Several Illinois college football players said they were just joking when they dressed in Ku Klux Klan hoods and robes to parody the popular 2003 Bad Boys II film, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, the Chicago Tribune reports. The players, including some who are African American, also carried Confederate flags, the report says.
But instead of laughs, they provoked outrage at Wheaton College, a four-year Christian liberal arts institution in Wheaton, Ill. The students were forced to email an apology to the campus.
“I was shocked when I first heard that symbols with a history of racist violence had been used on our campus,” Wheaton College President Philip Ryken said in a statement. “Sadly, this is a campus where we have sins to confess and people to forgive every day.”
The skit took place Feb. 28 in a campus gym during the football team’s annual off-season team-building activity, which involved groups of teammates performing skits, the report says. Some coaches, who also apologized, attended the event.
Source: The Root | LYNETTE HOLLOWAY
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