The rodeo clown at the Missouri state fair who donned a mask of President Obama and mocked about a bull running him over is guilty of a hate crime, the head of the state’s NAACP chapter said in a radio show late Thursday.
“I think that a hate crime has occurred,” Mary Ratfliff said, on KXNT Radio, broadcast out of Las Vegas. “I think a hate crime occurs when you use a person’s race to depict who they are and to make degrading comments, gestures et cetera about them.”
She went on, The Blaze reported: “We are taxpayers in the state of Missouri and when taxpayer money is utilized to discredit and be disrespectful to our president, whether he be black, white, Hispanic, Latina … it is an outrage.”
This is the same NAACP president who said that the Department of Justice and the Secret Service ought to open a case file on the incident and launch a federal investigation.
The rodeo clown has already been banned for life from performing at the Missouri State Fair. Meanwhile, future performers will have to take sensitivity training as a condition of their fair hires.
SEE ALSO: NAACP calls on Justice Dept., Secret Service to investigate rodeo clown flap
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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