South Korean singer Son Seung-wan, who is professionally known as Wendy, has come under fire after she impersonated black girls on Olive TV's show Talk Mon. Now fans of Wendy, a member of the K-pop girl group Red Velvet, have slammed the singer for her act.
During the show Talk Mon, which was aired on March 5, Wendy explained to the host how black women and white women talk. The 24-year-old, who grew up in the United States, was asked about dialects in the country. She then explained the host of the show how popular white girls talk and started talking in high, preppy valley-girl tone.
Then, she talked about the black girls and with pursed lips, finger-wagging and sassy neck roll she impersonated them. "What did you say, girl!? Mmh-hmm, you ain't doin' that!" she said while mimicking the black girls, according to Pop Crush.
The clip, which went viral on social media, angered international fans of the K-pop girl group. The "disappointed" fans took to Twitter to slam the singer for the "offensive" act.
"Wendy left NA and forgot how to act. She did this shit before and she got away. Everybody knows who Red Velvet is now so this will get loads of attention. She should KNOW better. She's from here. I love her but I don't wanna hear no "cultural difference" mess," user chanwick boseman tweeted.
"I'm so disappointed in Wendy. Before these apologists wanna go ahead and defend Wendy, just so you know, I love Red Velvet and Wendy is my bias. However, just because she's my bias doesn't mean I'm going to overlook the fact that the imitation she did here is incredible," user Love, Christian tweeted.
the irene thing about her being homophobic was debunked a long time ago. antis did that to make her look bad. wendy is the only problematic in the group. stop looking for excuses to start sending hate to rv. leave seulgi, irene, yeri and joy out of this.
— paulo ? | asd ? (@cosmictaehyungs) March 5, 2018
wendy when she logs on red velvet’s twitter with black fans attacking her the second time pic.twitter.com/GeGYacyedM
— desi (@MlYUZAKI) March 5, 2018
Wendy need to get her shit together and apologise and stan twt/woke twt need to stop using this to speak about issues irrelevant to the topic
— dani? (@jascico) March 5, 2018
I'm very disappointed in what Wendy did. The fact that this isn't the first time this happened... Wendy needs to learn from her mistakes. The message needs to be delivered across so that she could address this issue and understand why it's harmful.
— culturally important artists (@tinytushy) March 6, 2018
This is not the first time a South Korean singer has been slammed for being racially insensitive. In March 2017, members of the popular K-pop girl group MAMAMOO faced backlash after they painted their face black during a concert.
The band had to later apologize to the fans on Facebook. "We understand now why our actions were wrong and we never meant to do harm with our video. We were extremely ignorant of blackface and did not understand the implications of our actions ... We hope that you will help to educate us on these and other issues so that we can become better people and better artists," the band issued a statement after receiving backlash.
