Red Symons’ podcast pulled by ABC over blackface and ‘What’s the deal with Asians?’ outrage
In the face of social media outrage the ABC this afternoon removed a podcast of Radio National’s It’s Not A Race interview between host Red Symons and Beverley Wang.
The podcast was an unedited version of an ABC Radio Melbourne interview broadcast on June 12. In it, Symons described the 2009 infamous Hey, Hey It’s Saturday blackface incident as being ‘alleged’.
After originally been posted last night, the story was picked up on social media and spread quickly. While the ABC later stated the podcast website has been taken down, the audio file still remains available for download.
During the podcast, Wang and Symons discussed race relations including a particularly clumsy exchange revolving around Symons explaining how different skin colours came about because of how long God left dough in the oven before moving on to discussing the Hey Hey It’s Saturday segment.
It’s not racist at all, but even if it was… it’s freedom of speech to me. I get insulted all the time in real life.
Everyone knows Red Symons is a difficult person, he’s intelligent and realizes that Asians are very racially conscious. They go to the West coasts of America and Canada because it’s closest to Asia. Asians feel if those countries economically go down hill, they’ll just take the next flight to China, Japan or Korea.
Herewith a message to those media icons whose game relies on faux persona: it’s very messy when the gag runs out of steam. Red used to be the naughty boy. Now just awkward.
Poor Ol’ Red. I think he’s getting a bit past the used by date. Retirement might be a better form of apology.
P.S. Bill, you’re a goose.