Osman Faruqi has come under fire for attacking a photo of female journalists.
In a tweet, Faruqi wrote,
“now this is what I call people of colour on Television”.
It didn’t take long for one of the journalists in the photo to respond to Osman Faruqi, pointing out that she’s half Malaysian and one of the other women in the picture happens to be Sri Lankan.
Thank you Osman ☺️
I am half Malaysian and @SharnelleVella is half Sri Lankan so appreciate the acknowledgment 👏🏼 https://t.co/fr2m9v2ELX— Estelle Griepink (@EstelleGriepink) June 29, 2020
nothing like judging a book by its colour hey boss
btw @SharnelleVella is sri lankan and @EstelleGriepink is malaysian, but i'm sure you knew that before tweeting right https://t.co/Ex6ZS2S4Wj
— Danny Tran (@DANNYTRAN) June 29, 2020
Osman tried denying the apparent attack on their racial diversity, but his colleagues were not having a bar of it.
No no. That wasn’t a pun. You invited your followers to pass judgement on a group of hardworking women – because you made an assumption – that you thought was funny. It was far from it.
— Sharnelle Vella (@SharnelleVella) June 29, 2020
Meanwhile, his mother, Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, tweeted a similar attack on the media at the same time.
The Australian media is overwhelmingly white. Multicultural Australia lives and breathes on the streets, but disappears as soon as we turn on the TV or open up a magazine or a newspaper.https://t.co/P51NFcyYOT
— Mehreen Faruqi (@MehreenFaruqi) June 29, 2020
Too bad the photo her son attacked proves otherwise. Two of six women in the picture were people of colour, that’s 33%. People of colour only make up approx 24% of our population. So, it turns out people of colour “appear MORE as soon as we turn on the TV”.
The thing is, Osman and his mum think they speak for people of colour in Australia.
They don’t.
The vast majority of us cannot stand their race-baiting.