Is This Inappropriate?

[ExcuseTheCheese]

We had the whole 'coolest monkey in the jungle' thing but I saw the jumper first whilst looking for some clothes for DD, in the search results all you see is the jumper and not the model. I thought it was an odd thing to put on a child's jumper in all honesty, I thought it should perhaps say boss. Anyway, I clicked on the other pictures and saw the ethnicity of the model and thought that someone, somewhere has made a massive error in judgement and that this is actually quite inappropriate. AIBU?

I'm too tired to get into why you are wrong but might come back to the thread tomorrow. But in short: you are still wrong.

Rufus

Obviously not everybody who complained also issued a death threat, however it's a safe assumption that it got to the stage of death threats as a direct result of the over the top, artificially outraged hyperbolic response to what was clearly from the outset an innocent mistake.

You know what happens when you assume

I suppose you also think Kendall Jenner's Pepsi ad was also an "innocent mistake". The obtuseness of people never fails to astonish me.

Vlad

No you are right, the Pepsi advert was appallingly bad. (Although i hate to defend them even a little bit, but it still wasn't actually deliberate)

There had to be an element of 'recklessness' involved in the sheer tone deaf nature of that advert. Any reasonable person should have seen that it was going to be incredibly offensive. Even the basic concept of the advert written down in a script is obviously stupid and offensive.

That's not on the same level as a child model wearing 40-50 different items of clothing in a single photoshoot and in the haste to get through them all, nobody noticing that one item could be taken the wrong way due to the nature of the printing on it and the fact he was black.

As his mother said, she didn't even notice it at the time and was only made aware when it hit the media.

It's based on the new star wars film surely?

I didn't think racist connotations when I first saw it but I'm Caucasian so may not be the best judge.

@PatriarchyPersonified

Firstly, the mother can do and say as she wishes. I too wouldn't be complaining if I had a black young son modelling for a huge international company. There aren't many dark skinned black boys modelling for huge brands. You don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Secondly, just because the mother says 'it's ok' doesn't mean everyone else should just crack on with their day. I've never been raped or abused but that doesn't mean I won't stand side by side with a woman who has or campaign for their rights.

Thirdly, words like 'professionally offended' and 'politically correct' are bullshit. It's a way to silence and obfuscate someone's legitimate concerns.

Fourthly, these are huge international brands. I used to work in advertising - the amount of shit you have to go through to get something approved is mad. In fact I often wondered whether I should take a vacation whilst something my team and I were working on was in the process of being approved. You have to consider absolutely everything in these global campaigns. Colours/countries/models. There is a reason why white thin blond women are so popular in international marketing campaigns. But I won't go off on that tangent.

Fifthly, I do not condone violence. What I'm talking about is the backlash that was rightly called out on social media and in the press. It was right they were called out on it. If anything I was even more pissed off by the 'sorry if' people found it offensive - a non-apology apology.

Sixthly, the days of calling someone a n*** are no longer acceptable. These days racism is insidious, it doesn't necessarily present in a candid form. So I won't ever accept "innocent mistake" as a reason why these things happen. Nope. These campaigns cost millions to produce and advertise - yet someone somewhere missed the fact that black people have long been called and even today considered monkeys in many quarters of the world. I'm not buying that argument.

Seventhly, I won't go into the 'I'm not racist because my cat's best friend's aunt's cousin's uncle's wife is black'. It doesn't work like that. Once you have experienced and seen something - you cannot unsee it. It doesn't mean you go looking for it everywhere and as I actually said upthread - I personally can't see the issue with this particular shirt. But there is a reason why these things still happen.

Vlad

You know this wasn't a 'multi million dollar advertising campaign' right? It was one photograph in the H&M catalogue.

Why do you think the mother is only saying she wasn't offended for financial reasons? Do you think it's not possible at all that she could be telling the truth? That's a pretty offensive assumption in of itself.

Ok fine. I'll just add for the third time this evening that: you're wrong.

She probably is telling the truth - I'm not her, I don't know. But I outlined why it is still an issue in my mammoth post just upthread. I wonder how much you think 'one photograph in the H&M catalogue costs'. But whatever.

Vlad

I believe you when you say you don't condone violence.

My issue is that when you get such a ridiculously over the top reaction to something like this, especially when a subject as emotive as racism is involved then idiots doing stupid things and getting violent is almost an inevitability. The two can't be divorced from each other.

So what is the point you are making then?

We're not talking about the violence or death threat aspects of it.

