The Minstrel Meanderings of Mitt Romney

In 1993, I was quite confused when I read that actor Ted Danson had put on blackface at a Friar’s Club meeting with his then girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg. How rude, I thought, to call back an old tradition that hearkens back to the early nineteenth century and insults a large group of people while being marginally amusing to very few. I thought that surely by the year 2012 we would be far past any kind of minstrel show. Well here we are and not only are we treated to a minstrel show, but one being put on by the Republican candidate for President of the United States, Mitt Romney.

It seems that former governor Romney was speaking to a largely Latino audience and appealing to them as to why he made for a better presidential candidate than current President Barack Obama. While he was making his appeal, a few viewers noticed that his skin tone — much like the content of his speech — was artificial, with the Latino audience in mind.

Look at any speech he gave in the months preceding this one — or any media appearance, for that matter. Does he have a light brown complexion in any of those? He does not. He only does when he is speaking to the Univision audience because he hopes that they will see him and subconsciously identify with his fake tone, which looks as though it were applied by the same make up artists who made the Oompa Loompas look as orange as they did.

Reading the above cited article, you can see a clutching of straws – it just so happened that the makeup artist was a little heavy handed right before this particular speech? We know that there is no such a thing as coincidence and that it was no accident that former governor Romney was made to look like a Latino man before he spoke to a Latino audience.

He went from saying privately that he wasn’t interested in helping the 47% of the country that don’t pay taxes — including active servicemen and the retired and the extremely impoverished — to publicly stating that he wanted to help everyone. He went from wearing one mask to another. What is the reality of Mr. Romney’s plans for the United States if he hopes to be elected? Seems like it depends on the audience he is addressing.