Amnau Eele, co-founder of the Black Artists Association, has received death threats in response to her public criticism of First Lady Michelle Obama for not wearing the work of at least one African-American designer to her husband’s historic inauguration last week.

Mrs. Obama wore Cuban-American designer Isabel Toledo during the day, and a gown by Taiwan-born designer Jason Wu to 10 official inaugural balls .

“It’s fine and good if you want to be all ‘Kumbaya’ and ‘We Are the World’ by representing all different countries,” Eele, a former model, told WWD Magazine last Friday. “But if you are going to have Isabel Toledo do the inauguration dress, and Jason Wu do the evening gown, why not have Kevan Hall, B Michael, Stephen Burrows or any of the other black designers do something too?”

After being flooded with a mirage of death threat, Amnau is backing down–albeit only a little–from her controversial position, now saying:

“We don’t represent designers, we represent painters. We spoke up for black designers because we felt it was the right thing to do.”