When you’re a musician travelling the world it pays to know a little about each of the countries you visit, if at least to stop oneself from saying something that smacks of racism.

Take for example Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 fame, who thought it OK to talk about drinking until he thought he was a black Australian. If you listen closely you can actually hear the audience let out something resembling a gasp, and if you manage to shock a crowd of Ozzies you must have said something outlandish.

You know what happens next don’t you? The Facebook apology:

I don’t think you need to be well-versed in the history of Australia to know such a statement is just plain daft. Facebook users went to town on the apology:

If you’re wondering whether there’s ever the odd blackface over in Oz we can offer you this from the weekend courtesy of the Mirror:

Australian basketball Alice Kunek has caused outrage for dressing up as Kanye Westand blacking out her face and arms.

The Opals player controversially wore blackface make-up when dressing up as the rapper this weekend and later posted a photo of her ‘costume’ to her picture private Instagram.

Despite her insistence that it wasn’t racist, many people including teammate Liz Cambage didn’t agree and blasted the basketball player for her behaviour.

Liz wrote alongside a screenshot of the Instagram post: “I’m am so shocked and disturbed to see this behavior from someone I’m meant to call a “teammate”

“blackface is disgusting, I honestly have no words,” she continued, before adding: “People wonder why I have issues with some @BasketballAus teammates, I’ve been dealing with these behavior since we were kids” (sic)

Sometimes we have more in common with the land Down Under than we would like to admit.

[sources:tnd&mirror]