Judge — January 21, 1888 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a racist caricature cartoon depicting Black performers in a circus or theatrical setting. The page shows four scenes of exaggerated physical comedy, with characters drawn in the dehumanizing style typical of early 20th-century American humor magazines. The dialogue uses heavily stereotyped dialect ("you wants to lam 'me," "dis yer club"). The final caption "Dat's what dey calls a cue!" appears to be a pun on the circus/performance setting. The cartoons mock Black theatrical performance through crude visual caricature and linguistic mockery. This represents the deeply racist entertainment conventions of the era, when such depictions were considered acceptable satire in mainstream publications. Modern readers should understand this reflects the prejudices of its time, not legitimate commentary.