A father has copped criticism for posting an image of his son dressed as Ben Cousins with white powder around his nose.

The dad posted the photo in response to the “blackface” outrage last week, where a mother painted her son’s skin brown to look like AFL star Nic Naitanui.

Cousins’ battle with recreational drug use has been widely reported, with the former AFL star attending rehab a number of times.

The boy was dressed up as Ben Cousins, complete with white powder on the nose and eyes rolled back in his head.Source:Supplied

Ben Cousins. Pictures: Kerris BerringtonSource:News Limited

On Thursday, a West Australian mother posted the photo on blogger Constance Hall’s public Facebook account to share her “absolute QUEENING moment” of her son dressed and painted brown so he looked like Naitanui.

She sparked widespread outrage from social media users — including a response from the AFL star himself.

The controversial dress up of a boy to look like Nic Naitanui.Source:Twitter

West Coast Eagles player Nic Naitanui.Source:News Corp Australia

Now, in an attempt to calm the storm, the man behind the Cousins picture hoped the image of his son will get people to “lighten up” around the Naitanui scandal.

“To put all the butt hurt people at ease — (my son) had no idea why he had flour on his nose and I told him to act silly and I got the pic,” the father posted.

“It’s a piss-take because of the Nic Nat issue — lighten up.”

The picture of the boy, who is wearing a West Coast Eagles jumper and holding Cousins’ biography during Book Week, has received more than 9000 comments and 19,000 likes.

Ben Cousins during Richmond Tigers v Collingwood Magpies AFL match.Source:News Limited

Many of the commenters on the post attacked the parent for portraying a child using illicit substances.

But the father isn’t the only parent to weigh in on the debate.

An indigenous mother from Cairns showed support for the Perth mum who started the uproar, by posting a photo of her daughter painted in white from three years prior, to represent a cartoon character.

Describing herself as a “proud Aboriginal Australian black woman”, Breeze Bee (whose real name is Bec) took to Facebook to defend the ‘Book Week’ boy in the centre of a furious backlash over blackface last week.

“The little boy in the centre of last week’s book week did not suffer from racism or discrimination, he idolised a man who has achieved great successes even during pain,” she writes.

“Unfortunately now this little boy who has been shown by the dark skinned community that his admiration for a black man is unacceptable and has learnt racism!”

Last Friday the little boy at the centre of the “blackface” scandal said he was too upset to go to school after the backlash he and his family received.