Mary Sekye
Earlier this week, MAC Cosmetics posted a photo of model Mary Sekye wearing the company’s lipstick. Instantly, racist trolls began to attack her. Her natural lips became the subject of racist jokes, hate and dehumanizing rhetoric.
Here is the original post:
It was revealed today that the model in the photo above was a colleague of Sekye’s, Ugandan model Aamito Stacie Lagum. The model has worked recently with rapper Kanye West in his Yeezy Season 3 fashion show.
The series of Instagram posts reveals the case of mistaken identity:
Aamito Stacie Lagum
Here are a few of those racist statements made to Lagum: 
“Black women will never be as beautiful as white women. The only argument Blacks have is they have more melanin like that matters. Yes white women can get injections and when they do they are basically flawless …”
The commenter wrote more racist nonsense that isn’t worth reading. However, there were good people who came to the young model’s rescue, commenting on her flawless skin and gorgeous full lips.
Many gave Lagum positive feedback, compliments and other platitudes:
Racist trolls appear to be upset that their ideals on beauty are being upended. What’s ironic is that white women spend countless amounts of money to obtain features that are not natural to them. Yet these trolls believe that European features are somehow superior.
In this day and age, people will continue to challenge the notion that western European features are the epitome of beauty. Black people’s love for themselves will not allow such dogmatic and racist rhetoric to exist any more without consequence.
Sekye, the woman who came to Lagum’s defense, is currently appearing in New York’s Fashion Week and making her dreams come true.
Most recently, Lagum closed out designer Zac Posen’s collection which was inspired by Ugandan Princess Bagaya Elizabeth of Toro.
MAC has removed comments but has not released an official statement about the incident.
