Adut Akech, the South Sudanese – Australian model has expressed how disappointed she is after Australia’s Who Magazine, published an interview with Akech alongside the image of a fellow model Flavia Lazarus.
Stating that she felt angry and disrespected, she said, “Not only do I personally feel insulted and disrespected, but I feel like my entire race has been disrespected.”
The public relations agency responsible for the mix up, OPR, had earlier apologized for the mistake saying, “The error was administrative and unintentional and we sincerely apologise for this mistake and any upset it has caused to the models involved, and our client the City of Melbourne.”
OPR made this statement on the Melbourne Fashion Weeks Instagram page. Akech is an ambassador for Melbourne Fashion Week.
“I want to say how frustrated and deeply disappointed we are at the @cityofmelbourne regarding what’s occurred with our incredible @melbfashionweek ambassador Adut Akech and MFW model Flavia Lazarus,” Melbourne’s Lord Mayor Sally Capp stated in response to the incident. “Adut is right, we need to do better.”
This was after a meeting between Sally Capp and Adut Akech.
In the interview, Akech discussed spending part of her childhood as a refugee in Kenya. She also discussed both race and the treatment of refugees in the article.
This incident however shows how deep racial bias is among whites who ee black people as the same despite the difference in appearance. According to Akech, this is a common occurence in workplaces and classrooms.
“Whoever did this clearly thought that was me in that picture and that’s not OK,” she wrote. “By this happening I feel like it defeated the purpose of what I stand for and spoke about. It goes to show that people are very ignorant and narrow-minded that they think every black girl or African people looks the same. I’m sure that I’m not the first person that’s experienced this and it needs to stop.”
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