Former Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka is in the country for the Australian Open. Currently ranked 3rd in the world, Osaka who plays for Japan has tweeted on how disgusting the current state of anti-Asian racism is. Now her tweets are not Australian specific per se, but she has made these comments whilst in Australia and we all can’t deny that this is not a rampant problem in Oz.
Here are some of the things she has said:
“The amount of hate, racism, and blame for COVID towards the Asian community is disgusting,”
“The fact that this topic is not very widely covered makes me concerned.“
“I only found videos and information because I was scrolling through my IG (Instagram) feed and by some algorithm it appeared.”
“And while I’m here – saying “Ching Chong” and “shrimp fried rice” when talking about/to a Asian person isn’t cool,”
“You aren’t funny, it’s not a joke and you’re beyond pathetic.”
The Asian Australian Alliance in collaboration with Osmond Chiu – Research Fellow at Per Capita, a progressive think tank launched the COVID-19 Racism Incident Report survey in April 2020, and to date has recorded over 500 incidents of COVID-19 related racism reports happening in Australia. Hence, the tweets made by Osaka is very relevant to the hateful situation in Australia, and it is awesome that she has made these tweets as she has a huge platform and she has used her voice and influence to speak out against racial injustice.
Good luck to Osaka, our fellow Asian sister in the Australian Open Grand Slam – let’s see her prevail!
Image via 7 News Australia
To read the full article, please click on: Aus Open champ Naomi Osaka condemns ‘beyond pathetic’ and ‘disgusting’ racist comment