The American singer was verbally abused by a white British man while queuing for passport checks and nobody defended her at that time.
- Sep 14, 2011
AceShowbiz - Kelis brought to attention that racism still happens today. The R 'n' B singer tweeted on Tuesday, September 13 that she had been racially abused by a middle-aged white man in a London airport while waiting at passport control.
The singer was on her way home to U.S. with her 2-year-old son Knight after performing at Bestival on the Isle of Wight over the weekend. "We just landed and I had the midget with me. We get in the passport control line and apparently 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 0 to 60," she wrote.
"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 and ranted and raved some more. 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 3hours."
Kelis said none of the 50 people who were there said anything. But she would not accept the treatment and confronted the man. "This person was aprox a 50 year old English man," Kelis continued her rant. "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."
One indie race equality group called Runnymede Trust has responded to the situation, saying via spokesman, "It's worth noting that we're not a multi-racial paradise in the U.K. but there is a fight back here, and there are lots of ways in which musicians like Kelis can contribute to that. Things like the UpRise music festival in London - 10,000 people making it clear they are against racism."
"But I don't think we have got a huge amount to learn from America in terms of the racism that operates over there. We are struggling against racism in the same way as people are in the States."
