Mark Wahlberg slammed on social media over past hate-crime conviction

The star was called out on social media over past crimes. Photo / Instagram

Hollywood actor Mark Wahlberg has been slammed online for his previous crimes, after posting a memorial to George Floyd.

Social media users were quick to point out the actor's 1988 hate-crime conviction, where the actor was convicted for assaults he committed at the age of 16 toward a pair of Vietnamese-Americans.

According to court documents, the men named Johnny Trinh and Thanh Lam were punched and knocked out with a wooden stick.

In 2014, the Oscar-nominated actor made an unsuccessful attempt to be pardoned for the assaults. Investigators said he'd made remarks about "g***s" and "slant-eyed g***".

Wahlberg claimed that race was not a factor in the incident and that he was actually only trying to steal beer. He later served 45 days in prison in connection with the incident and was convicted of assault.

This week, Wahlberg took to social media, posting about the death of George Floyd and was met with fierce backlash in response to his past conviction.

View this post on Instagram

The murder of George Floyd is heartbreaking. We must all work together to fix this problem. I'm praying for all of us. God bless. ❤️🙏❤️#blacklivesmatter

A post shared by Mark Wahlberg (@markwahlberg) on Jun 3, 2020 at 8:50pm PDT

The post read: "The murder of George Floyd is heartbreaking. We must all work together to fix this problem. I'm praying for all of us. God bless.'

Some social media users questioned why Wahlberg continued to get work, unlike some other actors, despite his past.

"We live in a world where John Boyega might be blackballed for speaking out against racist violence and Mark Wahlberg will always work despite being guilty of it," journalist Torraine Walker wrote.

Another noted: "John Boyega is afraid he might lose his career because he is protesting against racism and police brutality, but Mark Wahlberg has a whole hate crimes section on his Wikipedia page and is one of the highest-paid actors in the world."

Eugene Gu, MD noted the treatment of Wahlberg's crimes by media: "Mark Wahlberg can commit hate crimes, call African Americans the N-word while beating them up, call Asian Americans like Thanh Lam and Hoa Trinh "Vietnam f**king sh*t!" as he beat them unconscious with a stick, yet still be praised by white privileged media for being anti-racist," the social media personality said.

Social media users posted photos of Wahlberg's Wikipedia page. Photo / Twitter

Wahlberg's Wikipedia page was also at the centre of the backlash, The Blast reported, with some social media users claiming it was edited to read Controversy instead of Hate Crimes when detailing the past crimes.

Wikipedia says in a fact box that "this section's title may not reflect its contents or does not comply with standard formatting and is requested to be renamed".