ABC’s Black Comedy has sparked debate over a parody video that features indigenous actors debating whether or not white people are c***s.
The video, which was shared to Facebook on Friday, appears to be in direct response to a recent Sunrise segment that featured three white people discussing Federal Children’s Minister David Gillespie’s call for white Australian families to adopt indigenous children suffering abuse from their relatives. The segment was panned online by activists for failing to include an indigenous representative.
The Black Comedy video took a similar angle, with the show’s host and writer Nakkiah Lui asking a fake panel of experts “the age-old question. Are white people c***s?”.
“Earlier this week, beloved Aboriginal man Uncle Stevie in a press conference referred to white people as c***s,” Lui says in the clip. “This has sparked outrage in the white community, with many calling for the removal of his uncle status and a public apology.”
She then passed it over to the “expert panel” and asked one man to offer his opinion simply because he was wearing a suit. That man agreed with the notion, and said “one of them [white people] stole my parking spot.” He added: “the audacity of these people.”
‘Expert’ Catrina, was up next, and told Lui she didn’t want to be branded a racist, but agreed white people are c***s. The third man on the panel admitted he’d never met a white person, but also agreed with Uncle Stevie’s view.
The satirical video had been viewed 165,000 times at the time of publishing and had garnered hundreds of comments. While some found the video hilarious, others accused the show’s writers of inflaming the situation.
“I don’t see how this is part of the solution, it just inflames the situation and strengthens the divide,” one woman commented on the video. “That’s just racism not comedy,” said another.
However, plenty of people saw the funny side. One person wrote: “I feel like we’ve had conversions around morning shows and racism illustrated fabulously by this sketch”. Another comment read: “Sunrise and the team are going to be shaking in their boots when they see this parody,” while a third added: “OMG this cracked me up”.