Jesse Williams Speaks Up About H&M

Jessie Williams is just one of the many celebrities that are voicing their opinion and about the recent H&M posting that is causing such an uproar in the Black community. The fashion retailer featured a dark skin black boy on their website wearing a hoodie that read’ Coolest Monkey in the Jungle”. Ofcourse this did not sit well with people, including celebrities like G-Easy and The WKND who have since decided that they will no longer pursue partnerships with the brand.

Jessie Williams teamed up with Nicki Minaj for an H&M campaign during Christmas. He posted a photo on Instagram of the company’s board of directors who all happen to be white and calling out the company on their lack of inclusion.

“These offenses are more about the makeup of the rooms where they happen, than the items they produce. There is a concentration of power, committed to exclusion, whether casual, accidental or conscious.”

Of course H&M has released a statement apologizing for the offense and the ad has since been removed from all the company’s social outlets.

Just getting back from vacation to see this pathetic excuse for corporate behavior and [ir]responsibility. Last year I chose to do a holiday campaign w/ @HM specifically because it centered women and girls as imaginative doers; because it centered an intelligent dark skinned girl w/ natural hair as protagonist; because it featured a loving, creative, working class black family. And then, here they come with this bullshit... These offenses are more about the makeup of the rooms where they happen, than the items they produce. There is a concentration of power, committed to exclusion, whether casual, accidental or conscious. The collateral damage of this corporate, colonial mind-state recurs several times a year; it’s predictable the world over, like seasons. So when i first laid eyes on it, my reaction was neither shock nor anger. It was, boredom. This old world, white power, failing-upward culture of reckless trampling that repeatedly exposes itself, is boring already. Aren’t you bored? Aren’t you bored watching mediocre, incurious & consequently destructive people waltz through your life, shepherded into positions of power, further choking off opportunity for the actually talented, curious & decent among us? It’s a truly desperate and bizarre ritual we’ve become conditioned to. A ritual that WILL go the way of the confederate flag: A relic of a destructive, juvenile “civilization,” disguised as harmless tradition. End relationships with your abusers. Make room for yourselves. #BuyBlack‬ #BuyResponsibly #Make
A post shared by jesse Williams (@ijessewilliams) on Jan 9, 2018 at 8:44am PST