Coolest Monkey In The Jungle?

Retail giant H&M has apologized for an ad featuring a black child model wearing a hoodie saying, “Coolest Monkey In The Jungle.” The outrage was red hot fire, as social media and news organizations from around the world condemned the $11 hoodie with the racist undertones. Twitter users lead the charge with scathing tweets, some calling for a boycott:

.@hm this is inappropriate, offensive, and racist. Why is the white kid “a jungle survivor” and the black kid the “coolest monkey in the jungle”? How do you think this is okay? REMOVE this and the clothing piece. This is completely distasteful! #racist #hm

Oh but it’s a cute hoodie. Nah. You ain’t gonna have a little black boy modeling this when Trayvon and Tamir’s killers are free. And racist out here still calling black folks “porch monkeys”. Shame on @hm Why representation matters… #hireblackfolks

You just figured your black customers would be too dumb to realize you’re posting racist ads on your website. Guess what we aren’t and we know how to #Boycott too, you don’t need to market to black people anymore.

Whether @hm is racist or not is debatable, what’s not is that this boy’s parents failed him. Let’s focus on that.. #handm

However there consenting views about the advertisement:

I don’t think H&M is racist. People are claiming to be offended when there is nothing to be offended for. It’s just the word monkey. It wasn’t stereotyping the young boy. It’s just a sweater. Stop getting offended over everything. @hm

How is it racist? Just because you associate black people with monkeys it doesn’t mean that everyone does…

In a hoodie with a caption that refers to a monkey (just meaning energetic kid) and making a connotation with that kid and a monkey YOU ARE THE RACIST. Not the ones seein it as nothing more as a child in a hoodie. If there were no black models yall would be protesting too.

H&M issued a statement of apology for the advertisement saying,  “This image has now been removed from all H&M channels and we apologize to anyone this may have offended.” Back in October, Unilevers, Dove Soap also got into some “scalding hot water,” when an advertisement depicting a black woman removing her shirt after using Dove soap, became a white woman. You can read about it here, Dove.