DUBAI: US-Iraqi beauty mogul Huda Kattan on Monday spoke out about racist comments towards the Asian community that she says have “increased dramatically” since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2019 in China.
On her makeup brand Huda Beauty’s Instagram page, she shared a story writing: “At Huda Beauty, we stand against racism of any kind. Today, we want (to) draw attention to the violent hate crimes against the Asian community that have increased dramatically since the pandemic began.”
The makeup artist and entrepreneur added: “Sadly these alarming events have had very little attention with the media, and that is not okay.”
Kattan shared a series of images that gave her 47.8 million followers insight into the issue. The source of the statistics presented in the images is not immediately clear.
Kattan also shared a video by Michelle Lee, host of The Science of Beauty podcast, who addressed this issue. In the video, Lee said: “Racism was always there, but the pandemic has given people an excuse to act on it.”
In the 84-second clip, Lee shared videos of Asians people being pushed, thrown objects at and made fun off.
“No one’s going to pay attention to you. You’re a stupid blue Asian haired girl,” said one man in the video.
