We Three Black And White Kings

Who remembers "The Black And White Minstrel Show"? I do and I cringe at the memory. For those who don't remember it, I should explain that it involved white male singers "blacking up". The BBC finally axed the show in the late seventies, protests against it having gone on for some ten years.

To be fair to the show, it was one of the last manifestations of a tradition that had existed in variety for many years. Al Jolson was the most famous to wear a black face, but Jolson was anything but racist. Despite Jolson having championed the causes of black entertainers, the very notion of blacking-up and its offensiveness in the current-day was what was played on and captured hilariously in the series "Benidorm". When "Mal Jolson" was performing, the expression of jaw-dropped horror on the face of the character Gavin was priceless.

All this brings me to Three Kings. Historical accuracy, in the sense that the story of the Three Kings is accurate at all, demands that one of the Kings is black. In this respect, the portrayal of the Kings at ceremonies across Mallorca yesterday can claim legitimacy, but the fact that Balthasar gets blacked up is something one finds hard to believe would be tolerated in Britain.

Sensitivity to race issues does have a cultural divide. The Spanish media demonstrates it, for example. Whereas British newspapers would not, unless it were of fundamental relevance, refer to someone's colour, the Spanish press does.

The race thing where Spain is concerned has, for most in Britain and also for Brits who live in Spain, cropped up in the context of sport, most obviously with the abuse aimed at black English footballers. There was also the incident when spectators at the Spanish Grand Prix blacked up in aiming abuse at Lewis Hamilton.

Such incidents have led to assumptions as to racism in Spain, and such incidents haven't exactly gone away. Last year the Brazilian footballer Dani Alves complained that he was regularly abused and called a monkey when playing for Barcelona. It didn't help in downplaying the existence of racism when the US State Department, no less, had to remove a phrase which read "racist prejudices could lead to the arrest of Afro-Americans who travel to Spain" from its website when Michelle Obama visited in 2010.

Sport, meanwhile, has also thrown up the Luis Suárez affair. With all the cultural and linguistic elements that this has given rise to, plus the sheer fanaticism with football, it is not surprising that it has inspired a good deal of comment in Spain. But going by, as an example, comments posted to the website of the sports newspaper "Marca", there is a fair degree of support for the English FA and a fair understanding that different rules apply in England and Britain.

One tires of the "political correctness gone mad" cliché that doubtless would be levelled at any suggestions that the Mallorcans and Spaniards might not indulge in blacking up, but lack of correctness there is and its absence barely seems to register, certainly when it comes to Three Kings. The historical accuracy line would be taken in defence, but if accuracy is needed, then why is it necessary for someone to black up? There are, after all, plenty of coloured people around, and in some towns Balthasar is indeed black.

Perhaps black people would be unconcerned and would go along with a further defence, that the Three Kings are just innocent tradition mainly aimed at children. But maybe the tradition should be considered in an educational context and whether, therefore, blacking up is still appropriate. A Spanish website ("Diario de Mallorca") had an online chat with the Kings; it was a child who asked why Balthasar had to be coloured black. And in furtherance of the tradition, sleeping children can have their cheeks blackened, as though they had been kissed by Balthasar.

It is innocent, but then "The Black And White Minstrel Show" was once considered to be just innocent entertainment. It is an exaggeration to imply that Three Kings is in some way racist. It isn't because it isn't knowingly treated or considered as such. It is also well wide of the mark to suggest that Mallorcans or the Spanish are any more racist than anyone else (I've no reason to believe this, put it that way). The problem, though, as with the Hamilton business having been a "joke", is that what may be deemed culturally innocent can create a wrong impression.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.