Has H&M released an “equally racist” collection? Fact Check
A satirical article from a known spoof website claiming H&M are to release an “equally racist” collection is being taken seriously by many people online.
Early in 2018, H&M drew criticism for showing a black child in a hooded jumper with the caption “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle”. In the days that followed, an article appeared online that claimed H&M responded by releasing a collection of children’s apparel that is “equally racist” to other races.
The article, released on website Huzlers.com – but since escaping to other websites – shows other children of other races wearing clothes that have captions including “I’m the bomb” and “Puppy Fever”. See image below.
The article on Huzlers.com reads in part –
After H&M faced huge controversy for putting an African American boy to model a hoodie which read “Coolest monkey in the jungle”, It is being reported that H&M is planning on releasing a new collection that according to chairman Stefan Persson, is “equally racist to all the other races”. The collection will be called the “You’re Not Alone” collection.
Stefan told reporters that the monkey hoodie was mostly being criticized by black people, so they decided to work on a collection that is racist to not only blacks, but also Hispanics, Whites, west Asians, and east Asians. Check out the collection so far below:
While many soon determined that the article wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, others did not and assumed this was a genuine response to the controversy. As such, the article has spread virally across the Internet and has been reproduced onto a number of other websites.
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However, of course, none of the story was genuine. The photos of the children had all been digitally altered (except the original image showing the child with the “coolest monkey” jumper.) We tracked down all the original photos which you can see below.
Huzlers.com is a fake news website. There is a disclaimer on the website that outs the website as publishing fictional news. It reads in part –
Huzlers.com is a combination of real shocking news and satirical entertainment to keep its visitors in a state of disbelief.
As such, the story isn’t real.