Blackface, a racist entertainment device with roots in 19th-century America, is alive and well in mainstream Arab entertainment. On television networks across the Middle East, performers regularly darken their faces in comedy skits to wring cheap laughs from demeaning stereotypes and centuries-old prejudices.

The practice is offensive enough in the United States that when a photo of a man in blackface was discovered on the medical-school yearbook page of Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, he faced widespread demands to resign. In Italy, the state airline Alitalia was forced to pull an advertisement in July in which an actor in blackface portrayed former President Barack Obama.

In the Arab world, where racism is a deeply rooted yet rarely discussed issue, blackface comedy is facing a surge of criticism on social media, even forcing the occasional apology. But the practice remains widespread and acceptable enough to be a staple on major television networks.

The monkeys skit, shown on a private Libyan channel, may have been a particularly egregious example. But in the past year or so, comedy shows in Egypt and Kuwait have also featured blackface performances, and so has a music video by a Lebanese pop star.

Several aired during the holy month of Ramadan, the high season for new television programming in the Middle East, when families gather to watch their favorite shows after breaking their daily fast.

Some Arab entertainers defend the device as a harmless joke.

“It’s just comedy,” said the popular Egyptian comedian Shaimaa Seif after she donned blackface for a show that aired in May on MBC, the region’s biggest satellite network.

The targets of that humor — most often from Sudan, a sprawling Arabic-speaking country in Africa — say there is nothing funny about it.

“Blackface is disgusting and offensive,” said Sara Elhassan, a Sudanese writer in the United States. “It’s not just about skin color; it’s about stereotypes.”

She listed some common tropes in Arab comedy: “The black person is lazy. They don’t speak Arabic properly. If they’re Sudanese, they have a ridiculous accent. Or they’re lying on a bed, always falling asleep.”