There is Donald Trump's type of racism and then there is accidental racism. H&M kicked off the new year with, what some are calling, a very racist hoodie. I don't think a hot clothing line would want consumers to stop shopping at their stores and what better way to make people cut ties with you than to be a racist?
I think the ad was taken out of context. People will look for hate in anything. We aren't all like our current president.
So, who is the real racist here? The clothing brand or the people who think the African-American race resemble monkeys?
H&M advertises possibly offensive picture
H&M UK posted their new hoodies and one is not sitting well with people. The hoodie reads, 'Coolest Monkey in the Jungle.' Innocent enough, right? Right, but the innocence dies when the hoodie is modeled by an African-American child.
While I saw a hoodie being modeled by a child, others were seeing a black child being called a monkey. I didn't see any arrows pointing to the child with the word, "monkey" nor did I see anywhere in the ad that said it could only be worn by African-Americans.
Since there was a major backlash on the ad, H&M removed it and released a detailed statement. "We sincerely apologize for offending people with this image of a printed hooded top.
The image has been removed from all online channels and the product will not be for sale in the United States. We believe in diversity and inclusion in all that we do and will be reviewing all our internal policies accordingly to avoid any future issues."
The apology was not enough to fix the damage.
Celebrity outrage
Many celebrities went to social media to post about their anger towards the H&M ad.
Questlove Gomez posted, "I'm sure the apologies are a coming. And the ads will be pulled. I'm certain there will be media fixers and whatnot and maybe a grand gesture like a donation to some charity (donations under these circumstances are the corporate version #SomeofMyBestFriendsAre move if there ever was one) all this tells me about @HM is that the seats in the boardroom lack something...
wanna take a guess?"
Models of Diversity wrote, "@hm And then H&M UK got the bright idea to feature a black boy model with 'Coolest Monkey in the Jungle' hoodie on its website. How on earth can this be? SHAME ON YOU!"
Charles M. Blow asked, "@hm, have you lost your damned minds?"
The biggest blow to H&M came from singer/rapper, The Weeknd. The Weeknd took to Twitter and announced he was ending his affiliation with the brand. "Woke up this morning shocked and embarrassed by this photo. I'm deeply offended and will not be working with @hm anymore..."
Will H&M be able to recover?
So is it racist or not?
While a majority of people find the ad to be offensive, I do not. And it isn't because I happen to be white.
I think the ad was featuring a hoodie and the model happened to be African American. Aren't the people who think the child is a monkey because he is black the racist ones?
While everyone is debating on racist or not racist, do you know who has not said anything? The model himself and the parents that okayed him modeling the hoodie.
