On November 21, 2016, Toronto-based comedian Celeste Yim tweeted photos from the party. She wrote that she came across the photos in a Facebook album shared by a Queen’s student. The album, which is no longer available, was viewable by “friends of friends,” including Yim.
“A very shockingly racist party thrown by Queen’s students happened,” Yim tweeted, “and the photos made me feel sick to my stomach.”
Yim’s tweets also addressed those who had criticized her for publicizing the photos or suggested she was taking them out of context:
The photos had ALREADY been seen by thousands of people! The costumes have not been taken out of context.
— celeste yim (@celestrogen) November 22, 2016
The long history (fraught with violence, fetishization, and commodification) of characterizing non-white people IS the context.
— celeste yim (@celestrogen) November 22, 2016
The costumes are indisputably and unequivocally offensive, tasteless, and should not be tolerated. Context and intentions have no bearing.
— celeste yim (@celestrogen) November 22, 2016
“I am not culpable for the fact that hundreds want to get wasted in rice hats and can’t even fathom the decency to make the photos private,” Yim also tweeted.
Soon after Yim made the photos public on Twitter, several major news outlets picked up the story and reproduced the images. While some left the photos untouched, others opted to blur the faces of the party participants.