Let's talk about this kid who dressed up as Martin Luther King Jr. for a school project for a moment.
To me, the turning point in this story comes at the 1:00 minute mark when Michelle King-Roca recounts her son's plan to "do [his] face in black" in order to be the best Martin Luther King Jr. any white second grader with a ponytail could ever hope to be. This seems to have been the perfect moment for Sean's mother to explain that there was a time in America's history when white performers would paint their faces black and perform extremely racist caricatures of black people for the amusement of all non-minorities. These were called "minstrel shows" and they were super offensive and to this very day hurtful to many African-Americans. She could've further explained that while darkening one's face to portray a black individual would totally make sense to a second grader, it is actually considered insensitive and highly inappropriate.
But, no, Sean's parents black-faced him up, glued a mustache to his face, and sent him off to school, and then acted like they'd been the victims of some kind of weird injustice because people were offended by something that is super fucking offensive!
Look, Sean's a cute kid. I'm glad he likes black people. One way he could show his respect for black people is by doing a school project on Martin Luther King Jr. Another way: don't come to school in blackface!
It's not his fault though. His parents dropped the ball on this one. I don't care how many white people Channel 13 News interviewed. School project or not, painting your kid's face black and sending him off to the ol' schoolhouse is not only insensitive and dumb, but insane. How is this helping anybody? What, the kids in Sean's class weren't going to understand his presentation without Sean's face being painted black? "You're Martin Luther who now?"
White people are never going to get it, OK? We're never going to fully, 100-percent understand how it feels when an African-American person sees some white dickhead with his face painted black or wearing an afro wig or something. So, STFU, Sean King's parents. The rest of you, don't paint your kid's face black for any reason, unless he or she is going as a chimney sweep for Halloween. Then, just keep the black on the cheeks and the forehead area, all right?
