This week H&M released an ad for new logo sweatshirts for children to wear in the winter. Hip as always, they featured a range of different logos that parents could use to make their kids look adorable. But according to the Internet, the Sweden-based company has seemed to have missed its mark.
As pictured below, one of the sweatshirts featured “coolest monkey in the jungle” and was worn by a black child. Immediate rage followed for the seemingly racist insinuations; a black child referred to as a monkey? We should not forget the historically racist idea that black people were often compared to primates.
Huge stars such as G-Eazy and The Weeknd cut their ties with the company and voiced their concerns about the distastefulness.
But is there more to it?
Yes, the ad is awkward and can immediately be taken wrong in almost any context, but it appears to me to be nothing more than remiss. Not to say that often racism is simply a mistake, but these companies could be suffering from what much of society suffers from instead:
Lack of representation and POCs in the workplace.
As of 2012, people of color make up 36 percent of the workplace. While this number has undoubtedly risen, diversity is a persistent problem in all areas of society, whether it is the workplace, politics, or education. In these predominately white companies and brands, we often see campaigns that are just simply not good. They do not take into account social and racial aspects of our society that we must pay attention to.
For example, Dove released an ad in late 2017 showing a black woman removing her brown shirt to reveal she is actually a white woman. It also received immediate backlash and the company apologized for their mistake. While it was completely racist, it was not an intentional failure. It was simply a lack of knowledge and carefulness for those not represented in their workplace.
You cannot learn from what you do not know. While brainstorming for ideas, if no one is there to stop you and tell you they are offended by such an ad, you could be caught in a tricky situation. What might seem brilliant to you can be entirely offensive and disgusting to others. While we must also take into consideration how these people interact with others when they leave the workplace, the immediate problem besides the creators of the ads is the lack of representation of people of color in the workplace.
We need more than a token person of color in an environment where creativity and ideas spawn. Giving people of color a say in such influential things as ads not only removes any possibility of racism, but also bonds customers tighter to the products and brand names.
It’s a constant wonder to me when I see an interracial family in a commercial. It’s something that immediately makes remember the ad and respect the company even more.
The ad was highly distasteful, obviously. But the sweatshirt wasn’t made for only a black child. It doesn’t have a restriction in which only black children can wear it. It’s a cute sweatshirt, meant for a child who will refuse to wear it anyways so they can swing on the monkey bars better.