“I usually try to keep a cool head when it comes to these things, but reading your comments @samanthakayty infuriated me,” Henry Golding recently posted on his Instagram Stories.
The 25-year-old beauty queen sparked the ire of many when she made several racists remarks on her Instagram Stories, downplaying the harsh reality faced by black Americans and telling them to accept things as it is since they “chose” to be born as a coloured person in America.
Using the Bersih campaign as an example, where Malaysians “[put] their lives on the line to be heard”, Golding stated, “If you were part of that movement then please understand where the #BlackLivesMatter protests come from.”
Below are the screenshots from Henry Golding’s post.
“I’m not going to let people have the wrong idea of what’s really happening. In a country like Malaysia that has a history of the such, that we are trying so hard to move on from. Love one another. One Malaysia, one world,” the Malaysian-British actor ended his post.
Samantha’s tone-deaf remarks were made yesterday regarding the Black Lives Matter protests in America that were held nationwide last weekend, following the death of George Floyd while in police custody. American celebrities also took part in the protests, such as John Cusack who revealed on his social media that he was even attacked by the police for filming the protests.
Netizens have urged the Miss Universe Malaysia Organization (MUMO) to revoke Samantha’s title. MUMO has responded with a statement on Twitter which acknowledge that her posts are indeed “inappropriate, offensive, unacceptable and hurtful”, but she has not represented MUMO since June 2018 and thus her words do not reflect its views.
Undeterred, netizens continue collecting signatures for the “Strip Samantha Katie James of her Miss Universe Malaysia Crown and Title” petition on Change.org.