MADRID.- The City Council of Madrid apologized on Friday after being accused of racism for spreading a video in which an actor appeared with his face painted black representing the rey magician Baltasar
In the video, sent in recent days to dozens of children who requested it from a neighborhood town hall, a white actor who plays the role of Baltasar wears black makeup and deliberately speaks in bad Spanish with a forced accent.
“It is a regrettable mistake,” admitted to the press the number two of the City Council governed by conservatives, María Inmaculada Sanz Otero. “This actor was obviously not the right person to make those videos,” she added, specifying that they had asked the company hired to make those videos for explanations.
Rita Maestre, leader of the left-wing opposition in the municipal council, denounced the racism in the video in a message published on the social network X, formerly Twitter. “It is irresponsible and unforgivable that racism comes from an institution,” wrote, also in X, the anti-racist association Afrofminas.
“The City Council owes a public apology to the entire Afro-descendant population that it stereotypes and ridicules in this garbage video,” he asserted.
Tradition of the Three Wise Men
In Spain, the wise men -Melchior, Gaspar and Baltasar- traditionally bring gifts to the children on the morning of January 6, after having paraded through the cities and towns of the country the day before.
The use of actors wearing black makeup to represent Baltasar is still common and causes controversy every year.
In Madrid, the left-wing mayor who led the city from 2015 to 2019, Manuela Carmena, put an end to this practice in 2016 on the occasion of the very popular Three Kings Parade, broadcast live on television.
Since then, the capital employs a black man to play the role of Baltasar.
The footballer Andrés Iniesta, scorer of Spain’s winning goal in the 2010 World Cup, had to apologize in 2019 for publishing a photo on the Internet in which he appeared with his family along with two people wearing black makeup to represent Baltasar and a page.
FUENTE: AFP
