And the Chris Brown saga continues.
GetUp!, the activist group leading the campaign calling for Brown to have his Visa blocked by the Australian federal government, have issued an apology for the ‘racist aspects’ of their campaign.
“Over the course of the weekend a lot of people started reaching out to us and raising the issue of the racist aspects of this campaign,” said national director, Paul Oosting via the Sydney Morning Herald, “We have a migration system that unfairly targets people of colour and this is a system that we inadvertently fed into. We caused angst and grief and we are unreservedly apologising for that,” he adds.
“I find Chris Brown abhorrent and it’s really damaging to society that men who commit domestic violence are granted celebrity status. There are wide range of white Australian men who have committed acts of domestic violence who enjoy celebrity status.”
Oosting also added that GetUp! will continue to lobby the federal government about domestic violence, particularly funding for frontline services such as women’s refuges. This is the first time GetUp! have made such a major change to a campaign.
“As an organisation with a small staff base we are not always going to get it right and we have to be open to changing our approach and acknowledging where we got things wrong,” he said.