Matthew Scafidi is was a successful real estate agent, until he recently got stood down from his “Director” position from Jellis Craig – a real estate company based in Mitcham, Melbourne. Scafadi was sacked because of the social media uproar over a racist comment he made on his personal Facebook page. The comment was anti-Chinese and falls into the rhetoric akin saying “all things made in China are poor quality” – yes that old thing. This is what he wrote:
‘No Australia Made logo on this one, can I assume on this and price that it’s a Chinese import? Wanting to avoid Chinese imports if I can,’
He has since deleted his post, but here is an image of it (via Daily Mail).
Grace Lye has posted about this on her Facebook page and has called for action on Scafidi – which has since happened as he got sacked, and she mentions that the media has left a lot of stuff out as she stated in her post:
RE: MITCHAM JELLIS CRAIG REAL ESTATE – Matthew Scafadi & David McCullochThe media hasn’t told the full story. They are leaving out information that is crucial to why he was fired. Nothing still has been reported about David McCulloch, Matthew’s subordinate.
She has placed some evidence of a comment reply to Scafidi’s original post which is actually even more racist than Scafidi’s original post – its calling China “COVID infested” and that we Asians can’t speak English and we should go back to China… here check it out ( Lye has stated that she has verified this comment to be real).
She also posted a screenshot of a message exchange between Scafidi and someone named “Roger” – though this message screenshot has not been verified to be real and she has hash-tagged #TheHuntforRoger to verify the message.
What is interesting is that not only have media outlets who have reported on this are trying to spin this off as not being racist, but they have tried to humanise Scafidi and indirectly insinuate that he was wronged. Here is an excerpt from the Daily Mail article on this situation:
While Mr Scafidi’s reluctance to buy a Chinese product ahead of an Australian one has prompted a remarkable reaction by his former employer, China itself has had no hesitation in boycotting Australian products.
Australian exporters of coal, wine and barley have been hit hard by a Chinese trade war against products from Down Under, brought about by Beijing’s anger that Australia wanted an independent inquiry into the source of the Covid virus.
Mr Scafidi has given thousands of dollars to local community projects including Mitcham’s football and cricket clubs.
Oh and of course Pauline Hanson had to weigh into this too… I assume I don’t need to say much on this.
Finally, it seems that real estate company Jellis Craig really only acted because of the comments on the Google review and their rating went down to 1.2 – thank you to all the awesome people who did that!
And.. that is all we will say on this topic, until more updates come about.
Images via Daily Mail and Grace Lye Facebook page
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