Race row at Cornish festival after pub landlord and his friend...

[DirtyRichHooker 352]

Race row at Cornish festival after pub landlord and his friend 'black up' as tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams

 

 

Source

 

 

 

Two friends have been branded racist after 'blacking up' as tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams for a carnival parade.

Kevin Stevens, 50, a local pub landlord, and his friend Jason Luke, 31, a builder, covered themselves in dark fake tan, brown face paint and afro wigs to join a tennis-themed carnival float.
They put on women's sports gear and were photographed posing enthusiastically with tennis rackets at the procession in Truro last weekend. Mr Stevens also sported a pair of fake breasts for the event.

Since the event they have been lambasted by spectators and carnival organisers, who called their costumes 'inappropriate', 'out-of-date and offensive'.
The pair have denied that they are racist and apologised for any offence - though one of the two said he 'doesn't get the racial side of it' and characterised the criticism as 'political correctness gone mad.'

 

I firstly would like to say, I was there that night and there were black people around watching them and honestly just laughed along with it. It wasn't meant in a racist way. And also, I think it's wrong to tarnish all Cornish people with the same name just because two guys decided to do something risky like this.

[aaronyoji 2,064]

"oh its okay, i saw select black people laughing, therefore other black people/people in general are overreacting if they get offended" 

[DirtyRichHooker 352]

"oh its okay, i saw select black people laughing, therefore other black people/people in general are overreacting if they get offended" 

b---h that's not what I said... some people may have been offended, I'm stating what I saw okay gurl, so sit the f*ck down. And I was actually very shocked when I saw these two, I turned to my friend and said "wait for the backlash"

[Janet 1,417]

the comments on that article... good lord

 

'how dare you be offended!'

[aaronyoji 2,064]

b---h that's not what I said... some people may have been offended, I'm stating what I saw okay gurl, so sit the f*ck down. And I was actually very shocked when I saw these two, I turned to my friend and said "wait for the backlash"

okay im not attacking you or your observatory character, but thats a very common excuse for those kinds of things, its the equivalent of saying "its not racist, i have black friends ^_^" 

[DirtyRichHooker 352]

okay im not attacking you or your observatory character, but thats a very common excuse for those kinds of things, its the equivalent of saying "its not racist, i have black friends ^_^" 

 

jk. I know exactly what you mean, I'm just going off of how it was intended and what I witnessed. Yes it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, they must've thought it through and thought it would go down well but clearly not. 

[gagarunner 0]

Honestly, people get overly offended/look to feel victimized. If you do it in a respectful way and having fun with it (*while not being demeaning*) and you want to dress up as black celebrity or character, and you are not black, then i don't see anything wrong with making yourself look darker to look like who you are trying to look like. It's not like they had gorilla masks on holding a KFC bucket and a tennis racket saying that they are Serena and venus williams--unless I see pics that show them mocking black people, there is nothing wrong with this.

Edit:::: didn't see the link. Saw pics, very questionable lol.

[DeleteMyAccount 11,881]

It just looks tacky and I can understand why people say it's racist.  Racist doesn't always mean a hatred towards another race you know.  If a someone who wasn't Korean or Asian dressed as a bowl of rice and pretended to be Asian, I'd be pissed.  I've seen people make squinty eyes to "look" Asian as well.  It's stupid.  Racist?  I guess it's debatable for some, but you can't say it's not annoyingly dumb.