What's up with major designer brands and other companies making RACIST clothes, other goods and ads?

@Olivier5,

Goldman stated that he's African-American.

The application of the concept of race as an earnest scientific field of physical anthropology began around the mid 19th Century. It quickly became politicized, being used to justify ideologies of superiority among groups, racism, and because of this was eventually discredited as a scientific study and is now better regarded as a social construct.

What's irrational is to assert that because race, as a subject of physical anthropology, doesn't exist, racism therefore, doesn't exist either. What's obtuse is to then lead to the assumption that if one can desregard race, one can disregard racism. Racism is a societal construct. It exists and is manifest in very real ways, from the ethnic cleansing of entire populations to the bananas thrown at black football players to the purportedly "enlightened" cartoons of black people being portrayed as monkeys, or using monkey metaphors against them.

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@JGoldman10,

Quote:

RACE is a SOCIAL construct.

My point entirely. It is fundamentally a racist social construct.

Like, you are of Sub-Saharian ancestry, but you might have some other ancestry as well, eg Russian, Chinese, Irish or whatever depending on your family tree. Strangest things have happened. Even if not, if you were to travel to Sub-Saharian Africa (maybe you did) you'd soon realize that people tjere would see you (rightly) as primarily American and therefore quite diffferent from themselves in spite of your skin color. I bet you'd feel very American, too. Because that's generally the case with African Americans travelling to Africa.

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@Olivier5,

We're not talking about African-Americans traveling to Sub-Saharan Africa and the cultural differences thereof. We're talking about the racism in the US and Europe against blacks.

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@InfraBlue,

Quote:

What's irrational is to assert that because race, as a subject of physical anthropology, doesn't exist, racism therefore, doesn't exist either.

I get that, honestly. Far from me the idea that racism does not exist or is not a grave social ill.

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@InfraBlue,

I'm trying to challenge a naïve view that races are real. This brings me to say that Africans don't happen to see African-Americans as one of them, they understand the "white" people living among them in Africa (eg Lebanes or Greek traders or Tamashek hearders) much better than they understand any African American. And similarly an African American will "belong" and relate much more easily with a bunch of "white" Americans than he could within any African community. That points to the fact that there is much more to our sense of identity than just skin color or ethnicity. I think it's relevant.

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@Olivier5,

The only people that think that "races are real" are racists. And again, you're deflecting the point of this thread, which is racism in the US and Europe, to cultural differences between American blacks and African blacks.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
RACE is a SOCIAL construct.

My point entirely. It is fundamentally a racist social construct.

Like, you are of Sub-Saharian ancestry, but you might have some other ancestry as well, eg Russian, Chinese, Irish or whatever depending on your family tree.

Of course I do. African Americans by definition are Americans mostly or partly of Sub-Saharan African ancestry. They are not racially-pure and this goes back to slavery times. Whites raped the slaves and the slaves intermarried with Whites and Native Americans.

If an African American were to do a DNA test, he/she would find they have European DNA, and/or Native American DNA, and/or other DNA in some cases.

My African American mother is part Irish and she is also related to President Harrison.

My dad was a White Jewish man- his dad was Russian and his mom was German.

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The following pic is from https://www.blackenterprise.com/black-artist-racially-offensive-hm-ad/:

https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/s36/MAvericker/1/4df06509-ffd8-4aa8-86d0-d3b021d58d84-original.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

People are construing this advert as being racist or racially-insensitive, and people went on Instagram to voice their opinions about it.

I don't think people would even be talking about it, if Hillary Clinton didn't call African American youths "superpredators" in an email.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

You're entitled to be disgusted by such trivial things. I'm not trying to take the moral high ground... Just saying that I get angry about other things than sweaters.

I find it mystifying that some people can waste so much energy on cultural wars when there are real wars raging, and a war on climate change yet to be fought.

