The World’s Most-Watched Television Show Sparks Global Outrage With Racist ‘Blackface’ Skit

China’s Spring Festival Gala, the world’s most-watched television show with a reported 700 million viewers according to Time, sparked global outrage when it used blackface in one of its skits.

The skit in question, which was aired on the state-run China Central Television (CCTV) network, featured renowned Chinese actress, playwright and producer, Lou Naiming, in blackface and wearing fake buttocks, What’s on Weibo reported.

Naiming, who portrayed an African mother, appeared in the skit shortly after the opening performance, which featured African dancers and a group of women who are supposedly part of the staff of the new Chinese-built Kenyan train, South China Morning Post reported.

The scene, as explained by SCMP, started out when the host of the show decided to help his female friend by pretending to be her boyfriend so she could get out of a blind date.

Naiming, playing the part, then entered the stage along with a monkey – played by a black performer in costume – as a pet; as if blackface alone wasn’t racist enough.

A lot of people immediately took to Twitter to express their disgust with the Spring Festival Gala skit.

To add more fuel into the fire, a now-deleted Weibo post pointed out that there was a lion-shagging moment during the skit.

This is not the first time China displayed racism toward Africans. A Chinese museum in Wuhan opened an exhibit last year with the title “This is Africa” that seemingly compared Africans to wild animals.

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