A Louisiana police department is the latest entity to get caught in a scandal involving blackface, adding to a disturbingly growing list of offenders from the late 20th century.
The Baton Rouge Police Department issued an apology after the revelation of a photo showing two of its officers wearing blackface as part of a 1993 undercover operation in which they were impersonating drug dealers in a predominantly black neighborhood.
According to the news website The Rouge Collection, which first published the photo, media outlets in Louisiana’s capital city were emailed images of a BRPD yearbook with the photo of the two officers in blackface over the caption, “Soul brothers.’’ One of the policemen is making what appear to be gang signs.
“Blackface photographs are inappropriate and offensive. They were inappropriate then and are inappropriate today,’’ Police Chief Murphy Paul said in a statement. He explained the white officers in question were subject to a different code of conduct at the time.
“Today, we would not allow our officers to wear blackface in an official capacity under any circumstances. We have policies in place to prevent our officers from engaging in this type of behavior both on and off-duty.’’
The mounting instances of persons in position of authority shown to have links to the use of blackface have roiled politics in at least two states and sent some institutions scrambling to scrutinize their past for signs of such a practice.