Just to stay on racism, it’s a problem with far worse manifestations that sweaters. US black folks routinely get shot by policemen for no reason. That gets me angry alright; I understand how devastating the constant fear of the police is to Black communities in the States. But I can’t worry that much about a Prada outfit.

I am a Christian. I am glad I have never had any serious problem dealing with any American cops. I don't give the police any reason to bother me.

Cop brutality IS disgusting. To be fair, there are other people of color, and a lot of Whites who are subject to it. The problem with this is cop brutality isn't as publicized and talked about when other people of color and Whites are the victims. I think cop brutality gets more attention when Blacks are the victims because Blacks tend to speak up and out about it more.

This is the whole reason the BLM movement came about.

I don't care about ANY racist products or racist ads. I am not interested in buying any racist junk or seeing racist ads. This is trivial.

Olivier5 wrote:

Some people WANT to misunderstand others so badly that no amount of precise wording will ever help. They will always get lost because such is their wish. Who would I be to try and deprive them of the pleasures of confusion, conflation and approximation?.. :-)

According to you, calling a "white" man "monkey" cannot possibly be racist, while calling a "black" man such is always racist. On the contrary, my policy is to NOT take people's ethnic background into consideration when I write to them. So I write to a Jew just the same way as I write to a Goy, to a "white" man as to a "black" man, etc. Doing it any other way would be racist, in my book.

I've called White people things like "White monkey" or "White ape" or "White gorilla" who were picking at me online, especially ugly males, or thuggish-looking males.

I would never do that to anyone in person.

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@JGoldman10,

Quote:

My African American mother is part Irish and she is also related to President Harrison.

My dad was a White Jewish man- his dad was Russian and his mom was German.

Here you go. Your ancestry is part African part European. And so are most African Americans.

My wife's grand mother was born in Guinea Conakry, in a very rural and very African (Fula) background during colonisation. Her grand father was a French colon who married locally. That means my wife has inherited about a quarter of her DNA from Sub Saharian Africa. In the US, she's be classified as "black"; in Europe she's seen as "white".

1 Reply

@JGoldman10,

Quote:

Cop brutality IS disgusting. To be fair, there are other people of color, and a lot of Whites who are subject to it. The problem with this is cop brutality isn't as publicized and talked about when other people of color and Whites are the victims. I think cop brutality gets more attention when Blacks are the victims because Blacks tend to speak up and out about it more.

I don't live in the US, so I can't really tell but this sounds unfair to me. Some of these folks were shot for absolutely zero reason other than the cop's own fear of "black" men, rooted in prejudice.

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@JGoldman10,

Quote:

People are construing this advert as being racist or racially-insensitive, and people went on Instagram to voice their opinions about it.

I don't think people would even be talking about it, if Hillary Clinton didn't call African American youths "superpredators" in an email.

My sense is that advertisers are using the contemporary twitter outrage culture as a way to get free exposure. I didn't know these Adidas, Gucci and H&M products before you posted them here, and now I do.

The only thing you need to do to get a wild and totally free outburst of buzz on the Internet nowadays is insert some mildly offensive product in your product line.

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@InfraBlue,

Actually, the point of this thread is the degree to which some brands use offensive material to try and sell more products.

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@Olivier5,

Were you referring to me as a "monkey" in the British sense, as in "cheeky monkey"?

Olivier5 wrote:

Actually, the point of this thread is the degree to which some brands use offensive material to try and sell more products.

I think some companies are doing this for shock value. They want to be noticed. They WANT the attention they receive because it's free publicity for them.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
My African American mother is part Irish and she is also related to President Harrison.

My dad was a White Jewish man- his dad was Russian and his mom was German.

Here you go. Your ancestry is part African part European. And so are most African Americans.

My wife's grand mother was born in Guinea Conakry, in a very rural and very African (Fula) background during colonisation. Her grand father was a French colon who married locally. That means my wife has inherited about a quarter of her DNA from Sub Saharian Africa. In the US, she's be classified as "black"; in Europe she's seen as "white".