Vlad

My point is the same as I made on the original thread about this. It's about intent. It seems like it was an honest mistake. They apologised and pulled it down on day one. Day one

The individuals involved made a point of going public and saying they weren't offended and didn't find it racist.

Maybe the response could have been to run a story or two about it in the news, publish their apology and then move on?

Or alternatively you could crucify H&M in the media for over two weeks and imply they are the commercial wing of the KKK. Organise international boycotts of their products in an attempt to put them out of business, get celebrities to condemn them and encourage their fans to join the boycott. Loot and burn down their stores and issue death threats against people when they aren't sufficiently 'offended'.

Which one of those responses sounds more measured and reasonable to you?

We are agreeing on the violence aspect of it but to me that is missing the wider, if not actual, point.

The disagreement we have is you calling it again an "honest mistake." Upthread I think you called it an "innocent mistake". And me saying otherwise.

he fact that so many of you see master and a black child and think slaves says a lot about you.

It does, it says we are acknowledging hundreds of years and millions of PoC being kidnapped from their homes, shoved onto transportation, beaten, raped and ultimately owned by wealthy white people. Millions of people losing their lives to a disgusting practise wrought by my (and many people on here’s) ancestors. It’s appalling. It isn’t just a part of black history. It is part of white history; a shameful, disgusting part that there are yet to be made reparations for (as if we even can. Yes it says a lot about us. It says a fuck of a lot about youWhatshallidonowpeoplethat you don’t.

That I don't think black people are all slaves? Tru dat!

Vlad your post at 20:53 was really interesting, thank you for sharing all of that.

Vlad

I think it was obviously an honest mistake. If you think about the way it happened and the description of the photoshoot etc.

The shoot was a catalogue style photoshoot, where the models were required to wear large amounts of different outfits (30-40+) in the same day and have their photos taken in each. The mother of the boy said she didn't pick up on the problem with that specific top, presumably despite helping him get dressed into it and being there for all the photos.

Then think about it from the photographer's point of view. After the event they would have potentially thousands of photos to filter through to find the best ones, all under time pressure, or they don't get paid. The amount of time they would have spent looking at the content of each photo in detail is going to be a few seconds at most.

Then the photo editor/web designer who has to get the photos uploaded to the H&M website is in a similar situation. Hundreds of different photos to be uploaded into the correct places, with the correct descriptions of the product etc, all under time pressure as well. They would almost certainly not be looking for anything that might cause 'offence' particularly if it wasn't obvious. (It really wasn't obvious)

I'm not an expert at how online catalogues are put together so I may have missed out some detail there, but I'm willing to bet that it pretty much what happened.

How is that particular photo with that particular model in it slipping through into the online catalogue in that situation anything other than an honest mistake?

Are you suggesting they did it deliberately?

I'm not an expert in how online catalogues work either - not my particular field but I'd bet my house on there being a dedicated team to QC.

I'm not suggesting they did it deliberately, as it were. What I am saying is that when we start calling these things out people will become aware of the issue and reduce the occurrences of these so-called "mistakes".

Vlad

And I'm all for calling it out if it happens and inadvertantly upsets some people. However the reaction that occured over this was absurd, particularly after H&M apologised immiediatly and removed the post, and the mother of the boy in question weighed in.

Why would they have a quality control team for pictures going into their online catalogue? I'd imagine new lines are uploaded all the time or old pictures updated, it's a mundane, routine task and part of the remit of a web editor or designer. Routine maintenance and upkeep of business websites is in the job description of those type of roles.

Even if they did have a dedicated QC person(s) looking at the photos, their job would be to ensure the quality of the photograph and that it shows of the product properly, not anything deeper.

You don't think they did it deliberately, yet you still put 'mistake' inside quotes?

It obviously was a mistake.

Why would they have a quality control team for pictures going into their online catalogue?

When you're a global brand it might be somewhat helpful to be mindful of what you put out to the world, lest your reputation suffers.

their job would be to ensure the quality of the photograph and that it shows of the product properly, not anything deeper.

For argument sake let's assume this to be true. Then someone somewhere didn't do their job properly or wasn't trained or informed properly.

You don't think they did it deliberately, yet you still put 'mistake' inside quotes?

Yes. Because the longer we treat these as oversights and 'mistakes' then the longer they will continue.

It obviously was a mistake.

Neither you or I can know that as neither of us worked on that particular campaign but the point is we need to stop and prevent these so-called mistakes.