H&M Racism storm

Robbo · 9 Jan 2018 at 12:22

People on social media have called H&M "racist" for showing a black child modelling a hoodie that says 'coolest monkey in the jungle.'

Some are calling for a boycott of the brand over the picture, while others defended the retailer.

H&M has said: "We apologise to anyone this may have offended."

People on Twitter described the image published by the Swedish chain as inappropriate and offensive.

The photograph was being using in the children's section of the UK site and some people weren't happy.

Dexter Neptune wrote: #BlackTwitter h&m is cancelled won't see anymore money from me.

Another user compared the image to one of a white child modelling a hoodie with the words "jungle survival expert."

Others questioned how no-one spotted that the image may be offensive.

Someone else wrote: "No doubt the H&M monkey hoodie photoshoot was organised with completely innocent intentions but in today's outrage society you have to triple check everything you do."

People also defended the clothing brand, some said it was an innocent mistake and others said the brand isn't racist.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/artic...ises-over-racist-image-of-black-boy-in-hoodie

I can easily see why this has been taken the wrong way, but surely the intention of the store was that children are often referred to as 'little monkeys' or similar.

I suspect a few P45's will be handed out in the marketing department!

Robbo · 9 Jan 2018 at 12:45

Marky said:
Possibly controversial view here, but I immediately thought it to be a bit racist that people would be offended by this. I've always heard kids be called "little monkeys", just because the kid in this picture is black, the very fact that anyone would call it racist, is almost racist in itself... :/

Exactly, it was always going to be taken the wrong way, but those taking it the wrong way are - to a degree - being racist themselves!

It’s a farce, but was bound to happen.

Robbo · 9 Jan 2018 at 12:48

Craterloads said:
You don’t have to even go that far, aren’t bananas still thrown at black footballers every now and again?

In Italy/Russia, yes, not so much over here.

Robbo · 10 Jan 2018 at 14:56

Zatoichi.uK said:
Tweet from someone called Tariq Naheed.

As far as this racist #HM ad, the people of the H & M company knew EXACTLY what they were doing and they anticipated the backlash. This is their coded way of tapping into the white supremacist demographic. Racists buy clothes too, and these companies want those bigoted dollars

Just wow...

What a fool.