The one thing sports is supposed to do sometimes is eliminate racial divide and incorporate harmony.
It gets difficult when our sports figures do things to cause the racial commotion.
Things most times get tight, around Halloween when people try to dress up as their favorite characters, or stars.
The most difficult question with all that is what do you the person you are impersonating or dressing up as is black.
Yahoo.com is reporting that Toronto Maple Leafs player Tyler Bozak was faced with that dilemma when he decided he wanted to dress up as the king of pop, Michael Jackson for Halloween.
Bozak took the picture below, on Tuesday evening, before taking it down shortly after.
Bozak got back on twitter after there were some comments made to explain his side.
That’s a tribute to one of my fave artists. For anyone saying its racist is crazy!
— Tyler Bozak (@Bozie42) October 31, 2012
As you can see in the picture, Bozak is of Canadian descent, is dressed up as Jackson, but with his face darkened, or as they call it, in Blackface.
We have reported previous episodes of athletes dressing up and changing the color of their face.
On this day last year, Pheonix Coyotes Raffi Torres and his wife went to a Halloween party in blackface, dressed as Jay-Z and Beyonce.
Two Halloween’s ago we reported DJ Steve Porter dressed in blackface as he impersonated Randy Moss.
The day before that, Dwyane Wade dressed in whiteface as Justin Timberlake.
The essence of the story now is to determine whats offensive and what simply overreaction.
Blackface is a 19th century form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person.
Regardless of intent you are setting yourself up for failure when you change the color of your skin to try to impersonate anyone.
Do I think Tyler Bozak is a racist, no, but I know he’ll spend the next 7 days or so answering questions about it.
Just because I don’t pay Tyler Bozak any mind, doesn’t mean another African-American won’t.
Just the same, just because someone white doesn’t take offense to Dwyane Wade being white-faced two Halloween’s ago, doesn’t mean another white person won’t.
Again this post is not to pass blame or judgement on Bozak because I’m in no position to.
My question simply is even with all the progress we’ve made and it being 2012, is dressing up in blackface to celebrate a holiday offensive, or am I just overreacting.
