From Gucci, Justin Trudeau And Now Bed Bath & Beyond: The Year's Blackface Controversies Continue

Topline: Bed Bath & Beyond stopped selling decorative pumpkins⁠-painted black with white mouths⁠-after receiving complaints they resembled blackface caricatures, in turn becoming the latest in a series of similar controversies dogging business, fashion and politics this year.

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• Bed Bath & Beyond pulled the pumpkins from store shelves after a Nyack, NY law firm received complaints about using them in a holiday display; both claimed any offense was unintentional.
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• Gucci came under fire in February for a sweater that critics said evoked blackface, spurring the high-fashion company to hire its first-ever global head of diversity, equity and inclusion.
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• Katy Perry pulled two shoe designs, featuring human faces on black backgrounds, from stores in February after customers complained they invoked blackface.
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• Evidence surfaced of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau darkening his skin at least three times, erupting into a scandal that dogged him in an election year, though he managed to secure a second term.
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• Photos surfaced in February of Virginia governor Ralph Northam and his attorney general, Mark Herring, in separate blackface incidents⁠-and Northam tried to claim he wasn't in one photo, after he had already admitted it was him.
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• Other blackface controversies this year included: Alabama's governor, Florida's secretary of state, a group of students at Colorado State University and a candidate for sheriff in South Carolina, among others.

Key background: Blackface originated with 19th century minstrel shows, in which white performers would darken their skin to mimic enslaved black people. The portrayals were considered demeaning, reported CNN, and contributed to very damaging stereotypes of black people in popular culture. Notable white actors, including Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, also donned blackface in performances, according to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC.) "Minstrelsy, comedic performances of "blackness" by whites in exaggerated costumes and make-up, cannot be separated fully from the racial derision and stereotyping at its core," wrote the NMAAHC.