Shocking footage shows two young women appearing to mock Indigenous Australians while out for dinner at a packed Thai restaurant.
The women were filmed ridiculing a traditional dance as they dined in Wollongong, even pretending to play a didgeridoo.
The pair – both 20 – laughed and giggled as they pulled faces and made mocking noises with little regard to the scores of diners sat around them.
Other customers are seen staring at the friends in horror as another girl filmed the scene and posted it on Snapchat – writing ‘I’m dying’ and a series of laughing emojis.
Giggling as they made mocking noises, one of the pair is heard saying ‘this is in Aboriginal’.
It soon provoked outrage from the local community and was removed, with friends of the group saying they were ‘disgusted’ by the footage.
They were dining at a packed-out and popular Thai restaurant, on Sunday night when the video was taken.
The pair have since received death threats and are said to ‘deeply regret’ their actions.
One of the girls is at one point seen mimicking playing the didgeridoo with a carafe of water, before both wave their fingers on their heads, seemingly mocking a cultural dance.
The patrons at the table next to the girls appeared increasingly uncomfortable as the scene went on, and repeatedly glared at the girls while they were giggling and being filmed.
‘It’s so embarrassing,’ Darci Simpson-Carr, a young woman from Wollongong, told Daily Mail Australia.
‘In a public restaurant with everyone sitting around watching this. So pathetic.
She went on to share the footage to her public Facebook channel to highlight the inappropriate nature of the women’s actions.
‘This is so wrong. Especially because we are going through a black movement at the moment,’ she wrote on the post, which quickly went viral.
Earlier on Sunday, thousands marched at Wollongong’s own Black Lives Matter protest, on the back of the global protests following the death of George Floyd in America.
Australian activists have called for better treated for Aboriginal people, citing the 432 Indigenous deaths in police custody since 1991.
A former school friend said: ‘Wow, embarrassed to know you. You girls are sad.’
Another friend, who had been at the dinner, said the two friends ‘massively regretted’ their actions, and were ‘mortified’.
She insisted the pair hadn’t intended to cause any offence, with another saying they had gone into hiding since the video surfaced.
‘They’re terrified… they have been receiving death threats,’ she said.
‘One of the girls is actually Indigenous and was simply mocking the dance.
‘She was not being racist at all. It does seem like it, but this has been blown way out of proportion.’
But a former schoolmate disagreed, accusing the pair of regularly mocking Aboriginal people.
‘I went to school with them about four-five years ago,’ he said.
‘They are 20 years-old and the context of the video is they always mock Aboriginal people in this way.
‘A lot of their group of friends mock Aboriginal people all the time ever since I can remember.
‘Making kangaroo jokes and dancing mockery of the Indigenous culture. It’s always been something they have laughed about.’
Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, told Daily Mail Australia that there is ‘nothing new in this sorry episode of ridicule and disrespect’.
‘Sadly, it is business as usual. The rancid display of racism by these girls is heartbreaking, and it is beyond the pale that anyone thought that it would be funny and entertaining to callously mock the ancient traditions and customs of our indigenous brothers and sisters,’ he said.
‘And while these individuals have apologised for the hurt they have caused, I hope that they take the time to reflect on their shameful conduct, educate themselves about indigenous history and seek a meeting with members of our First Nation people.’
