Principal: "Nothing Racial" About Powderpuff Team Wearing Blackface

A group of students at Sullivan High School (Mo.) wore blackface for their Nov. 5 powderpuff football game. That's bad enough. The quote from school principal Jennifer Schmidt, who described her reaction after seeing the blackface, makes it worse. From the Riverfront Times:

"And then I thought, 'Oh, they don't mean anything by it. Just let it go. No one thinks anything of it.' I didn't think anyone did," says Schmidt, the principal of Sullivan High School. "Evidently, someone did."

Wait, there's more:

Schmidt adds that it's been common practice for the senior girls' team to wear face paint during the powderpuff football tournament, essentially as a parody of the eye black football players normally wear to decrease glare from the sun and lights. The face paint also serves to "to intimidate the underclassmen."

According to Schmidt, in previous years the girls have wore combinations of the schools' colors — black and gold. But when the senior girls arrived prior to the November 5 game, they discovered everyone had brought the same color face paint — black.

"So that's what they wore," says Schmidt. "There was nothing racial about it. They didn't have any other intention other than to just try to intimidate the underclassmen."

C'mon.

Schmidt said the school will probably ban all face-painting, and the girls won't be disciplined.

[ Riverfront Times]

H/t to @steven_lebron