system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: H&M ad is not racist.

This week's controversy is H&M ad where a black kid is wearing a shirt that says 'The coolest monkey in the jungle'. I saw it in the news (not from the US), and not many people outside the regulars to this stuff paid attention. Then I saw that it seemed to be a big thing in the US. 

I don't think it's racist. People call children monkeys. *Children*. I could have call my black nephew a monkey and it wouldn't have crossed my mind that it had racist connotations. I think there are two things at stake here:

1) **Intention**. Racism is defined as the belief in the superiority of one race over another, which often results in discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. Nothing of that appears in the ad, and I believe there was no intentional racism in the ad unless proven otherwise.

2) **Connotation**. This is a messy topic. Racists call black people monkeys, so they associate a racist connotation to the term. In fact, I believe they *want to* associate a racist connotation, and they succeed when we recognise it. Me refraining from calling my nephew a monkey would be their victory. But I also understand that it's not often that easy: if a black guy has had bad experiences being called monkey, you may want to avoid using that term. But it shouldn't be taken to an extreme, because there would never be an end to what connotation any person feels from every word. Furthermore, that connotation is American. I don't have it at home. The ad was from an international campaign by a Swedish brand. Should they research every local culture for a cute hoodie? Where does it stop? If a foreigner is oblivious to something of your culture (and again, I wouldn't have seen the racist connotation had it not been pointed out), you should just say 'hey, you may want to change that here'. Just out of politeness. Just because other people assume things from your background and see intentions where there were not. You wouldn't want to go to a different country only for people to be outraged because maybe clapping was once used to laugh at short people. 

It's all the outrage, 'hysterical', 'SHAME', I'm seeing that puzzles and disheartens me. That, instead of not caring or just saying 'hey, you may want to change this'.

Edit: I've just walked by a group of kids imitating monkey sounds. Some of them were black. They're the perfect representation of my point.

Edit 2: saw a couple mistakes on the text I can't bother to correct. Apologies, I posted it from my phone.

Edit 3: Many people outraged and pointing 'SHAME' (I'm quoting) for this but barely anyone talking about how they reportedly exploit Asian kids is also quite revealing. A lot of people just want to jump in the hate train and make it as destructive as they can. But barely anyone has a genuine reflexive opinion, I believe. Nowadays, they scream if they think murderer in a movie says something racist, but are ok with the killing.
gpt
In the Portuguese version of Attack of the Clones, the character Sifo Dyas was renamed because the name sounded unfortunately like "se fodias", which means something like "he was fucked".

This change of name was necessary not because George Lucas meant to offend Portguese speakers but because of the meaning *encoded* in his choice of language was *decoded* in an unfortunate way.

So when whoever was doing H&M's photoshoot put a black kid in a top that said he was a monkey, they didn't think it would have negative connotations because they weren't "portuguese speakers" in this analogy. They were white guys who don't usually see coded racist language.

However, if a black person sees that photoraph then they do see racism. It matters not if other people see it differently or it wasn't encoded that way on purpose, "Sifo Dyas is still an offensive phrase in Portuguese" and you should tailor your language to your audience, and that means not comparing black people to monkeys, even innocently.