Star Wars Actor Billy Dee Williams Defends Actors Wearing Blackface: Why Not?

Billy Dee Williams saw through the release of his memoir - What Have We Here?: Portraits of a Life, in February of this year. The actor, in a previous interview with People, had reflected on how his life has many interesting anecdotes to share, which is what the purpose of the memoir is. Williams now finds himself back in the news, courtesy of his controversial take on the topic of Blackface.

Billy Dee Williams is not offended by Blackface

For the unversed, Blackface refers to practice of intentionally and evidently darkening one's skin tone, so as to mimic the same of a Black person of colour - this term is largely used in context of fair-skinned actors who are made up to look like they belong to the Black community. The practice has been widely labelled as racist and demeaning. Billy Dee William's recent appearance on Bill Maher's podcast, however, saw the actor paint the practice in an entirely different light. He said, "Why not? You should do it. If you’re an actor, you should do anything you want to do".

Williams response, which managed to catch host Maher off guard, was followed up with an immediate rationalisation of his take. He said, "The point is that you don’t go through life feeling like, 'I’m a victim'. I refuse to go through life saying to the world, ‘I’m pissed off.’ I’m not gonna be pissed off 24 hours a day". Maher also pitched into the one-of-a-kind take by reflecting on how Williams has built his career during a time which saw much discrimination take place, with regards to who would play what kind of character. He said, "(You) actually lived in a period where you couldn’t play the parts you should’ve played".

Billy Dee Williams shares his take on gender identity

Back in 2019, during an interview with Esquire, Williams had raised speculation about his gender identity and sexuality after he described himself as "feminine as well as masculine". In a later interview with The Undefeated, the actor shed light on what he truly meant by his statement. 

He said, "But what I was talking about was about men getting in touch with their softer side of themselves. There’s a phrase that was coined by Carl G. Jung, who was a psychiatrist, who was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, and they had a splitting of the ways because they had different ideas about the…what do you call it? Consciousness. Unconscious. It’s a collective consciousness".