Kelly Walters, established African-American designer and researcher, visited Oswego State Oct. 16 to speak on the topic of digital blackface and its prevalence in contemporary use.

The main topic of discussion was on how GIFs are now widely used as an overall accepted form of blackface and how using clips from films and TV of overemphasized gestures to characterize African-Americans adds to the overall emotion that they portray.

Walters began research on this topic because she felt that, as a designer, it is important to understand how socio-political frameworks and shifting technology influence the sounds, symbols and style of black people, according to her event biography on the Oswego State website.

“It’s just been this ongoing quest to look more critically at, and collecting a lot of the artifacts,” Walters said. “I try to figure out what those forms will take, or what it needs be shaped into, so that it becomes a larger conversation and so that we can push into looking deeply at looking back at our history but looking at our present at the same time.”

Walters began her speaker session by providing a historical context to the use of blackface dating back to Billy Van in 1900, a white male who performed blackface for minstrel shows.

George Walker was an African-American minstrel performer who refused to use blackface but would act in the lazy and carefree manner in which African-Americans were generally portrayed. His partner, Bert Williams, who was also an African-American male, would use blackface in his performances in 1921 to create a caricature of his race.

Walters used Walker and Williams to illustrate the two different relationships to the blackface tradition, one in which it was used as a liberating act and another that viewed it as derogatory and distasteful.

“There were white blackface minstrels who were embodying the characteristics of the buffoonery of a black individual,” Walters said. “And through blackface being co-opted by black individuals in that tradition, they were able to push back into that, which is why we have blackface black individuals.”

What Walters was most concerned with was how the historical context has influenced contemporary examples of blackface, as well as how some are more accepted over others. Walters used the example of Julianne Hough, who dressed up as the character “Crazy Eyes” from “Orange is the New Black” by saturating her face with bronzer to darken her skin tone.

During the open question portion of the event, Oswego State student Natasia Burgess made the comment that memes are just the personification of racial stereotypes.

“These memes, they are still characters and still stereotypes that people are obsessed with,” Burgess said. “I believe that is being satirically representative of this obsession that weaves its way from blackface to these memes.”

Walters used examples from sitcoms and reality TV shows like “The Real Housewives” and excerpts from news stories like the “Ain’t nobody got time for that” woman, whose clips became viral.

Walters also mentioned how memes were being used as substitutions for words. Rather than verbally expressing one’s emotions, it is becoming more common for a GIF displaying that emotion in an exaggerating manner to be used in its place.

Walters continually referred to this research as “ongoing” and that, as a designer, this historical context will always be prevalent and never truly ends. Walters also helped to inspire other students to think more about the context of their work and what social factors go into it.

Walters had another general artist talk that evening at 6 p.m. to talk about her design in more broad terms.

“I would say the presentation inspired me to pursue design that is meaningful and personal to me,” said Oswego State senior Rachel Futterman. “The artist talk in the evening especially reminded me that, even though our education is focused on creating work that follows conventional rules of design and is easily marketable, it is just as important to focus on projects that represent who we are as people and the artistic journey that we go on in relationship to our personal identities.”

Photos by William Rogers | The Oswegonian