Brooklyn Assemblyman In Trouble For Dressing In Blackface For Jewish Halloween

Politicker - Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind hosted a massive Purim party at his home yesterday that featured over fourteen hours of food and drink and, as is customary on the Jewish holiday, elaborate costumes. Mr. Hikind said a professional makeup artist came to his home to transform him into a “basketball player” with a costume that consisted of an afro wig, sunglasses, an orange jersey and brown face paint. “I was just, I think, I was trying to emulate, you know, maybe some of these basketball players. Someone gave me a uniform, someone gave me the hair of the actual, you know, sort of a black basketball player,” Mr. Hikind explained. “It was just a lot of fun. Everybody just had a very, very good time and every year I do something else. … The fun for me is when people come in and don’t recognize me.”  The Assemblyman’s wife was dressed as a devil and his son was a trippy, yin-yang-faced “angel.” Mr. Hikind, a Democrat and power broker in the city’s Orthodox Jewish political scene, said he put a sign outside his house in the afternoon letting his neighbors know the door was open and a steady stream of revelers came in to enjoy the festivities throughout the day. “I can’t imagine anyone getting offended. You know, anyone who knows anything about Purim knows that if you walk throughout the community, whether it’s Williamsburg, Boro Park, Flatbush, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens Hills, people get dressed up in, you name it, you know, in every kind of dress-up imaginable,” Mr. Hikind said. “Purim, you know, everything goes and it’s all done with respect. No one is laughing, no one is mocking. No one walked in today and said, ‘Oh my God.’ … It’s all just in good fun with respect always, whatever anyone does it’s done with tremendous amounts of respect and with dignity, of course.”

Look theres only one thing worse than smearing on blackface and parading around as a black guy at your Jewish Halloween party, and thats being the guy at the party who nobody knows who his costume is. There is nothing worse than when you show up at a Purim party and someone asks you “What are you supposed to be?” I can’t speak for the Jews but I know as a Gentile the number 1 rule for Halloween is make sure your costume is good enough that everyone knows what it is. Otherwise you realize you’re not funny and you spend your whole night saying “I’m a basketball player! See!”

So I can’t knock Dov Hikind here for his commitment to his basketball player costume. You know he put on the wig and the orange dress and someone asked him if he was a Disco dancer and he was like “Fuck! I told you, Honey! Now get out the shoe polish!” I’d rather risk my job being called the racist Jew than be the guy who spends all of Purim saying “No, no, basketball player. See? I’m a basketball player.” 

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PS – You know his son in the yin-yang face and Rastafarian hat spent all night going “I’m a gay pothead!” and everyone was like “Yea but what are you for Purim?”