(AP)A clown wearing a PresidentBarack Obama mask
appeared at a Missouri State Fair rodeo this weekend and the announcer
asked the enthusiastic spectators if they wanted to see “Obama run down
by a bull.”
The antics led the state’s second highest-ranking
official, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, to denounce the performance in a tweet
Sunday. He said it was “disrespectful” to the president.
“We are better than this,” the Republican tweeted.
State
Fair officials said the show in Sedalia was “inappropriate” and “does
not reflect the opinions or standards” of the fair. “We strive to be a
family friendly event and regret that Saturday’s rodeo badly missed that mark,” they said in a statement Sunday.
It wasn’t clear if any action will be taken against the performers.
20
3Perry Beam, who was among the spectators, said “everybody screamed” and “just went wild” as the announcer talked about having the bull run down the clown with the Obama mask.
“It
was at that point I began to feel a sense of fear. It was that level of
enthusiasm,” Beam, a 48-year-old musician from Higginsville, said
Sunday, referring to the reaction from the crowd that filled the fair’s
grandstand.
He
said another clown ran up to the one wearing the Obama mask, pretended
to tickle him and played with the lips on the mask. About 15 minutes
into the performance, the masked clown had to leave after a bull got too close, Beam said.
Beam was at the rodeo with his wife and a student they were hosting from Taiwan. He said they were having a good time until the end of the rodeo.
“It
was the usual until the very end at bull riding,” he said. “As they
were bringing the bulls into the chute and prepping them … they bring
out what looks like a dummy. The announcer says ‘Here’s our Obama dummy,
or our dummy of Obama.
“They
mentioned the president’s name, I don’t know, 100 times. It was
sickening,” Beam said. “It was feeling like some kind of Klan rally
you’d see on TV.”
Officials with the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association, the organization that coordinated the rodeo, did not return phone calls seeking comment Sunday.
After
Beam and his family returned home, he posted a photo of the clown in
the Obama mask on his Facebook page. The photo and the posting were then
promoted online by a blog, Showmeprogress.com, which elicited a huge
response Sunday on Twitter.
Scott Holste, spokesman for Missouri’s Democratic Gov.
Jay Nixon, said Sunday in an email that Nixon “agrees that the
performance was disrespectful and offensive, and does not reflect the
values of Missourians or the State Fair.”
Beam, who grew up attending the
State Fair and attends the fair just about every year, said he has
never seen anything like the Obama mask display, which he felt was
inappropriate for a state-sanctioned event that receives state funding.
“This
isn’t the Republican Missouri State Fair,” Beam said. “It was cruel. It
was disturbing. I’m still sick to my stomach over it. … I’m standing
here with a mixed-race family. My wife’s from Taiwan, and so was the
student (his family was hosting). I’ve never seen anything so blatantly
racist in my life.
“If an old country boy picks up on something like that, imagine what a person of color would think.”
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