Basketball star Liz Cambage has voiced her outrage at fellow Opal Alice Kunek who posted a picture of herself at a costume party dressed as rapper Kanye West in a beanie, ripped tight jeans and her face and body painted brown.
Kunek, 25, posted this picture of herself on Instagram on Sunday standing next to her Melbourne Boomers teammate Tess Madgen, who was also in fancy dress which prompted Cambage to take to Twitter to vent her disgust.
In a series of tweets Cambage, 24, whose father is Nigerian, wrote:
“I’m am so shocked and disturbed to see this behavior from someone I’m meant to call a ‘teammate’”
And:
“blackface is disgusting, I honestly have no words.”
And:
“People wonder why I have issues with some @BasketballAus teammates, I’ve been dealing with these behaviour since we were kids”
Following the criticism Kunek deleted her initial post, replacing it with a similar picture without the face paint, and said she regretted posting image.
“I am so unbelievably sorry to all my followers who were offended by my previous post. It was never my intention to offend anyone at all. It was an honest mistake,” Kunek posted on Instagram.
She also took to Twitter to continue her apology.
“People who know me, know that I don’t judge others based on the colour of their skin… One of the things I love most about basketball is that I get to play with and against women from different countries… religions & upbringings and be united as a team. I never meant to offend any team mates, fans, or people in the community.”
While the racist, insensitive and derogatory historical symbolism for blackface shouldn’t be up for debate – someone donning a blackface costume should not be celebrated – surprisingly, actually, unsurprisingly rather, the individual being trolled in this instance is Cambage for pointing out the offensive costume.
There were plenty of warped-Wally’s coming out of the woodwork to defend Kunek’s actions and accusing Cambage of not being able to see the humour in the costume (yep, because racism is really funny you guys?!).
But thankfully Cambage seemed to shrug off the racist-enabling vitriol with a succinct tweet:
“I have learnt so much from white males today on racism, thanks so much guys X”
To all her haters, check your privilege.
We’ll let Cambage have the last word…
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