Would you consider this racist? H&M advert

[BornInSydneyy]

A young black boy wearing a jumper that says -

“Coolest monkey in the jungle”

I genuinely can’t understand how anyone thought that was acceptable.

You usually say "little" or "cheeky" monkey though wouldn't you?

Not just "monkey" & certainly no reference to a jungle!

I was just about to post this. If the sweatshirt said 'cheeky monkey' as that is the phrase we use. But the whole monkey in the jungle thing is just not right. With bananas still being thrown to black players at football matche,s how can anyone deny that monkey has been often used as a racist insult?

I really do find it offensive.

Such a difficult one. As John Barnes was pointing out that in the 70s black players got bananas thrown at them then maybe someone should have remembered this. I would have thought just for sensitivity they should have put the white kid in this T Shirt.

H&M refused to let my son model monkey tshirts because he is black' .... to me, that's worse.
WTAF?

marypopping

Small point of clarification. H&M didn't have three boys wearing the same hoody. If they had, there probably wouldn't have been a problem.

There are two other DIFFERENT hoodies in the range- and they were modelled by white children.

Here's a shot of the H&M website I found on a youtube video.

Busyboysmum not just in the 70s, it still happens today.

Its not racist. People perceive it as racist. People call kids little monkeys all the time.

Ffs

It doesn’t say little monkey nor does it say cheeky monkey!!

Its not racist. People perceive it as racist. People call kids little monkeys all the time.
Please read the thread.

That's terrible Iggi I didn't realise it still went on.

IMightMentionGriddlebone, not sure about that paraphrasing. The bird top is intended as sex humour. And even in the (overwhelmingly unlikely) scenario where it wasn't, it is an extremely reasonable inference to infer this sex humour from it. That adds up to it being NAFW.

OTOH it is extremely unlikely that the ad people intended a racial slur, and it's arguable as to whether it is reasonable to infer one.

The OP asks us whether the ad is racist and I know what my answer to that is. Charges of the ad being inappropriate, offensive, shows lack of judgment given the "baggage" etc etc, are another matter. Although I still can't help think that neither the slogan itself, nor an ad campaign which features black child and white child wearing it (taking the description of another poster on faith) is that big a deal. Others are free to, and do, disagree of course.

H&M refused to let my son model monkey tshirts because he is black' .... to me, that's worse.

It is odd isn't it. Discriminating against black models in order to not cause other people to be reminded of racism.

Parts of this thread are like reading men discussing sexism. And deciding it's not really real.

It is odd isn't it. Discriminating against black models in order to not cause other people to be reminded of racism.

More, not using the black kid for one particular hoody, because otherwise it looks like you're ridiculing him.

However, let's recap. We are talking about the image choices on H&M's online catalogue. If you mouse over the boys' clothes on the H&M site, images of the item as worn appear. The same models are used over and over, which makes sense. The exceptions are probably ones where none of the photographs turned out well.

I imagine all the new clothes were done on the same shoot, however long it was. I think it is reasonably possible that on the day, multiple children tried on that Coolest Monkey in the Jungle hoodie and were photographed doing so. If that's so, I could see why the implications might not have got picked up on at the time.

Then, the photos got developed, and (presumably) a team set to sorting out the best shots for the online catalogue. At that point, someone thought that was a good arrangement to have for that set. White kid in the Explorer hoodie (very colonial) , white kid in the animal print hoodie, and black kid in the jungle hoodie.

That was a shite decision, wasn't it. At best, no cultural awareness. At worst, someone thought it was funny.

No child needed to be told they couldn't wear something. The images could just have been dropped to the floor, along with all the ones where the model shut his/her eyes, looked in the wrong direction, or had something growing out of his/her head.

The posts that stand out (in the wrong way) for me on here are the seemingly faux-naive posts about not seeing the racism/ignoring/reclaiming the language etc etc. Just how, how can you have lived your life in such a way as to apparently be totally unaware that racism exists, and exists in such a multi layered way, as to be all-pervading and pernicious? There is a distinct lack of empathy here.

Yes, this. And the passive aggressive comments that those of us who can see beyond the end of our noses outside our own bubbles and have some empathy and awareness for issues that affect others are somehow racist ourselves.

Its not a binary 'racist or completely fine' choice though.

Surely the intention has to be taken into account here? This has clearly not been done deliberately (or at least there is no evidence that is was deliberate) and I can see how such an oversight could have easily taken place when they are trying to deal with hundreds of different photos for hundreds of different items of clothing. Its surprising that this wasn't picked up in some kind of quality control process before the photos went live on the website, however again I can see how that could have accidentally happened. Its not racist because there was no intention to discriminate or offend.

Now it has been highlighted as something that could cause offence, its completely acceptable (in my opinion) for the company to simply remove the photo and issue an apology stating that it was an oversight and that no offence was intended. If i was the line manager of that team, I would probably review my procedures to prevent things like this happening in the future.

Now obviously if it subsequently turned out that a photo editor somewhere had done it because he thought it was funny, that is a completely different case and clearly disciplinary action etc should be taken.

"That's terrible Iggi I didn't realise it still went on."

As I said, if not bananas, then definitely monkey noises. In an under 14s match in November last year.

High profile one in 2014 with a Barcelona player having one chucked at him - which he then ate. Difference between now and the 70s being that the other club got a fine for it as it’s not acceptable to most people any more.

Parts of this thread are like reading men discussing sexism. And deciding it's not really real.

Yep.

Parts of this thread are like reading men discussing sexism. And deciding it's not really real.
@Slanetylor has it exactly.

It seems some people want to claim that they are sooo, so very non-racist that nothing would every come across as racist, because nothing remotely linked to racism would ever enter their heads. This is not helpful.

In an ideal world, we could just turn off the relationship between "monkey" and racists insults against black people - but unfortunately that can't happen. If you can find a way of stopping all the racists using these insults then I would be very pleased.

It's all very well saying that you want to call all children a "cheeky monkey" as it's a term of endearment. And that's fine, although a bit different from the message on the hoodie. But, black/mixed children really do need to know when people are calling them this as an insult. They need to be aware. My parents, didn't make me aware of these things, so at school I had some very confusing and sad times. Myself and my brother have been called a monkey. My dad at his work has been asked if we would swing through the trees to get to school.

I totally agree down, the H&M slogan, with a black child modelling it was very bad taste, and whoever in charge of putting that out there, should have seen that. Those insults are awful, I only ever use the term cheeky monkey to my ds. Though he has been given some t shirts with cheeky monkey on it, as that is the term normally reserved for boys.

I think the buyers and marketers of H&M are clearly as insane as those of M&S thinking middle aged women would be seen dead in their awful clothes or these hoodies wouldn’t offend.

I suspect these buyers and marketeers are straight out from uni wet behind the ears kids as there is no other possible excuses.

Parts of this thread are like reading men discussing sexism. And deciding it's not really real.

Yes. There is some horrific whitesplaining on this thread.

I am flabbergasted that people are not aware that monkey/banana/jungle jibes are current, not historical.
Ok some of the posters may live in White Suburbia and never see a black person from one year's end to the next but these things are reported on national news. Not sports news. Do they live under a rock?

If you are aware of this then go ahead and put your black child in such an outfit, but educate them about what they may face. I won't let my DD go out in the world not knowing that people may leer at her because she's a girl. I also won't let her go out not knowing people may make comments because of her race (because of her appearance and where we live, most likely the P word).
I think at a younger age children need a generic "if someone says a word or something that they think is funny but you don't, or words you don't understand, tell me about it".
When older they might need specifics though.