Maria Thattil who is currently on I‘m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here has recently been attacked online and shamed for interracial dating. The attacks came as Thattil and fellow contestant on the show Joey Essex (The Only Way is Essex Star) both admitted on the show that they had a strong bond and connection to each other.
Thattil is more than just a Miss Universe Australia 2020 winner, she has used her huge platform to talk about social issues affecting women and racism and has recently come out to her family and in public saying that she identifies as bisexual.
The attacks about Thattil having a strong connection with a non Indian/Asian guy were all over social media earlier this month. Here is the type of attacks she has received (via Refinery29):
Why some Indian girls go for white guys instead of their own??? ( On Instagram)
Thattil told Refinery 29 that she won’t stand for being attacked for being who she is and for being judged on who she should and shouldn’t like or be attracted to (via Refinery29):
Every time I’ve dated somebody who has appeared to be white, there’s always been that conversation around, ‘What do your parents think?’ There’s almost this assumption that my family are going to want me to marry a nice Indian doctor, which is actually something that a man said to me on Tinder – he asked me if that was the expectation.
So when it’s come up with Joey, I thought let me address this because there is a real double standard here. When you see Black and brown people dating somebody outside their ethnic background, for a white person there is such a fetishisation of ‘Wow, they’re so exotic. Look at you dating someone who’s different.’
But women, in particular Black and foreign women, they are held to such an unrealistic standard of scrutiny and they are shamed for it.”It’s, ‘Why don’t you date your own?’ and ‘How dare you?’ and it’s just a disgusting double standard, and I think that we’re past that. We’re past analysing and scrutinising interracial relationships.
Good on her for standing up against these narrow minded attacks.
Images via Instagram and Refinery29