, with the note, “This news story from Portland starts off strangely enough. Then it gets stranger. More normalization of the bizarre…”
Boy banned from wearing Obama mask in skit
by Michelle Roberts, The Oregonian
Friday March 13, 2009, 9:20 PM
[Note: Go to the article to see related videos.]
A mask similar to one President Barack Obama himself wore in a “Saturday Night Live” skit prompted a Portland school principal to ban a boy from performing while wearing it at his elementary school talent show after deciding the rubber likeness of the 44th president was “inappropriate and potentially offensive.”
Dru Lechert-Kelly, 11, a fifth-grader at Llewellyn Elementary School in Southeast Portland, decided to dress up like his role model and dance to a popular YouTube song that features an Obama look-alike dancing to a parody called “I Can Do Whatever I Like.”
Dru performed the skit in front of teachers and students during a rehearsal for Llewellyn’s annual talent show Thursday. He wore a navy blue suit, white shirt, red tie, black shoes and an Obama mask purchased at a costume shop. The choreographed routine ended with Dru on the floor in the splits.
Dru Lechert-Kelly’s classmates at Llewellyn Elementary School loved his imitation of President Barack Obama. But because some adults feared his act might be seen as insensitive, he was told he couldn’t perform the act while wearing a costume mask of the president.
Michael Lloyd/The OregonianDru Lechert-Kelly’s classmates at Llewellyn Elementary School loved his imitation of President Barack Obama. But because some adults feared his act might be seen as insensitive, he was told he couldn’t perform the act while wearing a costume mask of the president.
“He practiced for weeks,” said Scott Lechert, 50, an instructional designer, who along with his partner, Paul Kelly, 55, a physical therapist, adopted Dru from a Romanian orphanage in 1999 at age 1 1/2. Both dads helped Dru design his stage props—a desk with a large presidential seal stuck to the front with duct tape. And both coached their son to “have lots of bop” and “use your shoulders” during his routine.
After Thursday’s performance, the “crowd went wild,” Dru said. But so did some of the adults in the audience.
“I talked to the parents who are coordinating the talent show, and they feel it’s inappropriate and potentially offensive,” Llewellyn Principal Steve Powell said.
When asked what was offensive about Dru’s skit, Powell refused to discuss it.
“I won’t say why it’s inappropriate,” he said. “I’m not saying anything to The Oregonian. Why? Because I don’t want to.”
Powell said he hadn’t seen Dru’s performance but has watched the parody on YouTube.
Lechert had to break it to his son: One of the talent show organizers had called to say that Dru could perform his skit but that he wouldn’t be allowed to wear the mask.
On Friday, Dru decided not to perform at all—opting instead to attend a roller-skating party.
The reasons, according to Dru: The skit doesn’t make sense without the mask, and he’s a little too shy to do it without the mask.
“If I don’t have the mask,” Dru said Friday, “it’s just some kid up there dancing around.”
As for Dru’s parents, they find the whole thing confusing as well.
“I understand the history of black face and how African Americans were caricatured by it,” Lechert said. “However, we now have a popular biracial president who is admired by white and nonwhite people. At what point will it become OK for an 11-year-old admirer to dress up as the president without fear of offending someone?”
Kelly said that as a gay couple, he and Lechert consider themselves particularly sensitive to issues of minority groups.
“We are white, but we’re a minority class,” he said. “We have some insight into this process of what is and what isn’t offensive. There was obviously no intent to harm here—or really any possibility of offending anyone.”
As for Dru, he’s disappointed—he’s been practicing for weeks. But what bothers him most is that anyone would think he’d do anything that might offend his hero: Barack Obama.
When asked what he liked most about the new president, Dru said, “He said he would try to change the world and make the economy better.”
Lechert pushed his son to tell the whole truth.
“Well, also because somebody told me he has a Wii all hooked up to a huge flatscreen in the White House. That’s cool.”
—Michelle Roberts; michelleroberts@news.oregonian.com
Adela G. writes:
You write:
“Leaving aside the weirdness of the homosexual adoption, I think this is a sad story. The kid worked on this act, he prepared for it, he was good at it, and then it was taken away from him, and for the silliest reason. An experience like that puts a young person down. Apparently we cannot have masks of Negro presidents. We can only have masks of white presidents.”
You and I part company on this one. I don’t think we should have masks of Negro presidents—or of white presidents—in skits performed in public schools. The focus here is on the race of the president when really it should be on the way a frivolous skit complete with a replica of the Presidential seal is unsuitable to the dignity of the office (if not, as is currently the case, of its occupant).
It’s one thing for people to wear Obama or Bush or Roosevelt masks on Halloween. It’s quite another for the office of POTUS to be shown in such an undignified light in a school production.
The boy’s two “fathers” would certainly object to their “parenthood” being shown in such a silly light when of course, the fact is that two men being the “parents” of any child is biologically impossible and therefore the mere notion of it is—or should be—really quite silly. Yet these two are quite insensitive to the notion that a child wearing a caricature of the president’s face while performing a dance routine complete with “lots of bop” might be lacking in the dignity that is—or should be—associated with the office of the presidency.
This has nothing to do with my feeling about the Oval Office’s current occupant. If I had my way, he would be jettisoned from the office at once, stripped of his citizenship and deported to Kenya.
Philip R. writes: