"That's as bad as Golliwogs and black and white minstrels...."

Whilst I am also uncomfortable with the blacking up because of modern day sensitivities, I don't agree with this knee-jerk reaction fully.

a) The dolls were a deliberate caricature of people of African descent, and the costume of the dolls was part of this, along with other features.

b) The minstrels were also deliberate caricature, involving a whole catalogue of features, pseudo dialect, gross exaggeration, use of simple primitive instruments, movement etc.

To state that simple blacking of the face is equal to all of this deliberate racism is way over the top. The fact is that no matter how much historically we can relate the blacking up to minstrels, I suspect very few morris dancers are knowingly being offensive.

Was blacking up to perform Othello wrong? Is blacking up to perform Othello wrong? I can remember blacking up to play The Black Prince of Paradise as a mummer back in the 60s. Was this any different to Othello actors? I'm not trying to present a case. These are genuine questions.

One contributor said the whole idea of painting the face is wrong. My local side use the colour purple very effectively and I quite like the effect and can see nothing wrong with this.