To worry most people won’t ever ‘get it’

[OverTheRainbow88]

All the marches, Protests etc and people still don’t seem to understand!

Will they ever?

The illustration shows a Mermaid with sleek dark hair..Not ''fluffy''
However, they should have just left the Mermaid illustration without the daft caption.
Cats are ''fluffy''...'.Not people.
It is a strange adjective to use for a person's hair.

And where have I done that, axolotl?
(Hint: you're doing it again.)

The white woke people are out in force again, finding 'racism' to be offended over.

Ok so the book comes with various different covers with mermaids of different skin & hair tones.

If the blonde & the redhead mermaid have fluffy hair but the black one doesnt because someone worries it will offend black people due to the history of hair discrimination, isnt it then othering? Again it feels you can't win.

Clearly they had to put the hair as fluffy as they want to include a fluffy texture in the book as its the bit children love, and there isnt really another body part that can be fluffy.

Gosh I was so tired I went to bed so early and there were 4 pages now there’s 10, will have a reading catch up over the day!

Well I’m hoping that if this thread has even made 1-2 people change their mind It was worth it, as those 1-2 people can educate another 1-2 and so forth!

And also people saying white people shouldn't be moaning about it... one of the leading slogans from the recent BLM campaign is “white silence is violence”. i.e. it’s almost as damaging for a white person to sit back and not confront black racism.

Manufactured outrage

Confronting racism is good

But was this racism or manufactured woke outrage?

The OP isn't about the book, it's about the t-shirt!

The T-shirt is a print of the book cover though

The message in the books isn't that her hair is too fluffy to be a mermaid, it's that her hair is fluffy and the mermaid being searched for in the book does not have fluffy hair. There's a lot of stretching going on to be offended by this.

@Glamazoni

My son has a similar book with “That’s my pirate, his beard is so fluffy”. The pirate is black. Nobody seems to be complaining about that though?

Tbh I’m surprised nobody is complaining about it being a mermaid instead of a merperson. What defines the mermaid as female anyway? She clearly doesn’t have lady parts because she’s a fish from the waist down.

The whole point of people objecting to this one image being chosen for a T- shirt, rather than any other, is that the mermaid is being rejected because of her hair.

If people were objecting to one page in a book, you could use context as an argument, but someone has made the decision to pick that one image rather than many others for a t-shirt, context is therefore removed, and now they need to explain themselves.

I think Tesco's mistake was printing this as a tee-shirt. It has caused offence as without the context of the book it does look a little like 'black girls with fluffy hair can't be mermaids'! It was thoughtless.

Surely everyone that has read the 'That's not my ... ' series of books to their child though, isn't offended by it?

@Wtfdidwedo

The message in the books isn't that her hair is too fluffy to be a mermaid, it's that her hair is fluffy and the mermaid being searched for in the book does not have fluffy hair. There's a lot of stretching going on to be offended by this.

Yes, that's what it means WHEN you analyse it but what does it say upon first glance to people for whom this is a touchy subject? That's why it's cringy.

What was that line some white people adopted while talking about the use of 'Karen' or 'white privilege '(a touchy issue for them) again?

Oh yes: "If it has to be explained to convey the meaning, it's nonsense"... or "missed it's mark" or something to that effect.

But I suppose that doesn't apply if it's black people being outraged. They are simply too woke or professionally offended.

@LioneIRichTea

The OP isn't about the book, it's about the t-shirt!

The T-shirt is a print of the book cover though

Yes but only of the brown mermaid, not shirts of all the different mermaids. If there were multiple shirts I wouldn't have a problem, but they've only made a shirt of the brown mermaid with too fluffy hair. So it is out of context. Not hard to understand but this is a common issue with people who are either ignorant or disingenuous .

There's also a thats not my fairy book, describing one white fairy's hair as too frizzy...

@Pinkyponker

I think you’re really missing the point

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@Pinkyponker

I think you’re really missing the point[/quote]
Probably

It doesn't matter if a white mermaid had also had hair described as "fluffy" because context exists. "Fluffy" is a loaded word when describing afro hair due to the prejudice and discrimination black people face due to their hair texture. I was eleven when a classmate told me my hair looked like pubes. Just like you can't call a black child a monkey without causing offence, when you could a white child, you shouldn't describe afro hair as "too fluffy".

Can I ask a question? I'm not trying to be goady, I just don't understand.

If there where 3 books on the shelf:

1. White skin, Blonde hair mermaid 'her hair is too fluffy'
2. White skin, Ginger hair mermaid 'her hair is too fluffy'
3. Brown skin, Black hair mermaid....nothing about her hair, focus on a different feature eg 'her clip is too bumpy'

Wouldn't that be seen as offensive? Couldn't a little girl look at those three pictures and think 'the White girls have books with pictures of their hair on, but my hair is so gross that they didn't put it on the book'?

I'm asking because, as a white person with limited understanding of the history of hair discrimination and obviously having never experienced it myself, thats the scenario I would've thought was racist.

The T-shirt is bad because it doesn't have the context of the books. The books are clearly trying to be inclusive rather than racist. I wonder how many black people are offended by it?

Bit of side question, but what’s with adding lots of random capitals in sentences and words? I’ve seen it before but not sure what it’s supposed to convey (I feel old!)

It's someone who is trying to be sarcastic and think they're funny, but they're not really. It's just pathetic and irritating.

And Royalty has spoken!

@Littlepond

Some people will never get it, will never try and get it, will never educate themselves or be prepared to change their minds.

This was awful from Tesco and it’s very depressing that people can’t or won’t see the racist element of this. If you don’t understand how this is offensive, educate yourselves.

This

Must be in the group mentioned to be so irritated.😄

Hope that doesn't make you 'professionally irritated', we can't have that. It's reserved for another emotional state.

Racism will always be found in places where it doesn’t actually exist. This is a change from the original to be inclusive but apparently now it’s racist??? It’s a sensory book...... give it a rest with the racist rants. Blonde haired blue eyed has inherently racist
Undertones but no ones was making a fucking fuss about it were they??

The thing is, it has already been explained how many times on this thread why what tesco did was not good. People have taken the time to explain that women with African hair have a history of negativity around it, due to how it has been denigrated and put down, unlike European hair. It is important that young children with African hair are given positive messages regarding their hair from very young. People with no understanding of the history of this, should listen to people who know what they are talking about. But no, some would rather try to shout people down, call them names, stamp their feet, and carry on being ignorant because... well who knows eh. Your guess is as good as mine!