bad Bestival travel experience for Kelis

American singer Kelis was the subject of racial hostility by a Brit after queue jumping whilst travelling back from this weekend's Bestival.

	Kelis

The 'Bossy' singer, has explained on Twitter, (here), that she was going through passport control, after her flight out of the UK with her son when she was taunted by racial abuse from an Englishman after angering him for queue jumping, and that none of the passengers around her reacted to it.

Kelis explains, "We just landed and I had the midget with me. we get in the passport control line and apparently p**sed this one man off cause he thought I cut the line. Which wouldn't be far fetched of me but this time I actually didn't (not entirely anyway)..."

"This fat red faced sweaty 'man' (I use the word man loosely here) started calling me a slave and told me to call him sir and how I was probably a disgusting Nigerian. He called me kunta kinte and ranted and raved some more. The man behind the passport desk laughed, shook his in agreement I guess, and said "kunta kinte". All the while the entire line full of people I just sat on a plane with for almost 3hours, over 50 people said nothing. I mean literally nothing. Didn't flinch. We all no I'm no saint, so I retaliated. Not the way I wanted to or how that pig deserved."

Whilst racism is always wrong, someone who queue jumps in front of people who are waiting patiently in a line is likely to illicit a bad reaction from someone. Whilst the reaction, and language used by the man cannot be condoned, jumping a queue is always likely to bring out the worst in people.

The slur from the person who she described as an approximately "50 year old Englishman" has prompted Kelis to lash out at racist attitudes in Britain, insisting we are decades behind in our attitudes, and that more people should stand up and fight against racism.

She writes, "I am in london all the time and today I'm gonna say that the racial issues in the UK are disgusting. It's racially decades behind progression because everything is swept under the rug. People don't talk about it. People don't fight about it."

"Not mentioning a problem doesn't make it go away. I bring it up now because as an American it is abundantly clear that my country has a smorgasbord of disgusting racial problems. We are the poster child for racial inequality even still with a black president But its No Secret! And that I can fight against. "I can try to prepare and teach my son. Because its out there. But you can't fight for or against something no one is willing to talk about or even admit exist (sic). Everyone wants to be politically correct. But who really cares...? Maybe someone will start to talk about it from here."

The American singer drew a big crowd in the sunshine on the main stage at Bestival last weekend on the Isle of Wight and Kelis twittered of the event, "Bestival was fantastic! And I didn't get stuck on the island so I'm even happier about that!"

eFestivals will have reviews and photos from last weekend online this week.

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