Police arrested a man wearing black face paint — also known as blackface — in attendance at an anti-racism protest held in Toronto , Canada, TMZ reported.
A white man decked out in black makeup on his face and hands arrived at a protest held in Nathan Phillips Square earlier today. Considering the protests are being held in honor of George Floyd , a man who recently died at the hands of a police officer, it did not take long for people to get angry about his appearance and attire.
Blackface has a long history of being used as a way to mock and belittle the African-American community. Many members of the Black Lives Matter movement were in attendance at the Toronto protest and started to berate and criticize the man.
Police officers at the scene arrested him and, as TMZ pointed out, may have saved his life or at least prevented him from getting attacked. The incident was caught on camera and shared on social media by Kamil Karamali, a reporter for Global News Toronto .
Please note that the following video contains some explicit language.
#BREAKING : Someone wearing black face paint shows up at anti-Black racism protest at Nathan Phillips Square and is escorted out of the area by police. #BlackLivesMattertoronto pic.twitter.com/unfn9VwVzR
— Kamil Karamali (@KamilKaramali) June 6, 2020
Aside from the first video, Karamali shared multiple other clips from the incident in the tweet thread. Many of them showed how enraged the surrounding crowd was by the man’s decision to show up in blackface. The man’s name has not been released to the public.
According to the article, several of the protesters were threatening the man and asking for the cops to take him away. It fell upon bicycle officers to escort him out while angry crowd members attempted to get close to him.
Authorities justified the arrest by saying he was “breaching the peace” and Karamali reported he was also escorted out for “causing a disturbance.”
Twitter users were disturbed by the man’s decision to apply the face paint and walk directly into a BLM protest. Many were satisfied that the cops decided to arrest him and escort him away from the premises. However, some felt that he should have been left to the protestors to delegate justice.
“Toronto police should bring him to the hospital for a mental health review. He is a danger to himself possibly suicidal to do that during a BLM protest,” tweeted one user.
As The Inquisitr previously reported, late-night talk show host and former Saturday Night Live cast member Jimmy Fallon recently came under fire for wearing blackface during an old SNL sketch to impersonate comedian Chris Rock.
Fallon has since apologized profusely for his mistake after the footage resurfaced.
