Let’s face it, by now you’ve heard about the firestorm of controversy that inexplicably ignited after Indigenous Australian musicians Briggs and Thelma Plum to Facebook to name and shame two Ballarat men who thought it sporting to don blackface for a costume party.
Both Briggs and Plum became the targets of widespread abuse on social media after calling out the two men, with several of their Aussie muso peers defending the pair, including Hilltop Hoods, Urthboy, The Funkoars, Birdz, Ry, Montaigne, Thundamentals, and more.
One of the most recent combatants to enter the fray is homegrown rapper Seth Sentry, who as FasterLouder reports, told Briggs he’s been living in a bubble since concluding his latest tour, but was shocked to learn that there were people actually defending blackface.
Sentry promptly took to his Facebook page where he issued a statement admonishing those defending the two Ballarat men and revealing that he would be “purging” any subsequent commenters standing up for the men or simply leaving racist and ignorant statements.
“Excuse my tardiness on the issue, but if you genuinely think that dressing up in ‘black face’ is just a bit of harmless fun, you need to pull your head out. What world are you living in where that is okay?” Sentry wrote on his official Facebook page.
“It’s not. I can’t believe people are actually defending these morons, like what the fuck? Some of the comments I read today being directed towards the indigenous musicians who spoke out & rightfully shamed these morons made me sick to my stomach.”
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“I will be reading these comments, let the purge begin,” Sentry concluded. Sure enough, countless commenters swarmed the post, accusing the musicians involved of “reverse racism”, dismissing blackface as “a bit of fun humour”, and… oh yeah, leaving death threats.
After completing his Facebook “purge”, Hilltop Hoods gave props to their fellow emcee via Twitter, asking more local hip-hop artist to come forward and voice their opinions. Replied Sentry: “Pretty full on. 50 bans & 3 death threats.”
Check out the, uh, ‘highlights’ below.
Images via Howl and Echoes
