Jimmy Fallon issues emotional apology over blackface backlash: 'I am not racist'
June 02, 2020
As America unites against the escalating issue of racial injustice, Jimmy Fallon’s recently surfaced video of him in blackface proved to have come up at the worst possible time.
Issuing an emotional apology for the Saturday Night Live impression of Chris Rock from nearly two decades ago, the American comedian said he feels ‘horrified.’
“I had to really examine myself in the mirror this week because a story came out about me on SNL doing an impression of Chris Rock in blackface. And I was horrified. Not of people trying to ‘cancel’ me or cancel this show, which is scary enough. The thing that haunted me the most was, how do I say I love this person?”
“I respect this guy more than I respect most humans. I’m not a racist. I don’t feel this way.”
He said further that he kept getting advised to keep mum on the issue but owing to the recent upsurge of racial tensions in the United States, he decided that he needs to do more.
“I realized that I can’t not say I’m horrified and I’m sorry and I’m embarrassed. I realized that silence is the biggest crime that white guys like me and the rest of us are doing, staying silent. We need to say something. We need to keep saying something. And we need to stop saying ‘that’s not OK’ more than just one day on Twitter.”
“We cannot try to bury this again. It’s not going to get buried. It’s not going away,” he said.
He further made reference to the manner in which he spoke about challenging topics such as these in the past, saying: “You can’t just hope everyone loves each other. We can’t say ‘be the change’ and just sit around tweeting ‘be the change, be the change.’”
“Let’s figure out how we’re going to get along with each other. Let’s figure out how we’re going to stop this senseless violence that erupts and disrupts the entire country and now the world. The world is screaming and it is angry and we all need to figure out a way to take the anger, which of course is just sadness and fear, and do something with it,” he added.
