In a teaser for Wednesday night's episode of Full Frontal host Samantha Bee and correspondent Ashley Nicole Black treated viewers to a lesson on the history of blackface that NBC's Megyn Kelly apparently missed.
After playing a clip from earlier in the week in which the host struggles to understand why people consider blackface racist, Bee quipped: "Damn, I guess when Megyn said 'Santa was white,' what she meant was 'unless it's Halloween and he wants to honor Diana Ross.'"
Laughing at Kelly's assertion that she doesn't know how blackface "got racist," the host walked over to Black, who she appeared to want to pivot to because of her race before the correspondent pointed at that she did her "master's thesis on blackface minstrelsy."
"Blackface minstrelsy was one of the earliest American theatrical forms," Black said. "Those characters stuck around through vaudeville and radio and then became the basis of some of the first sitcoms."
"Our nation's entire comedy aesthetic was built on by stereotypes made up by white people and the idea that it was funny to blow up black people," she continued. Behind her played a clip of Mickey Mouse with a bomb exploding in his face resulting in him being covered in soot and, somehow, growing overexaggerated lips and hair to resemble stereotypes of black people.
"But forget it," Black said. "I wouldn't want centuries of harm to ruin your Halloween, Becky."
Watch below:
