Plan B Forum

The Missouri State Fair has banned for life a rodeo clown who donned a mask bearing the likeness of President Barack Obama for a mocking comedy act.



The clown's act on Saturday night - during which fans were asked whether they wanted to see "Obama run down by a bull" - drew swift denunciation.

Fair organisers said on Monday the act was "inappropriate" and apologised for the "unconscionable stunt".

A spokesman for Gov Jay Nixon said the clown's act was "deplorable".

Rodeo clowns are an established part of the sport in the US.

In addition to entertaining the fans with comedy sketches between bull riding and other competitive feats, they distract the bulls once they have thrown their riders, in order to give the cowboys a chance to escape.

The most popular rodeo clowns can take in $2,000 (£1,293) per night at the largest events, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In amateur video taken of the event in Sedalia, Missouri, a performer wearing what appears to be a toothy Obama fright mask, jacket, and straw cowboy hat can be seen standing in the middle of the rodeo arena.

The announcer is heard calling attention to him, at which point a voice cries over the public address system: "I know I'm a clown, he's just running around acting like one, doesn't know he is one."

The unidentified clown's numerous detractors have insisted rodeo is a competitive sport and a brand of family entertainment, not a political platform.

"All members of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association are very proud of our country and our president," the association's board of directors said in a statement.

"This type of behaviour will not be tolerated."

State Representative Steve Webb, like Mr Obama a Democrat, suggested the act had "racial overtones", in an interview with the Kansas City Star.

In 2012, Mr Obama lost the state of Missouri in the US Midwest 54% to 44%. But in 2008, he lost the state by fewer than 4,000 votes.

Perry Beam was among the spectators Saturday in Sedalia. He 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. After 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 e-mail 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."

I'm still sick to my stomach over it

oldr_n_wsr wrote:

Maybe it's me, but I don't see the racist overtones in this "stunt". 'Splain Lucy?

Since you asked...This site compares the performance to a minstrel show, with a white comedian in blackface depicting President Obama as "bumbling and feckless black man worthy of derision and ridicule"--and then goes on to point out

The Missouri State Fair has been operating since 1901 and through the administration’s of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the president’s likeness was never subjected to being attacked by a bull at a State Fair sanctioned event. Nineteen consecutive white presidents with no clowns donning presidential masks and no derisive crowds cheering for the president to be trampled under foot by a raging bull.