Reportedly, Melanie Thornburg, a South Carolina Sheriff Captain, is in the hot seat after wearing blackface with a Bob Marley Halloween costume. Melanie Thornburg claims that, "I didn't do it out of lack of respect, and I express regret to anyone that took offense. I wouldn't have ever tried to taunt anyone."
The Sheriff Captain said that if she had any knowledge about the history of blackface and how painting her skin black was going to annoy individuals, she would have re-evaluated her costume for Halloween, which turns out was a last minute decision.
Melanie Thornburg was going to a Halloween party and she was in extremely urgent need of a costume to throw on. She had already had a dreaded wig and a T-shirt printed with a marijuana leaf on the front, she came up with an idea to add black paint on her face to dress up as Bob Marley for Halloween.
But, the South Carolina Sheriff Captain did not know that blackface was hyped in the 1800's, when white actors would paint their faces black as a way of making fun of African-Americans in a derogatory manner.
By the time Melanie Thornburg found out the meaning behind blackface, she gave her apology, and her boss - Alan Cloninger, was pleased with Thornburg's apology and stated, "As long as she didn't do anything disrespectful toward any person or race that was intended in a harmful or malicious way, that's the way I look at it."
Chris Thomason-Gaston, Gaston NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) President, said that people shouldn't "get too excessively affected by emotion over disrespectful Halloween costumes" and Thomason added that, "Things that may have been insulting and looked at in a negative way, in today's time may be more acceptable for the reason that, as people, we have evolved. We've learned to be a little more respectful and open minded of other people's feelings."
