 20th century, along with all manner of other ethnic stereotypes.But perhaps our question now is what we should do with pieces of music, art, film, or literature that celebrate or make use of racist caricatures, particularly if they’re as omnipresent as these minstrel tunes. It’s a thorny set of issues, as seen in the decades worth of debates over assigning Huckleberry Finn as reading in school. Your job here is to state a position in the matter, considering the following questions. Can music like this escape its history? Even if it can’t, what do we gain from learning about it?Your response should be no fewer than 250 words.