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(CNN) - It doesn't matter what skin tone you try to represent. Either black, brown, yellow or red skin. Any skin tone you try to use other than yours is racist.
Some of the recent controversies have included public figures, such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. Trudeau apologized after a photo of him with a brown-painted face emerged during a 2001 school event. And from Northam a photo of a person with a black face was found on his personal page in his medical school yearbook.
Here is why these incidents and others like these are so offensive.
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- 'Blackface': this is why painting your face black is offensive
They have a long and painful history
The first minstrel shows depicted blacks as lazy, ignorant, cowardly or hypersexual.
Negative representations of non-white people date from the mid-19th century. White actors performing in troubadour shows would darken their skin with enamel and cork to look stereotypically "black."
The shows were intended to be fun for white audiences, but they were hurtful and degrading for African Americans because they reinforced the notions of white superiority.
"By distorting the characteristics and culture of black Americans, including their appearance, language, dance, behavior and character, white Americans were able to code whiteness through class and geopolitical lines as their antithesis," says the National Museum Africa's Smithsonian American history and culture.
The characters were so widespread that even some black artists wore black faces, historians say, since it was the only way they could work. The white audience didn't want to see black actors do anything but look silly on stage.
- Justin Trudeau apologizes for putting on his brown face during a school event in 2001
Perpetuate dehumanizing stereotypes
Portraying as someone of a different race is not just a representation of a person, but rather using someone's skin tone as a costume.
Hollywood, for example, has faced a violent reaction by the representations of characters from different racial and cultural backgrounds.
In an episode of the “How I Met Your Mother” series of January 2014, three of his actors, all white, were represented as Asians. They had a yellow face and wore stereotyped Asian attire. Some viewers were outraged and tagged the show on Twitter with the hashtag #HowIMetYourRacism.
One of the co-creators, Carter Bays, acknowledged that some people did not find the episode funny and apologized on behalf of the show.
"We tried to make a program that was universal, that anyone can see and enjoy," Bays tweeted. "We fell short of that this week and we felt very bad."
They show the biggest problem of identity policy
An advertising piece in Singapore featured an actor dressed in characters of various races.
Despite the amount of controversy, there are still those who say it is due to ignorance. And not only seen in Western countries.
A Chinese actor who allegedly darkened his skin to portray characters of different races in a government announcement of electronic payments caused a brownface controversy in July 2019 in Singapore, a country known for its multiethnic population.
The agency hired to create the ad and the talent management group of the city's state broadcaster apologized and said the announcement was intended to show that the electronic payment was for everyone.
"For that reason, Dennis Chew, known for his ability to portray multiple characters in a single production in a cheerful way, was selected as the face of the campaign," Havas Worldwide and The Celebrity Agency said in a joint statement to CNN. "It appears as characters from different areas of life in Singapore, bringing home the idea that everyone can pay electronically."
The cases of black face, brown face, red face and yellow face have involved people from different social states, including celebrities, university students and elected officials.
- Harmeet Kaur and Alex Stambaugh of CNN contributed to this report.
Blackface Racism
