Anti-racism body offers training to retailer that got flak for controversial ad

Global clothing retailer H&M has embarked on an aggressive programme with the Anti-Racism Network South Africa (Arnsa) to learn about racism and transformation.

This follows the widespread outrage and protests over its controversial advert in January featuring a black child wearing a hoodie with the words “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle”.

Director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation Neeshan Balton said H&M has admitted to Arnsa that its advert had been a mistake, and its management and staff in South Africa are undergoing training “to fully understand the complexity of race relations and racism in the country”.

Speaking at the launch of Anti-Racism Week at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg yesterday, Balton said the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, which is part of the anti-racism network, was running the training for H&M.

Part of H&M’s global team would also be trained as part of the retailer’s commitment to deal with racism and transformation. A team from Arnsa would be travelling to the retailer’s headquarters in Sweden next month to share “our perspectives on why the advert was wrong and why there was implicit bias”, Balton said.

He said the anti-racism network had planned to stage demonstrations at H&M outlets after the advert was published but withdrew after the EFF embarked on a series of violent protests at the stores.

H&M’s global human resources head and transformation officer came to SA to meet with Arnsa after the Kathrada Foundation wrote to the retailer’s headquarters to express its disquiet about the advert.

“We are mindful that had the EFF not done what they did, H&M would never have agreed to meet with Arnsa,” Balton said.

Speaking at the anti-racism launch, Minister of Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa said new legislation that would criminalise racism would be tabled at a cabinet committee meeting tomorrow. The bill was published last year and had received substantive public comment, Mthethwa said.

Once passed by cabinet, the bill, which would allow hate speech and hate crimes to be criminally prosecuted, would be channelled through parliament, Mthethwa said.

Delivering the keynote address at the event, former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas said post-democracy affirmative action indigenisation policies have had mixed success in combating the racial imbalances in the economy.

“They have been less effective when the state is weak and unable to target disadvantaged groups well, when benefits are captured by elites or when the policies discourage private fixed investment and provoke capital flight due, for example, to threatened property rights,” Jonas said.

He said there had been significant changes in the pattern of earnings but less so in patterns of wealth. “The income earned by black people has gone from roughly one third to just over half of national income over the past 20 years. Black people now constitute about half of the top 10% of income earners but only a quarter of the top 1% of earners.”