I can’t actually believe this has become news worthy and that they have pulled the jumper entirely.
How fucking ridiculous?!?! A black boy, in a jumper, with the slogan “coolest monkey in the jungle” written on it. How the fuck in this day and age, pro fucking gay purple lesbian unicorns, is it even a thing. Its cute; not abhorrent.
Seriously. Yes I am aware the term “monkey” was, and even still is, used as a derrogative term to attack black people and their appearance, but in the greater scheme of things, should context not play a role in determining whether or not something is or isn’t racist?! Racism after all is hatred or intolerance of another race or other races. This is not what this jumper and the model wearing it was about. Are we not perpetuating the existence of racism by making things such as this even a topic of conversation. That kid probably didn’t and wouldn’t have EVER in his whole life thought twice about it if this hadn’t been blown up. Now he will. Now he will forever remember himself as being at the centre of a huge racist clothing campaign. Now instead of forging the way for future generations to not even know what racism is and was (which btw is the only way to eradicate it), we are helping them to learn what it was and what it apparently still is by taking completely innocent ideas and running fucking miles with them. As Ann Widdecombe would say – the world has gone mad.
We didn’t go mad when we saw Christmas jumpers modelled on a plus size model with slogans such as “mince pies before guys” and lose our minds over being FATTIST. I highly doubt anyone would bat an eyelid at the slogan “CASPER” on a white mans piece of clothing. Its fucking absurd, has seriously got my goat and is just highlighting an issue we are apparently working so hard on to eradicate.
Don’t get me wrong it is not my decision as a young white female to decide when and how other races get offended by the adversity they have faced for decades and hundreds of years, but I am just saying that when there is deliberate out and out racism – let it be heard from the rooftops, and when there is a completely innocent action not intended to upset anyone, why can’t we just let sleeping lions sleep, because it is the only way to truly move forward. Would it not have been more racist to have refused permission for a black model to model it?! YES of course it would be. So lets be honest, there was never going be a satisfactory outcome.
I feel sorry for the young boy. He was probably proud as punch being a professional model featured on a global company. He probably had no idea about the dark connotation behind the word monkey. If we went back in time and asked him what he thought about the jumper he was putting on, he would probably say it was cool. The term monkey was probably lost on him and now it isn’t. The term monkey was probably something he has been called many times in an endearing way like most of us parents call our kids. He has now in some small way been robbed of his innocence.
I hate racism, and I hate the way we continually perpetuate situations we claim to be wanting to resolve. We are our own worst enemy. This didn’t need to happen, the term monkey should never have become derogatory to begin with, I am disgusted for those that have ever suffered from true racism in conjunction with this word. But this was innocent. That jumper, and the boy who modelled it were innocent. If young black boys and girls can no longer wear designs with monkeys on, watch programmes with monkeys in, play with monkey toys, then we live in a really fucking sad world that is getting worse, not better.
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