A comedy skit in Australia on it’s popular TV show called ‘Hey Hey its Saturday’ is under scrutiny after being accused of racism. These allegations come after the actors called “The Jackson Jive” painted their faces black and wore black afro wigs. There was one actor that was white with a black wig and dubbed himself as Michael Jackson.
One of the people the most surprised was a guest judge on the show, Harry Connick jr. whom called for an apology after the show implied racism by allowing the skit to take place. Harry Connick awarded the 5 Australians performing the skit a zero. Connick also stated that “If I knew that was going to be part of the show I definitely wouldn’t have done it,”

The front man of the skit is an Australian based plastic surgeon, Anand Deva, but is from India. Five of the Six people performing the skit comes from multicultural backgrounds and that none of them meant any harm in the skit. Anand Deva commented on the situation and said “I am an Indian, and five of the six of us are from multicultural backgrounds and to be called a racist … I don’t think I have ever been called that ever in my life before,”
The talk about this then headed to twitter with some people asking “if white people painting their faces black was considered racism” while others called this “embarrassing and distasteful”. After an online poll at one of Australia’s largest newspapers, 62 percent of the people that responded stated that the skit was tasteless and racist.
Some people seem to have different views and opinions on what is and isn’t considered racism. We can understand that a guy from India would be fine with joking about Michael Jackson since he comes from a different country all together. But for us in the United States, we seem to think different.
In the U.S. we always have comedy skits on popular TV actors, actress’ and pop music stars but things have never gone quite this far. We do make fun of peoples race, but in a way that it doesn’t upset too many people. But doing a skit about someone that has recently died is going a little too far. Not to mention, Michael has a fan base that covers the entire world.
What are your views on this situation? Do you think it is racism?