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Artist News
Kelis racially abused in London, comments on riots
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 15 September 2011
Kelis has claimed that she was racially abused at a London airport after being accused of queue jumping at passport control. The incident happened on Monday as she returned to London following her appearance at Bestival at the weekend.
In a series of tweets, Kelis said: “Apparently [I] pissed this one man off cause he thought I cut the line, which wouldn’t be far fetched of me, but this time I actually didn’t (not entirely, anyway). Well, the point is from zero to 60 this fat red faced sweaty ‘man’ (I use the word man loosely here) started calling me a slave and told me to call him sir and how I was probably a disgusting Nigerian. He called me ‘Kunta Kinte’ [the name of the main character in Alex Haley’s novel ‘Roots: The Saga Of An American Family’ who is kidnapped from Gambia and forced into slavery in America] and ranted and raved some more”.
She continued: “The man behind the passport desk laughed, shook his head, in agreement I guess, and said ‘Kunta Kinte’. All the while the entire line full of people I just sat on a plane with for almost three hours – over 50 people – said nothing. I mean literally nothing. Didn’t flinch”.
This latter point, she said, is indicative of the UK, and why, she thinks, the recent riots in London erupted. She said: “I didn’t say anything at the time of the riots in London for a lot of reasons. But I am in London all the time and today I’m gonna say that the racial issues in the UK are disgusting. It’s racially decades behind progression because everything is swept under the rug. People don’t talk about it. People don’t fight about it. Not mentioning a problem doesn’t make it go away”.
She added: “I bring it up now because, as an American, it is abundantly clear that my country has a smorgasbord of disgusting racial problems. We are the poster child for racial inequality even still with a black president, but [at the same] it’s NO SECRET! And that I can fight against. I can try to prepare and teach my son. Because it’s out there. But you can’t fight for or against something no one is willing to talk about or even admit exists. Everyone wants to be politically correct. But who really cares? And what does that help? I could go on and on. I won’t. But maybe someone will start to talk about it from here”.
