Riverdale Christian Academy celebrates graduation with a blackface party mocking slavery

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

Wow. Now it’s not only college students playing with blackface, faculty and staff members are getting in on the act too. This Fresno, CA Christian school even played a game of “catch the runaway slave!” From Fresnobee.com:

Members of Fresno’s black community said they were stunned this week to see pictures of adults in blackface poking fun at slavery during a recent graduation celebration for Riverdale Christian Academy.

The photos, which were posted on the Internet shortly after the June 1 event, show staff and faculty of the small private Christian school dressed as slaves with captions describing activities at the party in Hanford.

“The slaves served lemonade — it was a riot,” read one caption beneath a photo of five women and a man at a lemonade stand. Each had dark face makeup and wore 19th century clothing.

“Someday we gonna be leavin’ when a workin’ day is done,” read another caption posted with a photo of three women holding gardening tools.

A third picture showed a white man in a Yankees jersey and top hat escorting another in blackface with the caption, “bringing home the runaway slave in the Senior skit.”

By now you know the drill with these blackface parties.

Step 1: Declare that you did not mean to offend anyone.

Step 2: Point to the fact that black people were at the party too, so obviously it wasn’t that racist!

Nice to see that Doug Spencer, the school’s principal, has been taking notes:

Spencer, who said he was sorry for the controversy, said his school, with a student body of 150, has “three or four” black students. One of those students attended the party. Spencer said that while he is willing to apologize to anyone offended by the skits, he has not apologized to the unnamed student.

“It was not offensive,” Spencer said. “And she hasn’t asked for an apology.”

Hat tip to Tate Hill at Urban Knowledge and Resist Racism