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Education

High School Students in Blackface Re-Enact Chris Brown Beating Up Rihanna in Pep Rally Skit

Oct. 16, 2012 8:37pm Jason Howerton

Photo credit: CNN iReport

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — A pep rally skit by three white high school students who wore blackface and parodied Chris Brown’s arrest for assaulting Rihanna has officials in a largely white New York district vowing to set clearer expectations for school events.

The skit was one of several pop culture parodies performed Friday at Waverly High School as part of an annual “Mr. Waverly” competition, Superintendent Joseph Yelich said. The one in question had a male student portraying Brown standing over another cowering actor playing Rihanna; a third male student played an arresting officer.

A picture from the skit posted to social media and other sites including Facebook, Tumblr and CNN iReport drew thousands of views and dozens of comments, many calling the skit blatantly racist and blasting the idea of drawing laughs from domestic violence.

Brown was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to felony assault for the attack on Rihanna in 2009. Both singers are black.

Yelich said he has not kept track of the number of complaints to the small district in southern New York’s Tioga County but said the “Mr. Waverly” tradition is being re-examined. Other skits featured Tarzan chasing a gorilla, hockey players brawling, and Spider-Man.

“I mean, this is a pep rally; we’re supposed to be cheering on our team,” said Yelich, who has been on the job a little over a year. “The fact that skits are involved and parodies … it strayed from that and it got into a different kind of competition.”

A Waverly High alumnus who posted comments on CNN said that while he doesn’t believe the students meant to offend, he was surprised administrators didn’t intervene.

“There were adults who should have stood up and said, `Hey, guys, this is not OK. Blackface is not OK. Is it illegal? No. But you should really not do that,’” Matthew Dishler, 24, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Rose Garrity, executive director of A New Hope Center, an agency in nearby Oswego County that assists victims of domestic and sexual abuse and other crimes, also put responsibility on the adults.

“They were trying to make something funny that is far from funny, and they were being incredibly racist while they were doing it,” Garrity said. “I doubt any of those children had any idea about the history of racism and minstrels or anything like that.”

Garrity said her agency has been working with Waverly and other districts on anti-violence and anti-bullying programs and would continue its outreach.

“Domestic violence isn’t funny,” Garrity said. “Three women every day are killed in this country by the man they’re partnered with. It’s anything but funny.”

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Comments (23)

DasAmerican
Posted on October 18, 2012 at 12:09am
Why is it so easy to blacklist someone just for not being a Dem, Yet trash like him still gets work and credibility?

I know Glenn doesnt like to be the boycotting type, but we must use the same tactics against them if we can even begin a legitimate disscussion on relavant issues. Disscredit, Boycott, Sue, Corporate takeovers….Take back the music and entertainment industry then people like Lucas wont feel bad saying he is the Libertarian that he is and not forced to be an Obama supporter….just so he wont get overtaxed and overregulated!

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Git-R-Done
Posted on October 17, 2012 at 4:10pm
How come Chris Brown still has a career in the entertainment industry?

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- deano24
  Posted on October 17, 2012 at 9:55pm
  Because they deem it to be acceptable in the music industry. Just like calling women other names is acceptable.
  
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- JesterJay
  Posted on October 18, 2012 at 1:15am
  Because they only care about money. If kids buy the CD thats all that matters. Parents need to sit down with their kids and tell them why they should not buy the CD. Do you excpect Mtv or a record comp to show the moral high ground? The change will only come from the consumer, when it hurts the pockets of the CEOs then they will care.
  
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OniKaze
Posted on October 17, 2012 at 10:33am
What I don’t understand is why they could not have found some black youths at the school that would do the skit instead…..

While I find it “in-sensitive” I don’t find this racist…. And I can’t say that Parodying an act of violence is a good thing.. I would not have done it, or taken any part in it, but I can’t say I think the kids did it maliciously.. Domestic violence is a big deal, and should never be treated in a joking manor, less we become desensitized to it…

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- pepjrp
  Posted on October 17, 2012 at 1:31pm
  I totally agree with you as the liberal media is more on this because of the ethnicity of the ignorant students as they want the race factor to be embossed in everyone’s mind than the much more important issue of why is a beating being glamorized. I find the racism charge by the media as racist in itself. Liberal Whites doing what they can to make other European Americans as a whole, look bad.
  
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JesterJay
Posted on October 17, 2012 at 9:23am
Just a reminder why this is so not funny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4716L7qjOTc&feature=related

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JesterJay
Posted on October 17, 2012 at 9:19am
I think you have to look at what the kids are laughing about to really see the problem. Most kids think chris brown didn’t do anything wrong. HE SLAMED HE HEAD INTO THE WINDOW serveral times. What if that was your daughter or your sister, would you think anything was funny about it? Forget the black face, kids today see this violance as a joke and it is far from it.

