A little over a week ago, I posted a statement to social media regarding a video skit I’d done over 30 years ago. In this skit I appear as a number of characters, and one of them is in blackface. You can view the video skit here. You can read my statement here.
I encourage a dialogue and a discussion about my past mistakes. I think examining our personal and collective histories is a worthwhile thing to do. If that’s going to happen, it may as well start with me.
I’d like to think we can all learn and change, and that we are thankfully not stuck making the same mistakes over and over. We have the potential to grow. This is a reason to be cheerful — not my past behavior, silly, but the fact that we can hold a mirror up to that behavior, that we can evolve as individuals.
The special project we’re launching soon touches on some of these themes. It contains stories of people talking, meeting, discussing and changing. I’d like to think I’m one of these stories, too.
— DB
