HolyCoast: He's Back, but is He Black?

Last night on KTLA Prime News at 10 pm I saw what easily has to be the dumbest protest ever. The new King Tut exhibit is opening in Los Angeles where the citizens will have the chance to see the many treasures from the tomb of the boy king. This is the first time back to LA for the exhibit since it was last here in 1978. The museum had some type of star-studded gala last night as the official opening for the Tut tour.

Nearby was a group of folks who were loudly protesting the exhibit. Why? Because, according to them, King Tut isn't black enough (funny, I've never seen these people protesting Michael Jackson, and he's whiter than me). Yes, racial politics has entered the debate about King Tut.

I would link you to an article about the protest, but so far I haven't found anything in the LA Times or on the KTLA website, even though they carried a story about it including interviews with the protest leader.

The outraged anthropologists of South Central are all upset at the new computer image of Tut that was recently released.

The image shows a person with facial features and skin tones comparable to the folks you would find in Egypt today. The protesters insist this image is wrong. Why? The "logic" of their argument goes something like this: Egypt is in Africa, therefore King Tut must look African with very dark skin and Africanized features (sort of what Michael Jackson used to have). I guess the fact that the citizens of Egypt today don't look much like the citizens of the southern and central Africa has no bearing on their argument.

This sort of reminds me of the "black Jesus" arguments that some have offered in the past, and I'm just amazed at the extent some folks will go to create a controversy.

Frankly, I think King Tut looked like this:

UPDATE: John at Blogotional thinks King Tut looks remarkably like Boy George (see comments). Will this get the gay crowd up in arms? You know, John may be onto something. Add a little hair and a lot of makeup, it could be Boy George.