The Block's Omar and Oz slam racist 'dodgy' label: 'Hurtful'
After The Block’s Oz had a heated spat with Foreman Dan last week, Omar and Oz sat down with Dan to clear the air.
In a vulnerable chat, the duo explained why being called ‘dodgy’ was extremely ‘hurtful’.
The chat came after Dan accused the pair of ‘hiding their mistakes’ which didn't sit well with Oz.
“The word ‘dodgy’ is coming out a fair bit which is completely against what Oz and I do,” Omar told Dan. “That’s the last thing we want, is for people to see us and think we are dodgy.”
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While Dan accepted the criticism, he said that his job is to point out mistakes in all of the houses, and is likely using the word ‘across the board’.
“The fact that you guys keep mentioning that [we’re trying to cover dodgy workmanship], which is most likely going to get played on TV and it’s just gonna look like, oh yeah, two wogs again doing dodgy s**t on TV,” Omar replied.
In an interview with a producer, Omar explained why it wasn’t as simple as keeping it fair ‘across the board’, because certain words would be more likely to ‘trigger’ racism due to their ethnicity.
“It’s very easy to go to house two where Matty from Elevate is building and you say he’s ‘dodgy’ and it probably won’t trigger anyone watching it from home. But, if you say it to a Lebo or an Afghan, or someone of a completely different culture, it’s very different,” he said.
However, Dan didn’t seem to take Omar’s words on board completely. Instead, he assured the pair that being hard on teams is just ‘the nature of The Block’, and told the pair that he ‘respects’ them.
Omar and Oz opened up to producers about their experiences with racism and added that they don’t want their children to see it play out on television.
“We wanna change people’s perspectives. Two young Muslim kids that are just pretty much trying to lead a pathway for other kids that probably just don’t see that this could ever happen,” Omar said.
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