A white Oklahoma pastor is trying to defend himself after being seen in a video that showed him in blackface, and says he won’t apologize since he was tributing Ray Charles.
Sherman Jaquess, the pastor of the Matoaka Baptist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, said he painted his body in black smudge and wore a Jheri curl wig during a 2017 Valentine’s Day performance because he was paying tribute to Ray Charles.
“We have people [who] are offended by a lot of things, but it’s hard to play Ray Charles if you don’t play a Black man; it wasn’t anything,” Jaquess told to the Examiner-Enterprise.
Marq Lewis, a Tulsa activist who posted the video on Facebook, said there’s no excuse for the pastor’s actions.
“You can honor anyone by not putting on blackface, and he is ignoring the historical references and all of the satirical types of caricatures that African Americans have gone through in this country,” Lewis said according to the Examiner-Enterprise.
Jaquess, however, insists that he didn’t do anything racist.
“It wasn’t derogatory, wasn’t racial in any way, and we’re not racist at all. I don’t have a racist bone in my body. I have a lot of racial friends,” he said.
“For him to say that’s not racist says to me that he is completely out of touch with the reality of what this world and this country has dealt with — it’s actually a slap in the face of African Americans and all people of color,” Lewis said in response.
Jaquess continued to make excuses during his sermon Sunday.
“There wasn’t anything racial about it. I was singing Ray Charles ‘Seven Spanish Angels,’ and I said, ‘I love Ray Charles’ music. How can you portray Ray Charles if you’re not a Black man?’” he said in a sermon posted online according to the Atlanta Black Star.
Jaquess had another similar incident when he dressed up as an indigenous woman, appearing in brownface, during a Cowboys and Indians-themed night at a church camp.
The Oklahoma man has also been critical of LGBTQIA+ people. Jaquess has been speaking up against a local Pride event that featured a drag show. He also goes to social media regularly to criticize drag queens.