Donuel, regarding the above case, I just read this in my morning paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

I'm just including highlights of the article, which is a reprint from the NYT.

Blackface in New York parade not meant as slur, ex-officer says
Benjamin Weiser
New York Times

Published Jan. 12, 2003 SLUR12
   
NEW YORK -- A former New York City police officer testified Tuesday that he wore blackface on a Labor Day parade float in Queens in 1998 because he wanted to entertain people, make them laugh and win a trophy.

He said he concluded that the float, called "Black to the Future: 2098," was offensive only after he watched it later on television.

Locurto, 35, and two former firefighters, Jonathan Walters and Robert Steiner, who were all fired for their roles in the parade, testified in a trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. All three have sued seeking reinstatement and contending that their dismissals were based on the content of their speech and violated their First Amendment rights.

Giuliani sharply condemned the float at the time and said of the officer, "The only way this guy gets back on the police force is if the Supreme Court of the United States tells us to put him back."

In his testimony, Locurto said he had used black lipstick to paint his face, and wore a black wig during the parade, in Broad Channel. The float also included tubs of fried chicken, and some participants threw watermelon slices to spectators, testimony showed.

Walters testified that he twice briefly hung to the back of the truck carrying the float to re-enact the killing of James Byrd Jr., a black man who was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck in Texas the previous June.

"Did you intend it to be racist?" his lawyer, Michael Block, asked.

"No, sir," Walters replied.

Walters said the float was intended to parody the views of the mostly white Broad Channel community, and to show "how foolish their stereotypes were."