A ridiculous ad? Early last year, I remember my social media news feeds being blown up over many controversial ads by clothing and retail companies. From Gucci to Prada and many others.The reason for backlash was usually linked to racism. So was it blatant racism or pure stupidity? In January of 2018, H&M faced an enormous amount of backlash over a controversial statement on a hoodie worn by an African American child. On the hoodie it stated ¨Coolest Monkey in the Jungle ̈. Many celebrities fired back at H&M over the controversial statement on the hoodie. Celebrities such as The Weeknd, Lebron James and many others took to Twitter to express their outrage. Twitter and other social media outlets also attacked H&M’s marketing team for making such a careless mistake.Some social media personalities and celebrities began to boycott and ̈cancel” H&M over their ridiculous ad. In response to all of the backlash, H&M stated a public apology, but people just aren’t buying into it. Some people feel it was blatant racism while others feel like it was too obvious to miss such a terrible statement. Others questioned the model selection for the hoodie. All of the problems with the statement on the hoodie point back to racism towards African Americans, the history behind it, and the reference of the monkey or being called a monkey. The mother of the young boy fired back at social media and accused people of being ridiculous and that they needed to back off. So what exactly is the issue? The overlapping issue behind all of this is racism in the media faced by African Americans for centuries. For years African Americans have been publicly ridiculed for their skin color and large features such as their noses and lips. In earlier centuries and even today, African American men and women have been displayed as caricatures with large noses and giant pink lips often being compared to a monkey. Another issue that arises out of this is blackface. Blackface is when a person, usually white, paints themselves black to portray a person with a darker skin tone, usually a black person. Blackface was used in the early 1900ś to portray African Americans in movies or films. This showed the blatant racism of America in the 20th century. What is the issue about the monkey though? Well, throughout history, African American people have been compared to monkey because they stereotypically have bigger lips and noses to match their brown/black skin tone. Being referred to as a monkey is a widely known derogatory term to call an African American person therefore H&M is being called out for blatant racism and overall stupidity.