When I first read this, I was certain that it came from the Onion. What on earth does a skit about pimps, strippers and Jesus have to do with the circus? Were the organizers coming off a 36 hour binge where they took turns getting high and watching Tyler Perry movies?
Kristen Brown told Channel 2’s Eric Philips she took her 5- and 8-year-old children to the Universoul Circus Sunday night and was stunned by the final act.
“There are ladies pretending to strip, men throwing money at her, then a pimp comes on the stage and the woman’s boyfriend sells her to him and the pimp slaps her when she refuses to cooperate,” Brown said. “They’re pretending to smoke marijuana and sniff cocaine.”
A circus spokesman defended the act, saying it has a message. “Our show is about positive messages and sometimes to get to those high you have to go to those lows,” said circus spokesman Hank Ernest.
Ernest told Philips the gospel-themed finale ends with the main female character giving her life to Christ and starting over.
This is the Perryfication of Black Entertainment at its absolute worst. There is much more to black life than dysfunction and church. This “positive” skit was offensive for a variety of reasons. First of all, the content was clearly not appropriate for young children. Second, why does a “positive message” have to be included in everything directed to black people? Third, and I know this may come as a shock, but ALL.BLACK.PEOPLE.ARE.NOT.CHRISTIAN. Blacks of all faiths (or no faith at all) should be able to take their children to a circus without having to be knocked over the head with a bootleg sermon. How many more black shows, movies, television shows, etc. will have to be Perryfied before we start getting a clue?
