Last week, America's latest victim of foot-in-mouth disease —
Megyn Kelly — found herself without a job after she told the world that she thought that blackface was OK. The backlash was so fierce that not even a week passed from the airing of the episode before she was sent packing.
While some took the moment to re-examine their thoughts on the taboo practice,
others chose to send a big "F.U." to the black community and dip themselves headfirst into a vat of racism — donning blackface just in time for Halloween. Take South Carolina nincompoop & bank executive
Bryan Lenertz who thought it would be funny for him and his wife to dress up as Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. While his wife's costume hit the mark, his costume, expectedly, went overboard.
Along with a MAGA hat, gold chain and goatee he wore brown paint to make his costume a truly sublime example of tone deafness. "OMG, I love this..."
"Y'all two killed it bro"
and "Awesome" were just some of the comments his friends left on his Facebook.
The rest of the internet didn't think it was so funny. When made aware of their executive's disgusting outfit Anderson Brothers — an 85-year-old bank with $740 million in assets — was (un)surprisingly mum. Simply saying that the incident will be reviewed by executive management "to be handled."
But what is there to review? As black people have been forced to re-explain almost every Halloween, black skin is not a costume, black people are not caricatures, and blackface is offensive.
Using it harkens back to the time of minstrel shows where white actors would dress up in blackface and portray black people in horribly racist ways. There are many ways to dress up as a famous person without having to paint yourself their skin color.
People of color dress as white people all the time without wearing whiteface. White people can do the same. It's not hard. Doing otherwise is just plain hateful.
If Anderson Brothers wants to continue to employ a bigot then we have the right to know about it, and if not, then they should let him go at once.
Sign the petition and ask Anderson Brothers to fire with Bryan Lenertz.