H and M and the small boy modelling.

Eloethan hear hear.

Tegan2, in my experience children just don't notice what colour the other children are. My grandchildren go to a school where there are children of all religions and colour and there just doesn't seem to be a problem.

Well, now I know that if I want to buy a ‘little monkey’ top for my grandson, H&M is the place to go ... and here was me not even knowing that H&M sold kids’ clothes. Those advertising people know how to get our attention. Inviting outrage is like adding lots of chilliest to a dish -people may not like the result, but they’ll certainly remember it!

Don't forget that this advertisement needs to be viewed in the context of the comments made by several Americans in public office who referred to Michelle Obama as an "ape in heels" or similar disgusting and abhorrent slurs. In some parts of the USA this sort of racial vilification is not uncommon.

While we may all have referred to our own little ones as "little monkeys" at times there is a vast difference between a private reference and a public advertisement. At the very least I think that the advertisement was grossly insensitive and very badly misjudged.

I don’t like any t-shirts on children that have slogans on them that can be interpreted in different ways, or in ways that children won’t fully understand.
I think it’s an abuse of children’s innocence.
Glad to be outraged on this one.

I've been to several football games, notably to watch Bari on home turf (Italy) and heard the monkey chants which are not confined to persons of colour but to anyone thought to be a terroni (peasant). Adrian Mutu used to get a lot of this, you'd hear ' MU-TU, MU-TU' chanted right around the stadium together with a few hand and arm gestures (hands under armpits).
Italian football crowds are well known for this behaviour but not much is done to prevent it.
Lionel Messi has had his share of it too as have Stan Colleymore and others. You will never ever get rid of people's bias regarding race or religion, not in a million years.

More free publicity for a clothing firm, faking outrage and 'celebrities' that I have never heard of jumping on the band wagon.

When I am satisfied that child labour and exploitation is finished in the clothing industry, I will be delighted, a bit of manipulation from sophisticated, advertising agencies does nothing for me. Another fake protest while the real issue, the protection of kids used as cheap labour is ignored.

Frankly these days I would hesitate to call any child a monkey, although I agree formerly we did so and nobody thought anything of it. However, our perception of expressions change. I remember being horrified as a teenager when a member of my grandparents' generation called someone they felt had indulged in smart practice " a right Jew-wife" - that to me was, and still is, a most unfortunate comment.

Today many ignorant people do equate non-European or white people with apes, so H&M should have made a wiser choice IMO unless they were seeking adverse publicity.

I would have thought it is well known that monkey noises and "go back to the jungle" are common racist taunts.
This should really have no place on children's clothing.

Agree with you Rosina. Most of us don't see anything offensive in the ad. We just saw a cute little boy in a trendy hoodie. Colour and slogan didn't even enter our thoughts and clearly it didn't enter in to the mind of the person who sanctioned it. Surely this is a good thing. There will always be racists. But to make big issue out of this is just stirring up offence when none is meant.

I often called my children and even Grandchildren, "cheeky monkeys" with no harm meant, they used to giggle when I said that. Maybe times have changed so much, everything seems to be race related now.

As Pamaga says , there must be many mothers who would find it offensive even if the models mother doesn't .H and M must have known that.

To put a black child in a hoodie that calls him a monkey would be to invite bullying. But I assume that their parents wouldn't dream of purchasing any such thing.

Annodomini, I'm afraid I disagree. I don't think most children would have made any connection. Until it was all over media.

I understand what you're saying, anno, and agree. But I also feel that the saddest part of what you're saying is that we say things like that: that anything is "inviting bullying". It's in the same shocking category as saying that women and girls dressing provocatively is "inviting rape".

What a sad ape species we are about some things!

anitampl, I hope that's true.

It was certainly true that my middle brother didn't notice that the friend he made on holiday one year was black. The fact that the child was black came up later when my parents were talking about the child's family: seven adopted African and Asian kids of white British parents. "Was J black?" asked my brother who'd played with J every day for a week.

What bothered me most about the advert was the way the child was posed in a way that made me think he was 'gangsta-in-training' for his future life in the urban jungle. That really-really-really bothered me - that H&M would pose a young black child in such a way wearing a hoodie bearing that particular slogan - nearly everyone alive today knows calling a black or mixed race person a monkey whilst suggesting they live in a jungle is about as racist as it gets without coming right out and using the N word! I'm about as out-of-touch as it gets and I know it's unacceptable.

According to police statistics, young black children on council estates are especially vulnerable to being groomed as gang members for everything from drugs and gun-running to, well, nothing positive, that's certain.

I think H&M knew exactly what it was about with this advert. And frankly, the mum saying we should get over it? I think she's laughing all the way to the bank on the proceeds of her shameful willingness to exploit her young son.

Why can't everyone stop seeing the colour of someones skin and just see a human being?!

Well said, crystaltips.

Do people object to the slogan on the H & M girls' hoody: "Coolest cracker in the box"?

Perhaps reading what this thoughtful 17yo said might enlighten the subject

Liverpool’s Rhian Brewster: ‘When I’m racially abused, I just want to be left alone’

www.theguardian.com/football/2017/dec/28/liverpool-rhian-brewster-racial-abuse-england-uefa?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Email

crystaltips Tell that to the racists who make monkey noises and throw bananas at black people or to the woman who referred to Michelle Obama as "an ape in heels".

Would you be so relaxed about this wording on clothing if your child was black and was aware of the sort of racist taunts made against black people, or had even suffered them him/herself?

i read a black person's comment who said that by noticing the boy was black and associating it with monkey is a racist thought in itself.

As a white person who has never suffered this sort of abuse, it is unthinkable to me that this would be offensive. I might feel a little different if I wasn't white! Whilst the Mum might be more open minded, I think we have to accept that this sort of imagery might have unwanted connotations for some people. Sadly, there is so much abuse about race, colour and creed these things become toxic even though most of us don't really perceive it as such. Of course nobody would have an outcry about a white person being in the same hoodies as white people don't get monkey calls at football matches, etc. All of this could have been avoided if they had been more thoughtful.

I was astonished rather than outraged at the ignorance at H&M. ‘Monkey’ is shouted at black kids and adults. Children don’t see colour but they learn racism from their parents and a black child wearing that top would attract derogatory comments where I live,
To make it worse the child is scowling.
As for what the mother, who makes money from having registereed her son with some advertising agency, said, well she would, wouldn’t she!