[imagesource: Reuters]

Here’s a refresher for the few who made it to 2020 without knowing why blackface is bad.

‘Blackface’ was originally a form of theatrical make-up used predominantly by non-black performers to represent an often racist caricature of a black person.

So when white people do blackface, it’s a throwback to this racist practice.

You’d think that foreign leaders would be up to speed with this, and if not, would have learned from that time pictures surfaced of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which caused public outrage.

If I was a public figure with a few of those tucked away I would have been sifting through every social media platform, or shoebox (I don’t know how you store your photos), to make sure any evidence of wrongdoing was completely destroyed.

Not Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio.

Per Politico, he not only posted offensive pictures on both Facebook and Instagram, but he also created them using some form of Photoshop.

Brace yourself for peak idiocy.

The photos, which have since been removed from Instagram, but are still on Facebook, show his face superimposed onto Black people, including:

Michael Jordan.

Image: Luigi Di Maio/Facebook

One of Bill Cosby’s children on The Cosby Show.

Image: Luigi Di Maio/Facebook

This one does the job of being both racist and associating him with a convicted sexual predator.

And, finally, here he is standing next to Italian comic Toto, who is in blackface:

Image: Luigi Di Maio/Facebook

That last one is a real kicker.

The images came about as a response to offensive memes posted online making fun of Di Maio for his suntan, including one that showed him on a boat carrying migrants.

Di Maio reposted some of the images on Facebook and Instagram with the comment, “Sorry kids, next year I’ll wear factor 50 [suntan cream]. Thanks for making my day lighter.”

The pictures show that Di Maio is clearly out of touch with the global drive to end racism, and “Italy is lagging behind other European countries when it comes to racial sensitivity and diverse representation in politics”.

As Somali-Italian writer Igiaba Scego wrote on Twitter:

“The memes on the tan of minister Di Maio are racist, period. Disgusting, period. Joking with blackface is racist. The minister should point out the racism of the practice. Instead, he has given this response.”

She added: “In Italy, people think that blackface is funny. I will tell you as a Black Italian, it is not funny — it is very offensive.”

This keeps getting worse and worse.

And as Italian Black Lives Matter activist Oiza Q. Obasuyi put it: “What’s funny about saying that Di Maio looks black? Does this stuff really make people laugh today? I thought we had evolved”.

It looks like in some cases, no.

[source:politico]