Designer Ulyana Sergeenko is under fire after writing a note to her friend using the word “n***a.”
She sent the note to Miroslava Duma, cofounder of Buro 24/7 and The Tot, and Duma posted a picture of the note on her Instagram page.
In the note, Sergeeenko, a Russian designer, wrote: “To my n***as in Paris.”
The non-apology
After the Instagram post went up on Monday night, Sergeenko was hit with a wave of backlash, to which she responded on Tuesday morning.
“I woke up this morning with my phone full of insulting messages ‘you deserve the worst in your life,’ ‘die white trash’…and so on,” she wrote on her Instagram page.
Sergeenko then went on to describe her own heritage: she is from East Kazakhstan, and her daughter is part Armenian.
“I have never divided people on white or black,” she said.
Then, Sergeenko claimed that she wanted to say “n***a” so she could be “cool.”
“Kanye West is one of my favorite musicians, and NP is one of my favorite songs,” she said, then explained, “And yes, we call each other the N word sometimes when we want to believe that we are just as cool as these guys who sing it.”
It was more of a justification than an apology, really.
Of course, the fact that Sergeenko didn’t apologize for her word choice but tried to double down on it only had people mad all over again.
Now, people are calling for a boycott of Sergeenko’s fashion show in Paris on Tuesday, according to Teen Vogue.
Duma has not commented in the story yet, though she is seeing backlash as well. And it’s not like Duma hasn’t been accused of racism before, either. Back in 2014, her website Buro 24/7 featured an image of an editor sitting on a chair that looked like an enslaved Black woman.