Volkswagen pulls ‘racist’ advert after outcry
Carmaker issues apology over online video showing black man being pushed about by giant white hand
CARMAKER Volkswagen was forced to apologise yesterday after it was accused of overt racism in an online advert for its latest car.
The company released a video on its Instagram account showing a black man being pushed around by a giant white hand preventing him from touching a brand new Golf parked in the street. However, the commercial, most likely intended as a humorous skit, was deleted within hours of its appearance following complaints.
VW said in a statement: “Without question the video is wrong and tasteless. We distance ourselves from it and apologise for it. We will clarify how this could have happened, and draw the necessary conclusions.”
Bernd Osterloh, the head of the workers’ council at the carmaker, said:
“I’m ashamed of this disgusting video. And I speak for the entire workforce when I say that.”
The company is still trying to repair its image five years after the diesel emissions scandal, and comes only a year after Herbert Diess, VW’S chief executive, was forced to apologise after he referenced a Nazi death camp slogan in a joke at a company event.
The video was quickly seized on by social media users who spotted other disturbing features.
Several pointed out that letters spelling out the German equivalent of the n-word appear to fade in at the end of the video.
Others said that a sign over a doorway in the clip reading “Le Petit Colon” was a reference to colonialism.
To make matters worse, VW initially issued a half-hearted apology, claiming the “origin of the people depicted” was “irrelevant”, adding: “As you can imagine, we are shocked and surprised that our Instagram story could be so misunderstood.”
VW was forced to backtrack after the initial apology prompted a new flood of criticism. “No one here got the wrong impression,” one commentator wrote on Instagram. “This is bad and racist communication. The people who made this knew exactly what they were doing,” another wrote on Twitter.
The incident is particularly damaging, in light of VW’S historic links to the Nazi regime. The VW Beetle was known as Adolf Hitler’s “Strength through Joy” car. This was a programme to foster internal tourism for the German working classes.
The company’s factories were also turned over to armament production during the Second World War.