NYDailyNews - UPDATED: Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind says there was nothing offensive about donning blackface make-up and an Afro wig as part of a costume he wore for a Purim party he hosted this weekend, but his fellow lawmakers are calling it an outrage. “Yes, I wore a costume on Purim and hosted a party. Most of the people who attended also wore costumes. Everywhere that Purim was being celebrated, people wore costumes. It was Purim. People dress up,” “I am intrigued that anyone who understands Purim — or for that matter understands me — would have a problem with this,” he continued. “This is political correctness to the absurd. There is not a prejudiced bone in my body.” Hkind said the costume, which also included dark sunglasses and a bright orange jersey, was intended to be in “good fun” and that he was simply trying to emulate “sort of a black basketball player.” “You know, anyone who knows anything about Purim knows that if you walk throughout the community, whether it’s Williamsburg, Boro Park, Flatbush, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens Hills, people get dressed up in, you name it, you know, in every kind of dress-up imaginable.”

“It is racist,” City Councilman Charles Barron, a Brooklyn Democrat, told the Daily News this afternoon. “That is a bunch of crap. He is trying to justify his racism.” Barron added: “If he wanted to find somebody who [looked] strange, wild and crazy, he should look in the mirror. He didn’t have to pick on us.”

Everybody is all up in arms about this. I’m sure KFC is going to come riding in on his white horse with his white hood on and say something anti semitic about Dov Hikind. Listen do I condone blackface? No. But you got to understand Purim is Purim. Shit is wild. It’s like Ibaza, Mardi Gras and Carnival all rolled into one for God’s chosen people. So it’s only natural that shit gets a little weird. Sometimes a Jewish Brooklyn Assemblyman will dress in blackface as some sort of black basketball player in an outfit that doesn’t remotely look like a basketball uniform. It’s not meant to be offensive. It’s just what happens on Purim. Nothing is out of bounds. Anybody who knows anything about Purim knows that.  Total non story.