Sunrise host Samantha Armytage is trending on Twitter after a clip of her commenting on the appearance of mixed-race twins Lucy and Mary Alymer went viral for illustrating Australia’s problem with “casual racism.”
The segment, which was filmed in April 2015, shows Armytage commenting on the twins’ different appearance, which is already a bit of a weird thing to be talking about on breakfast television.
“The Alymer twins come from a mixed race family in the UK,” she says in the video. “Maria has taken after her half-Jamaican mum with dark skin, brown eyes and curly, dark hair but Lucy got her dad’s fair skin … good on her … along with straight red hair and blue eyes.”
If we’re ignoring the fact that the entire segment was pretty questionable to begin with, “good on her” is uhhh… not good.
https://twitter.com/EttyTweets/status/1268844020559753216
Armytage’s comments clearly illustrate the deep-rooted racism in Australia, but co-host David Koch didn’t do much better.
“One of the twins is obviously black, the other is white,” Kochie also said during the segment, which seems a little weird considering both twins are of mixed race, and share the same ethnic background.
To make matters worse, he was visibly taken aback by Armytage’s comments during the segment but didn’t use the opportunity to condemn the racist remark or correct her behaviour.
But this isn’t the first time Samantha copped backlash for the remark, with the presenter telling News Corp back in 2015 that she was “mortified” by the thought of being accused of being racist.
“I would be mortified if anyone thought I would say or think anything racist,” Armytage said at the time.“It’s not in my nature. To anyone who I might have offended, I’m sorry.”
Sunrise executive producer Michael Pell also defended Armytage back in 2015, claiming the comments were simply taken out of context.
“We are making this statement to avoid further misunderstanding about Sam’s comment on Sunrise,” Pell said in a statement back in 2015. “Sam has always admitted that her own fair complexion was a disadvantage in the Australian environment.”
It is unclear exactly what was meant by Sam’s fair complexion being a “disadvantage” for her, but it’s doubtful she’s facing the same sorts of disadvantages as the Indigenous community in Australia, or people of colour overseas. However, it is important to note that both Sam and Sunrise did apologise at the time.
But Australians on Twitter have been quick to point out that this wasn’t the first time Armytage has been accused of racism, nor was it the last time.
https://twitter.com/notGareth/status/1269415712461697024
The US has discovered Samantha Armytage and it’s not going well. #auspol
— Prof Matt Haggis – Rizzard of Oz 🐀 🍉 (@matthaggis666) June 7, 2020
Samantha Armytage is only like our 8th most racist TV presenter. She’s just not very good at hiding it.
— @robcoco@aus.social (@RobCoco) June 6, 2020
Three years after the “good on her” comments made headlines, Sunrise again copped backlash in March 2018 for having an all-white panel of guests on the show to discuss why more white families should “take in abused kids.”
After Armytage falsely claimed that Indigenous children could not be fostered by white families, fellow panelling Prue MacSween literally suggested that we need another Stolen Generation.
Yes. This actually happened.
“Don’t worry about the people who decry and hand-wring and say this will be another Stolen Generation,” Prue said. “Just like the first Stolen Generation, where a lot of children were taken because it was for their wellbeing, we need to do it again, perhaps.”
The network, Channel Seven, were later found to be in breach of Australian broadcast standards by sharing “highly offensive” content.
But it’s not just Samatha Armytage that’s being called out on Twitter, with Australians quickly pointing out that Sunrise (who regularly give air time to the likes of Pauline Hanson) has no shortage of examples of racism.
Samantha Armytage is only like our 8th most racist TV presenter. She’s just not very good at hiding it.
— @robcoco@aus.social (@RobCoco) June 6, 2020
https://twitter.com/bymichaelphelan/status/1269446449621688320
https://twitter.com/jamescarrollau/status/1269200588572512256