I know this already. I said:

"African Americans by definition are Americans mostly or partly of Sub-Saharan African ancestry. They are not racially-pure and this goes back to slavery times. Whites raped the slaves and the slaves intermarried with Whites and Native Americans.

If an African American were to do a DNA test, he/she would find they have European DNA, and/or Native American DNA, and/or other DNA in some cases."

You have Black Africans and Black West Indians and Blacks from other parts of the world immigrating to the U.S. The U.S. Census Bureau counts them as "African American", because they have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.

You want racial purity go to Africa.

There are some people I know who want to argue that I am "White" because my dad is White. They've told me that the dad dictates the race of the child.

Is this true? Do people in the U.S. see me as "White" even though I have yellowish-brown skin and dry, nappy hair? I've told people to look up "one-drop rule" and "hypodescent".

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@JGoldman10,

I don't know what a "cheeky monkey" is. I didn't even noticed your mention of being African American until it was pointed to me.

In truth, I was just trying to pike your attention. And just like some of these brands, I got far more attention that I deserved from one single use of the term "monkey"...

If I could write on these boards the equation that rules the world, or the most beautiful poem, or the most cogent ideas, nobody would ever care to read them... But one tiny offense to the PC crowd yielded massive attention from the usual cretins around here.

See how it works?

In conclusion, my advice is: don't give any brand any free publicity by pilling on the outrage game. If you find a product or an ad offensive, don't spread it, don't buy it, period. Focus instead on the very serious problems caused by racism, xenophobia and discrimination in real life, like in getting a good education, trying to find a job, renting a house, voting, or facing police brutality. There's enough here to keep any social activist busy for a lifetime.

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@JGoldman10,

Quote:

You want racial purity go to Africa.

There's no such thing as racial purity anywhere, not even in Africa. People have intermarried since the dawn of time.

There's more genetic diversity among African people than in the rest of the world combined.

In other words, two average Africans (eg a Wolof from Senegal and an Amhara from Ethiopia) have greater genetic differences between them than two average folks taken from anywhere else in the world (eg a Chinese and Scot).

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izzythepush wrote:

There are laws against displaying the swastika in Germany. It would be illegal to include it in an advertisement.

It's interesting that Izzy says this. By extension I assume it's socially unacceptable at least to produce any products and/or ads that depict anything having to do with Nazism in Germany.

Why is this not acceptable, but Che Guevara merchandise is?:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara_in_fashion

I just learned as of the time of the making of this post there's a store dedicated to Che Guevara merchandise:

https://www.thechestore.com/

I've seen this man's image plastered on things like posters and t-shirts and other products:

https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/s36/MAvericker/1/cbbc829c-51ff-4087-91ca-785d07a1b830-original.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2018/9567/products/T105-Che-Guevara-short-sleeve-T-shirt_1024x1024.jpg?v=1498592209

https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/s36/MAvericker/1/6d584f54-ce99-4ba8-8639-90d09352c148-original.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

1 Reply

@JGoldman10,

Che Guevara didn't set up a load of death camps in Germany.

Displaying Nazi imagery is illegal in Germany not elsewhere. It was one of the conditions of the allies in 1945.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

Che Guevara didn't set up a load of death camps in Germany.

True, but he was a villain. He was a communist revolutionary and was second in command to Fidel Castro. I'm not a history expert and I don't know much about Guevara. Didn't Guevara kill a lot of people?

izzythepush wrote:

Displaying Nazi imagery is illegal in Germany not elsewhere. It was one of the conditions of the allies in 1945.

Is it illegal to show or depict anything having to do with Nazism in Germany?

Are they allowed to show anything bearing Hitler's likeness on or in anything in Germany? Or anything with Himmler's likeness on or in anything, for example?

If someone wears a t-shirt with Hitler's image on it in the U.S., that would usually generate a lot of backlash and controversy.

3 Replies

What's up with major designer brands and other companies making RACIST clothes, other goods and ads?

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