First, a disclaimer: The following post will contain a number of statements that will seem axiomatic to some. Whilst reading this, you may end up thinking to yourself, “Well, duh”. It’s an understandable reaction. However, this isn’t the case for everyone. If it was, the paragraphs to come would be pointless.
The subject of this piece is Dov Hikind, New York State Assemblyman. From the name alone, some will already know where this is headed, as it’s a story that has begun to pick up pace in North America over the past few days, but for those who aren’t aware of the furore, it proceeds as follows:
During the recent Jewish holiday of Purim, Hikind dressed up an orange jersey, sunglasses, an afro wig, and painted his face b…well, let’s say it was darker than his natural skin tone. Hikind’s justification for this; it was fancy dress, he was going as “sort of a black basketball player.” Unsurprisingly, Hikind has been a target for criticism for this conduct. The initial rejoinder to the affair came from his son, Yoni, who explained on his Facebook page that his father “…doesn’t have a prejudice bone in his body”, before adding, “Was with him all day and half the time he was acting as Khadaffi.”
Could you believe that somehow these statements didn’t dampen the outrage, but if anything increased it? Well yes, I imagine you could, but it seems that Hikind didn’t. Finally making as public statement of his own, he said to those he offended, that he was, “sorry that they were offended.” Yeah, it was one of those apologies. To be honest, it’s worth watching the whole 3:34 minute video, as Hikind proceeds to metaphorically dig a hole with the largest shovel I’ve ever seen. At one point he says that he was planning “to do Indians next year”, but won’t now as he doesn’t want to offend anyone.
I wonder why, Dov? Crack on a cross, where does one start with this?
Well, first one should note how telling it is that in attempting to pretend to be a basketball player, Hikind felt that blacking up was an essential part of the get-up. Because all black males come out of the womb spinning a Spalding on their finger, don’t they? This is an obvious reinforcing of the stereotype that black men aren’t the brightest, but they can do sport – by the way, black men aren’t the only section of society disrespected by this reductive paradigm.
Then, we have Hikind’s son, Yoni trying to mitigate his father’s behaviour by stating that half the day he was pretending to be Khadaffi. Let’s assume that this was the case. It meant that Hikind felt he could oscillate between “basketball player” and “former leader of Libya”, using the same costume. Hey everyone, look at my “one skin-tone fits all” outfit. Indeed, it was Yoni who initially posted the offending image, attached with the words, How cool are my folks… Lol”
And finally, Hikind’s continuing displays of ignorance. In a subsequent radio interview with Zev Brenner, he said, ”Maybe I should dress up next year as a gay person. Would that be ok, Zev?”
Right, so that’s gay people you can add to the increasing list of those he’s disrespected. It’s clear that Hikind and his son’s awareness of what about this fiasco is so objectionable is vacant. But ignorance is never an excuse. For a long time now, Hikind has been a staunch advocate of trying to combat antisemitism, as pointed out by Jon Stewart, who fillets Hikind on Tuesday’s edition of ‘The Daily Show’. And yet, Hikind doesn’t seem to have made an attempt to figure out just why so many people (not just black people) are disgusted. His reasoning goes as far as, “Well, some people are just sensitive.”
When people – especially those in positions of privilege and power – act in such a manner, I imagine that sensitive people are pretty justified. The reason why Hikind’s conduct was unacceptable, is the same reason why Caroline Wozniacki ‘impersonating’ Serena Williams, or people dressing up as Olympic gold medalist, Mo Farah is so deplorable. Black people are not costumes for other races to wear.
And given that Hikind has spent so much of his professional life campaigning on behalf of Jews, you would hope that he would feel the same towards all socially marginalised groups. Or is the uncomfortable truth this; Hikind isn’t actually seeking equality at all, as long as his own people are fine?
