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Retail chain H&M apologizes for ‘racist’ hoodie photo

Corporation faces social media backlash over image of black boy modeling sweatshirt with words ‘Coolest monkey in the jungle’

By ToI Staff and AFP 8 January 2018, 6:42 pm Edit
Illustrative image of H&M Store in Festival Walk, Hong Kong. (CC BY WiNG, Wikimedia Commons)
Illustrative image of H&M Store in Festival Walk, Hong Kong. (CC BY WiNG, Wikimedia Commons)

The retail chain H&M apologized Monday and withdrew a photo from its catalog after it was slammed on social media as racist.

Following a huge backlash on Sunday night, the Swedish fashion giant removed the photograph of a green hooded sweatshirt featuring the words “Coolest monkey in the jungle,” which was modeled by a black child.

“The image has now been removed from all H&M channels and we apologize to anyone this may have offended,” the company told AFP.

A photo of the hooded sweatshirt without the child model is still available online.

One person blamed the corporate structure of the fashion chain. “This is what happens when you have no African Americans in decision making roles at a company. Whoever signed off on this at H&M definitely wasn’t a person of color,” he tweeted.

Advertisers who inadvertently use racist imagery have been repeatedly called out on social media.

In October, Dove was forced to apologize and withdraw an advertisement that appeared to show a black woman removing her shirt and turning into a white woman after using the company’s body wash.

Also in October, the cereal giant Kellogg’s apologized and changed the packaging of its Corn Pops, which had featured dozens of yellow corn pop characters performing various activities, while the lone brown corn pop appeared to be washing the floor.

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