In a new interview with The Today Show, Jussie Smollett's lawyer Tina Glandian sat down with Savannah Guthrie about Smollett's case. To give Guthrie some credit, she did drill Glandian with hard questions pertaining to how it was that Smollett first claimed his attackers were white and come to find out they were Nigerian brothers that Smollett himself knew and worked with. Glandian said Smollett described the attackers as wearing masks and only being able to see the slits where their eyes were and it appeared to him that they had a light complexion. She went on to say that could be due to them wearing makeup or "white face".
(Cut to 6:30 in the video for her comments on "white face")
Makeup? "White face"? REALLY? We're doing this now. How is that this double standard is a thing? It's not okay to do "black face" but it's okay to do "white face"? As Glandian said in her interview with Guthrie, upon researching these two Nigerian brothers, a video surfaced within 5 minutes of her looking, of one of the brothers doing a spoof video dressed in "white face" impersonating "the joker" character. I just want to remind you that Virginia Governor Northam was criticized for dressing up in "black face" as Michael Jackson , or believed to be the one dressed up as Michael Jackson. Obviously if he was the one in the KKK outfit, that's not appropriate in any circumstance, but for arguments sake, let's say it's the Michael Jackson costume. He like anyone who dresses in "black face" for any circumstances, even for portraying a character, gets dragged through the mud and crucified even for non intentional means but anyone who dresses in "white face" is in the clear? It's rich how they just brush past the fact that this brother did this but we're not going to talk about the fact that these two brothers may have dressed in white face and mocked Trump supporters by supposedly saying "this is MAGA country". Yes, let's ignore that "minor" fact...apparently it's not racist to dress in "white face" when you're not white and yell phrases mocking Trump supporters...no big deal...
Bottom line, if one instance like "black face" is not appropriate, neither should "white face" or dressing up as any other race's "face" for that matter.
-Producer Lightning