Clothing retailer, Forever 21, and its marketing team must have missed the blockbuster hit “Black Panther” at the movies. The chain retailer used a white male model to advertise a “Wakanda Forever” sweatshirt and Black Twitter wasn’t having it.
They’ve since removed the image from the website.
The sweater pays homage to “Black Panther,” which became an iconic status for Blacks for its depiction of a Black superhero and the fictional African nation of Wakanda. The film had a predominantly Black all-star cast.
Forever 21 issued an apology, regarding the incident. A representative on behalf of the company stated: “Forever 21 takes feedback on our products and marketing extremely seriously. We celebrate all superheroes with many different models of various ethnicities and apologize if the photo in question was offensive in any way.”
The executive team is made up of only five people but only two are women. There are no Blacks in its leadership.
The website isn’t very diverse in the first place, using predominantly white models to wear their clothes. A little more thought should have been given when deciding who would model this sweater.
Black Twitter was quite vocal of its disapproval of the retailer’s model choice. See some of the tweets below:
It gets better.
The best one yet.
