There was a huge controversy over a green hoodie that was sold for 7.99 with the words“Coolest Monkey in the Jungle.” The problem is there was an African American boy that was modeling the shirt for them. The problem was not the words on the hoodie but it was the fact that there was an African American boy modeling it. This image caused a lot of people to think that H&M was racist and a lot of people now refuse to shop there. Artists like G Easy who was going to have his clothing line there decided to no longer work with H&M due to this image. Another problem is that even though the boy was modeling the clothing it required parental consent. There is a lot of controversy with this situation as a whole and many people think the parents are just as much responsible. The main questions are should this be considered the parents fault just as much as it is H&M or is it H&M’s responsibility to keep track of what they are putting out into the public? Overall, a lot of people think even though clothing has certain art images or quotes on it, there is a limit on how far art can go due to the different nationalities of people modeling the clothing.
I feel like this makes sense in today’s technology, social, and culture. However, there’s also a question of when are people too sensitive when it comes to certain words? What if people just didn’t notice or cared as it wasn’t really that big of a deal? Some words have strong derogatory meaning but others are quite neutral or meaningless. It definitely could have been avoided but it also feel like overreacting. If the parents saw this and consented, then it showed that they didn’t view this as something to over escalate.