The mother of a black child who was featured in a controversial H&M ad for a hoodie that read, “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle,” said that people calling it racially insensitive need to “get over it.”
In a series of since-deleted Facebook posts, the mom, Terry Mango, of Stockholm, Sweden, said she didn’t support the backlash over the ad — which even prompted The Weeknd to end his partnership with the brand.
“Am the mum and this is one of hundreds of outfits my son has modelled,” Mango wrote. “Stop crying wolf all the time, unnecessary issue here … get over it.”
Mango continued: “If I bought that jumper and put it on him and posted it on my pages, would that make me racist? I get pples opinion, but they are not mine.”
In another message, Mango said she had been to all of her son’s modeling shoots and was with him when he modeled the hoodie in question.
“Everyone is entitled to their opinion about this,” Mango wrote. “ … I really don’t understand but not coz am choosing not to but because it’s not my way of thinking, sorry.”
H&M apologized for the ad on Monday.
“We’re deeply sorry that the picture was taken, and we also regret the actual print,” the company said in a statement. “Therefore, we’ve not only removed the image from our channels, but also the garment from our product offering.”
The statement continued: “It’s obvious that our routines haven’t been followed properly. This is without any doubt. We’ll thoroughly investigate why this happened to prevent this type of mistake from happening again.”
NBA megastar LeBron James and Manchester United forward Romelu Lukaku are among the many who spoke out against the ad.
“We as African Americans will always have to break barriers, prove people wrong and work even harder to prove we belong but guess what, that’s what we love because the benefits at the end of the road are so beautiful!” James wrote in a post showing the boy wearing a crown accompanied by the words “King of the World.”