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- Git-R-Done
  Posted on October 17, 2012 at 4:09pm
  You shouldn’t be throwing stones at those kids when Chris Brown still has a career and Rhianna has a song where she’s ok with getting beaten up.
  
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- JesterJay
  Posted on October 18, 2012 at 1:22am
  Im not throwing stones at the kids but the adults that should have stoped this and explaned to the students why this is not something that they should be joking about. Kids today have almost no moral compass because that adults in their lives are not giving them any kind of guidance. You are not born a good or bad person its the way you are influanced that will set you on a path.
  
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Eastinfection
Posted on October 17, 2012 at 8:49am
best blackface ever!…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RiHfEtOy6A

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Detroit paperboy
Posted on October 17, 2012 at 12:03am
She deserved it anyway, just ask Obama supporter Chris Brown ……………….u kno wu om tokin bout …… Is aw goooood,,,,,,,

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- kadster01
  Posted on October 17, 2012 at 8:34am
  Who gives a corn cob?
  
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NXNLA
Posted on October 16, 2012 at 11:24pm
LOL This is great! Chris Brown is popular culture. Rihanna is popular culture. Youth imitates popular culture. Chris Brown beating Rihanna is popular culture. Nothing wrong with parodying it.

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thegreatcarnac
Posted on October 16, 2012 at 11:19pm
Everytime I see a black comedian and he is playing the role of white people in a joke he always talks in a high whiny voice. That is suppose to be the sound of a white guy. So..what is wrong with ‘blackface’? They make fun of us so we can make fun of them. Wait. I forgot. This is America. Home of the free….unless you are white.

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- pepjrp
  Posted on October 17, 2012 at 1:33pm
  There is some truth in what you say as the liberal White self-loathing media will never comment when a European American is made sport of for their ethnicity.
  
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statutoryape
Posted on October 16, 2012 at 11:04pm
This isn’t blackface and I really don’t see any controversy here. This is just news fodder.

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- Eastinfection
  Posted on October 17, 2012 at 8:46am
  “This isn’t blackface”…
  
  Actually it is. It may not look like the “Archie Bunker” blackface but, it’s still blackface. These kids should have shown more tact.
  
  black·face/ˈblakˌfās/
  Noun:
  The makeup used by a nonblack performer playing a black role.
  Used to imply patronization of blacks by whites or by institutions perceived to be insincerely or ineffectively non racist.
  
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ObamaForward_OverTheCliff
Posted on October 16, 2012 at 10:14pm
“The skit …. had a male student portraying Brown standing over another cowering actor playing Rihanna; a third male student played an arresting officer. … Brown was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to felony assault for the attack on Rihanna in 2009. Both singers are black.”

Well, there is hope for America yet!

Even the children see through the “racism” charge — to silence the truth — of what the Democrat Party has done to black Americans, of what racist black parents have taught to their black-crime children, of what Liberals have done to hush it all up!

You go, kids. Shout the TRUTH ! Loud and clear!! Black-face and all !!!

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Melika
Posted on October 16, 2012 at 9:07pm
Where’s the black face? I’m not seeing any black face, just some bad paint. What’s so racist about the skit? I’m not sure I’m understanding racism, except that if it involves white people it is obviously racist. They aren’t doing a generic black guy beating a woman skit and announcing that all black people are like this. They are portraying actual black people. Part of “acting” is looking like your character. I suppose no one got upset with “White Girls”.

As for everyone laughing, that’s what people do to blow off steam. We all laughed at Looney Toons when the mouse was beating the crap out of the cat, or Bugs was hitting someone in the head with a pan. Millions of people still laugh at the Three Stooges. In real life, those things aren’t funny at all. In a skit, they can be hilarious.

We’ve become a nation of overly sensitive little girls.

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CWPrequired
Posted on October 16, 2012 at 9:05pm
Five years probation for felony assault to a women……hmm. Maybe if he would have kicked the sxxx out of the dog on the way out of the door he would have done some hard time like michael vick.

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Wool-Free Vision
Posted on October 16, 2012 at 8:55pm
Wow. Making fun of Chris Brown’s “war on women” is probably not going to go over very well in the race-baiting media. Everybody is going to be talking about how racist it was for these students to use blackface and completely ignoring the broader and far more important sociological implications of several aspects of this “skit.”

Consider for a moment all the salient points about modern American society being made by this simple skit.

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SaturdaysWarrior76
Posted on October 16, 2012 at 8:53pm
What is this world coming to? For heaven’s sake… God help us!

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