To be clear this 100% happened, the reason you aren’t seeing a ton of official communication is that it happened off-mic on stage in front of three National Yo-Yo League members, who are actively busy running the US National Yo-Yo Contest, and they (understandably) want to ensure the contest runs smoothly.
So at this point we should talk about it and not deny/avoid/beat around the bush. Doing otherwise is a disservice to the community.
To 100% what was said and by who:
On stage before the judging panel Q&A at the national yoyo contest, YYF Ben (yes, Ben McPhee) walked up to Colin Beckford and two other NYYL members (if you don’t know who Colin is, he’s a judge for the National Yo-Yo League, one of the founders of Scales, and has done a crazy amount behind the scenes for yoyoing) with a red and blue lollipop and asks him to pick one. Colin declines, and Ben then says “the red one represents the blood of black people on juneteenth”. Colin + the other two NYYL members didn’t reply out of shock, Ben said some other nonsense and walked away.
The only unclear details at the moment are if Ben said black people or slaves (…same intention so doesn’t make a difference), and then exactly what Ben was saying afterwards while walking off (it definitely was NOT an apology).
(josh is one of the facebook BST mods)
There’s no other way to write this off other than deliberate racism. Colin has done more for the yoyo community through helping to run a crazy amount of contests, being heavily involved in judging and the NYYL, running scales, and being a role model for minority yoyoers to look up to. The implications of Ben feeling comfortable enough to make a racist joke to Colin of all people should say a lot. Ben is literally the face of the biggest yoyo company in the world and this isn’t even the first time he’s been in hot water for being a racist. IMO off with his head. (figuratively speaking…)