Who Let the H&M 'Coolest Monkey' Sweatshirt Fiasco Happen?

I saw this sweatshirt before you.

It's apart of a trend that focuses on wildlife, safari colors, and activism (ironic now, in too many ways to explain).

I saw this picture, and all I thought was, “oh, shit.”

To be CLEAR, I think that the picture is distasteful. I can’t imagine how anyone could see this image and not immediately see something wrong. I don’t understand why this little boy’s parent did not think to step in during the shoot and say something. I’m not sure who oversaw wardrobe on the day of the shoot, but I’m sure they should’ve seen something glaringly wrong when the little boy walked on set.

As for the sweatshirt, it’s front print has only evoked anger because a little black boy is wearing it. From a visual merchandiser’s point of view, the sweatshirt color was the perfect fit for his skin tone. The sweatshirt comes in 3 different colors with 3 different prints – an orange with a tiger and the text “Mangrove Jungle Survival Expert," a navy blue with animal image prints all over, and the infamous green with “Coolest Money in the Jungle” text. At the point that the other colors were unfit for the boy, and the green shirt’s message was deemed unfit, he should’ve been used to model something else. That’s what would’ve happened in a perfect world.

That’s what should’ve happened, even in this less-than-perfect world.

All I could think as I watched Black Twitter drag the company all day was: Where were all the black people?? This image made it from the photo shoot, through editing, and I’m sure it had to be reviewed and signed off by a few people, and NO ONE thought that this was a problem? Did any black people who worked for the company see this? This picture must’ve been approved on MLK Day and the black people of H&M’s Swedish branch were the only ones to observe the holiday. I cannot sit here and think that any person of color let this slide. And I believe that there is where the problem lies. It’s the lack ethnic diversity in their upper-level marketing teams.

H&M isn’t the only company to run into issues with being racially insensitive, and they won’t be the last. Recently Dove had their commercial fiasco where a black woman removed her brown shirt to reveal a white woman wearing a lighter colored shirt. Critics said it was racist because it showed a black woman transforming into a white woman, suggesting that black skin is dirty and white skin is clean.

Pepsi had us all dragging Kendall Jenner because of her commercial where she ended a peaceful protest and, what seemed to be, police brutality with a can of soda. It was one of the most insensitive moves of 2017, amid the string of death of innocent people by police.

But it makes you question who could be overseeing these marketing teams. I’m not sure about Dove or Pepsi but I think their issue is the same. Where are the people of color who would speak out about the issues that we see in these marketing tactics? If we’re in an uproar about it on the internet, we would never let it get off the drawing board in the first place.

H&M, with your headquarters over international waters and plethora of multicultural employees, how could you not see the issue here? How could you let yourself get caught up in this mess?

Out of all of this, I don’t want an apology and I don’t think that any of the people who are in such an uproar about it should receive one either. The little boy whose image has been plastered all over the internet needs the apology. He probably doesn’t understand why his picture is deemed racist. He probably imagined fame from the picture that was chosen, and now it’s received nothing but notoriety. And, above all, his image AND the garment will both be pulled from our stores. Sorry kid, H&M marketing let us all down.