News & Politics

Hawaii Man Wears Blackface to Court to Protest Conviction

As if stabbing multiple people during a bout of road rage weren’t enough to label you as an unhinged menace to society, choosing to wear blackface to your sentencing hearing as a form of protest is simply icing on your mentally unstable cake. And, yet, that’s exactly what Mark Char chose to do, adding just a little more validation to his life sentence for attempted murder.

Hawaii News Now reports that Char’s legal troubles stem from a road-rage incident that took place in 2016:

In March, Mark Char was found guilty of attempted murder and assault following a triple stabbing on the H-1 Freeway nearly three years ago.

Char was accused of stabbing the victims following a road rage confrontation, though he testified during the trial that he acted in self-defense. One of the victims was stabbed five times and was taken to a hospital in critical condition following the attack.

Char claimed that he was cut off by the victims’ truck and that he stabbed them as an act of self-defense. Witnesses, however, testified otherwise, calling Char “combative and angry.”

Apparently, based on his actions at his sentencing hearing, Char is still combative and angry.

During a nearly three-minute-long speech, Hawaii News Now says that Char “called his court-appointed attorney ‘incompetent’ and claimed he was not given a fair trial in Judge Todd Eddins’ ‘kangaroo’ court.”

He delivered his speech while wearing blackface, having used a black permanent marker to color nearly his entire head based on the photos. In his own words, he did so because “Now this kangaroo court is trying to give me a life sentence for me trying to protect and defend myself against the attack from three guys ― in essence, treating me like a black man. So today I’m going to be a black man.”

Considering that he reportedly used a permanent marker to create his blackface, Char will begin his life sentence as a “black man” and continue as one for the unforeseeable future — which probably won’t bode well for his health and well-being if he’s placed in the general population.