Subway passenger sparks outrage after wearing blackface as part of his Halloween costume

A subway passenger on the London Underground has sparked outrage after a video emerged of him wearing “blackface” as a Halloween costume.

The clip, originally shared on Twitter, shows a man wearing a wig and a suit, with his face painted black. A female passenger confronts the unidentified man as other people look on. She said:

“It’s a bit racist that you put black makeup on.”

Nonchalantly, the man shrugs and asks: “Why not?”

People said the man appeared to be attempting a costume as Samuel L Jackson’s character Jules Winnfield in “Pulp Fiction.”

The short clip, captioned, “It’s 2018? How is this still happening?” has since been deleted and it appears the account has been deactivated as well.

The video was posted on Saturday, and by Sunday, had been retweeted almost 4000 times. Twitter users in the comments section were also divided in their assessment of the incident.

One woman retweeted the video and remarked:

“His shrug of the shoulders and utter nonchalance with the woman next to him looking bemused is probably the most scary thing about this video.”

Another user noted:

“It’s not the fact that he is dressed up as someone black, it’s the fact he painted his face black. Blackface was always used (by white people) as something negative. They would exaggerate our features and make fun of us. Dressing up, fine. Blackface, never acceptable.”

On the flip side, other Twitter users said they saw nothing wrong in the man’s actions. One person compared it to dressing up on St. Patricks’ day:

“People dress in green on St. Patrick’s day and act like leprechauns and you don’t get up in arms. If I want to be Jules Winnfield from pulp fiction why not. He’s badass, not cause I’m racist?”

One user however shut down the argument, noting sarcastically, “Leprechauns do face systemic prejudice and inequality simply because they’re green, you’re absolutely right.”

RACISM ON A TRAIN

Meanwhile, only earlier this month, a middle-aged British woman was filmed spewing racist comments against Asian immigrants on a London Overground train.

Nassima Iggoute, the immigrant who captured the 56-second rant, explained:

"We sat on the London Overground this evening in front of this woman. She looked at us, asked if we even spoke English and if we were British. She then spent 20 minutes spewing hate speech."

You can read the rest of that story and watch the video here.