The H&M scandal has been going on for two weeks now, and at this point it has gone way too far. Recently, the H&M website featured a printed hoodie available for purchase; it seems innocent, right? The problem that everyone had comes with the model and the print on his hoodie. The model, a black boy, was wearing a green hoodie with the text ‘Coolest Monkey In The Jungle’ on the front. I believe that the problem is not with the hoodie itself but as The Root stated, the problem is “a photo of a black child wearing a ‘coolest monkey in the jungle’ [hoodie] passed anyone with a lick of common sense, racial sensitivity, or melanin and made it onto its site,” considering that black people over the centuries have been compared to monkeys.

H&M issued an apology for their actions, but it was a little too late. People on Instagram and Facebook already began to make art and t-shirts profiting off of H&Ms mistake. Celebrities like LeBron James and Diddy spoke out about about the racist picture by posting a revised picture of the model on their instagram. In the revised picture the model’s hoodie reads ‘Coolest King In The World.’ Singer Abel Tesfaye, also known as The Weeknd, said he was “shocked and embarrassed” by what H&M did and stated that he would no longer be working with them.

Soon after their apology, H&Ms online store marked down their items to 80% off.  I asked Love Lundy, a sophomore here at Bob Jones, if she would still shop at the store despite their racial ignorance. Lundy stated “Do I eat Chick Fil A? Yes. Do I have to shop at Hobby Lobby? Yes. Do I go to a school named after someone who made racist remarks? Yes. Does that answer your question?”

Many people on Twitter and Facebook agree that H&M was being racist, but others, like me, believe that calling H&M racist is a very far stretch.

People look at this dark-skinned model with the word ‘monkey’ on his shirt, and they automatically think racism. If this little boy was light-skinned or white, there would be no controversy.  Since the beginning of this dispute, people have been super overdramatic and “crying wolf” where there isn’t one said Terry Mango, the child model’s mother.  “I think we as black people are so used to racism that we find it in places that it is not,” said senior Zach Wood.

Protesters in South Africa trashed an H&M store to “prove a point,” but the only point they proved is sometimes black people take stuff way too far. This resulted in closing all South African stores in the area, putting people out of much needed jobs.

H&M issued an apology and hired a diversity manager, but I believe that we will still be hearing about the H&M scandal for months to come because people don’t know when to let stuff go.