Washington — Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican in a tight race for reelection, apologized for wearing blackface as part of a Michael Jackson costume when he was in college.
A photo of Lawler’s Halloween costume from 2006, when he was 20, was published by the New York Times on Thursday. Lawler is wearing a red leather jacket that resembles the one Jackson wears in his “Thriller” music video. Lawler’s face has also been darkened.
Lawler confirmed the authenticity of the photo in a statement to CBS News, saying the costume was meant to be “the sincerest form of flattery, a genuine homage to one of my childhood idols since I was a little kid trying to moonwalk through my Mom’s kitchen.”
“When attempting to imitate Michael’s legendary dance moves at a college Halloween party eighteen years ago, the ugly practice of black face was the furthest thing from my mind,” he said. “Let me be clear, this is not that.”
“I am a student of history and for anyone who takes offense to the photo, I am sorry,” he added. “All you can do is live and learn, and I appreciate everyone’s grace along the way.”
Lawler is not the first politician to come under scrutiny over blackface, a racist art form dating back to the minstrel shows in the 1830s
in which White performers darkened their skin with cork and greasepaint and exaggerated their features, perpetuating stereotypes of Black people.
Ralph Northam, the former Democratic governor of Virginia, faced calls to resign over a photo in a medical school yearbook that resurfaced in 2019 and showed a person wearing blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan costume. Northam at first apologized for being one of the two people in the photo, then later told CBS News’ Gayle King that he had “overreacted” and realized later that he was not in the photo.