Earlier this week, we reported on a fiery social media outburst from Melbourne musician Baro, who took to task any white Australians who still think it’s acceptable to don blackface as part of Halloween or muck-up day costumes.
“Please white people DONT paint your face black this Halloween,” he wrote on his official Facebook page. “YOU FUCKING IDIOT WHAT IS GOING THROUGH YOUR HEAD BITCH YOU DONT DESERVE YOUR PRIVILEGE ONE BIT.”
“FUCK UR MUM N UR DAD TOO FOR CALLING OUT UR CRACK HABIT BUT NOT HOW YOU ATTEMPTED TO GO AS BLACK FACE TO HALLOWEEN OR YR 12 MUCK UP DAY. FFFFFAIL UR EXAMS BITCH RUIN UR LIFE!!!!” the clearly incensed emcee continued.
The response to Baro’s post was mostly positive, with many showing solidarity with the rapper’s passionate sentiment, but as Complex Australia reports, there was unfortunately a whole lot of ugliness too.
The rapper, who is of Ethiopian heritage, was salvoed with racist comments, including one commenter who wrote, “God this just makes me want to oppress ethnic minorities”, and another who added, “But I thought you were supposed to dress up scary on Halloween.”
Puzzlingly, there were quite a few commenters who claimed they would no longer support Baro following his post — “Last time I support your music” — while others claimed that the whole issue was being blown out of proportion and an example of PC overreach.
please white people DONT paint your face black this Halloween YOU FUCKING IDIOT WHAT IS GOING THROUGH YOUR HEAD BITCH…
Posted by Baro onMonday, October 26, 2015
The backlash even crept over to the Tone Deaf Facebook page. “Wow. Maybe this idiot needs to grow up. Piss off you moron! I’ll paint my face whatever colour I like,” one commenter wrote after we shared our story.
An ensuing flame war prompted a response from Baro himself, who paid a visit to our Facebook comments section to share his thoughts on the controversy, writing, “So much more can be extracted from your vacuous statements to dumb down people who are already stupid.”
“But in reality ur [sic] voice is too dim to ‘educate’ anybody so these words have no effect other than making people with opposing thoughts frustrated.” Readers can check out the whole exchange via the Tone Deaf Facebook page.
Baro’s post follows a highly publicised incident involving a a schoolteacher in Alabama, who decided to wear blackface as part of a Kanye West costume, and a Florida student who posted photos of herself in blackface, dressed as rapper Nicki Minaj.
