Wheaton College football players dressed up in KKK robes and presented a parody of Bad Boys II. The actions of the Chicago area college students and their portrayal of the Will Smith character sparked both outrage and national headlines. The Ku Klux Klan skit was reportedly part of a team building activity at the evangelical college in Illinois.
The Bad Boys II scene depicted by the Wheaton College students focused on the segment of the movie where Will Smith and Martin Lawrence raided a KKK meeting in the woods. The February 28 skit by the athletes also involved some black football players on the team.
Philip Ryken, the president of Wheaton College, said the KKK Bad Boys II skit sparked anger on the Chicago area campus. Ryken authored an email to all staff and students regarding the incident. Officials at the college have deemed the Ku Klux Klan skit from the Will Smith movie as a “racially insensitive” action.
Warning: Adult Language In Video
In hit movie Bad Boys II, Martin Lawrence and Will Smith star and play police detectives. In the scene depicted by the Wheaton College football players, Smith and Lawrence go undercover briefly as KKK members and then rip off the Ku Klux Klan robes and proceed to arrest members of the group.
Wheaton College football team Captain Josh Aldrin, who is black, took responsibility for the Bad Boys II skit and, according to a Chicago Tribune report.
“We made a mistake. As a black male, a team captain, and the leader of the group that performed the skit, I should have understood that the KKK and Confederate symbols are not funny in any context. We hope the campus community will forgive us for our actions.”
Yesterday Wheaton College students, approximately 700 of them, gathered in the Pierce Chapel at the Chicago area college to pray for “campus-wide healing.” A statement was released on the Wheaton College website.
“The team captain acknowledged his poor judgment in failing to consider the inherently hurtful meanings these symbols carry, though it was clear the skit was not motivated by racial hostility.”
What do you think about the Wheaton College Bad Boys II KKK Skit? Was is racially insensitive and inappropriate, or simply college kids having fun and acting out a scene from a popular movie?
[Image via: Screengrab/Twitter]
