In America, "black face" is considered racist. Black Face originated from the days of Minstrel and Vaudeville when white performers painted their face black as a way of imitating black people. The theatrical make up goes back to 1830 when performer Thomas "Daddy" Rice used charcoal paste or burnt cork to paint his face. A few years later in 1834, George Dixon used Black Face and created a character called "Zip Coon", which is the origin of the derogatory term "coon".
Singer Al Jolson used Black Face in his 1927 film "The Jazz Singer" and "Mammy" was one of his legendary performances.
Today, Black Face is considered racist. So when Die Antwoord released their single "Fatty Boom Boom"', monsters everywhere labelled the band racist because in the video Yo-Landi Visser is painted black. Some in Fatty Boom Boom's camp also alluded to Die Antwoord as racists, most notably Tara Savelo, otherwise known as SheepGa.
The common denominator is that most, if not all, of the people calling them racist were Americans who simply did not understand that their history is not necessarily the history of the world. Fatty Boom Boom and her camp have a little history of being ignorant to other cultures. Such as the series of racial-stereotypical tweets that iMadonna vomited into cyberspace when she travelled through Asia. Or when she played in Dublin and said she was happy to be back in the UK. If she were educated, she would know that only Northern Ireland is part of the UK. Sigh.
Die Antwoord is not racist. In their video "The Making of Fatty Boom Boom", Yo-Landi and Ninja give us a little history into South African culture. This should silence the ignorant naysayers, including SheepGa. Well, not likely SheepGa. SheepGa probably bathes in iMadonna's piss so she'll defend her to the death.
