Photo Credit: Ellie Kemper/Instagram
Actress Ellie Kemper is finding herself apologizing for a 20+ year old photo of her participating in a controversial debutante ball in the 90s. In 1999 she was crowned the new Queen of Love and Beauty at the Veiled Prophet Ball in St. Louis. A lot has been said about the photo from her attire being falsely labeled as a kkk princess and then the organization’s history has been brought to the forefront of discussion.
So was no one gonna tell me Ellie kemper aka kimmy Schmidt was crowned KKK queen in 1999 pic.twitter.com/QdHJ6wGZGv
— charlie (@dianahungerr) May 31, 2021
In her statement, Kemper said “The century-old organization that hosted the debutante ball had an unquestionably racist, sexist, and elitist past. I was not aware of this history at the time, but ignorance is no excuse. I was old enough to have educated myself before getting involved.” She added, “I unequivocally deplore, denounce, and reject white supremacy. At the same time, I acknowledge that because of my race and my privilege, I am the beneficiary of a system that has dispensed unequal justice and unequal rewards.”
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In the ceremony, the debutante is crowned by a “veiled prophet” which many have loosely associated with the KKK. The reality is that the KKK hood, is a type of a capirote, something that has also been worn by the Catholic church. It’s important to note that the ball pre-dates the second formation of the KKK, when the white Capirote was popularized.
The controversy of the veiled prophet is that it has been a long running racist organization that did not include blacks until 1979, whose name also was that of the official St. Louis Fair through 1992 when it was changed to Fair Saint Louis. Also, the veiled prophet was always a mystery, that is until the early 70s when an activist ripped the hood off to reveal the identity of the prophet, something in part kept a secret so they didn’t have to take any of the connotations for being involved in the act.
I don’t know much about Ellie Kemper, but growing up in St. Louis in the 1970s and 1980, I remember The Veiled Prophet Fair very well. I was always told it was only for white people. The racial segregation was so normalized that people were just expected to know their place. pic.twitter.com/3pyhxsG2LX
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 1, 2021
Then there’s the sexist connotations of the appearance of auctioning off your daughter to the highest bidder. A Veiled Prophet member, William Martiz, in the late 70s was quoted as saying, A lot of members in the late 70’s ‘felt uneasy with the social connotations’ and people were saying ‘get that goddamn ball off the television, don’t force that on the community.’”
Whether Kemper should be held accountable for taking part in a community tradition at 19, probably not. But when we know better, we do better. And the acknowledgment and reckoning of this past can serve as a teaching mechanism.
