Hey Hey’s Jackson Jive explain: why we did it

Nor is it a defence to point out that we’re actually not white men dressing up as black men, but a group of mainly coloured men dressing up as black men, because as ethnic Australians we should have known better ourselves.

We’ve made a public apology for what we did. So why DID we do it?

We went on Hey Hey because it was the 20th anniversary of us doing the skit at the University of Sydney Medical Revue, which led to us going on Hey Hey in the first place.

A couple of months ago we were asked back to do the same skit at this year’s Medical Revue, which we did. The recent passing of Michael Jackson probably gave the skit some currency as well.

So when we saw Hey Hey was doing a reunion show we sent in the DVD of our old performance as an audition. Channel Nine loved it and asked us to do the skit again.

We’re not so naive that we didn’t think it would be a little bit controversial to paint our faces black. We discussed it before the show.

But to be honest, we thought that we didn’t get any complaints 20 years ago, and we didn’t get any complaints two months ago at the Med Revue, so we figured it was probably all in good fun.

We all underestimated what the reaction would be, but in the end it was our decision to go on air dressed the way we did. The worst consequence of what we did is that the skit has raised the question of are Australians racist.

We’re genuinely horrified that our mistake could cause people to think that.

Out of the six of us, only one is Anglo-Celtic Australian. I’m Sri Lankan-Australian, there’s an Indian Australian, a Greek Australian, an Irish-Italian Australian and a Lebanese Australian. We’re all Australian.

Apart from the odd joke when I was at school, I’ve never been subject to racism in Australia. In other countries, certainly, but never here.

I think the fact that all six of us have gone onto very successful careers as doctors demonstrates the fact that Australians care more about ability than race.

Not to justify what we did, but one of the best things about Australia is the ability to laugh at ourselves.

But if what happened to us forces someone to think about whether they’re being racist or offensive before they make a similar comment or performance (especially one in front of a national television audience), then at least we may have extracted a modicum of good out of this.