title:  Philadelphia New Year’s Parade Ruined By Racist White People In Brownface (IMAGES)
text: It s hard to believe that racism is still a key issue in a city with one of the highest African American populations in America, but that wasn t the case in Philadelphia on New Year s Day, when white people dressed up in brownface for the city s annual Mummers Parade and insulted #BlackLivesMatter protesters with racial slurs   while trying to argue that the parade wasn t racist!The Mummers Parade has been a New Year s Day tradition in Philadelphia where Mummers (amateur actors/Philadelphia citizens) dress up in extravagant costumes and perform throughout the city. As part of the costumes, it used to be common practice for the actors to wear blackface but this was curbed in 1964 after the NAACP and supporting protesters pressured the city to have it removed from the parade. Blackface was never officially sanctioned, so it still occurs despite the fact that blackface is now commonly regarded as racist. In response, the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice decided to schedule a rally during this year s Mummers Parade in protest.Coverage of the rally ended up exposing not only rampant racism, but misogyny. Along with the brownface, there were many men dressed up as  wenches  and some people even mocked the #BlackLivesMatter movement by carrying signs that said Wench Lives Matter,   Pirate Lives Matter  and  Shark Lives Matter  (which bared some resemblance to KKK attire).When parade participants heard of the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice rally, they began flooding the group s Mummers Parade Justice Rally s Facebook event page to convince America that the Mummers Day parade wasn t racist   and ironically showed an impressive amount of white privilege and N-bombs.It should be mentioned that #BlackLivesMatter wasn t even the sole purpose of the rally   it was just one of many issues that protesters had with the Mummers Parade. And the rally s intention was not to shut the Mummers Parade down. The Justice Rally s page wrote: Bring your signs, banners and noise makers to the Mummers parade and let s represent for the issues that matter to our communities! Our goal is to pack the stands and the parade route around city hall with people representing for #BlackLivesMatter in a city 48% black, funding public schools, fighting for a $15 minimum wage, dumping Trump, immigration rights and explosive oil trains. Not one mention of shutting the parade down, just the innocent intention of improving the lives of Philadelphians. Here are some of the horrendously racist, vile things people posted on the Justice Rally s event page in response: So improving Philadelphia is something to condemn, and yet behavior like what happened in the below Facebook post is perfectly acceptable at the Mummers Parade:If that had been a group of drunk black people p*ssing on homeless people, this would have never been accepted. Fortunately, there were also many people who recognized that the Mummers Parade does have a racist past and that racism and misogyny don t belong in such a widely celebrated parade.    Hopefully 2016 will be the year that the more offensive traits of the parade get squashed.Featured image via Joshua Scott Albert Twitter