Blackface
The black community has adopted the term “Gucci” meaning “good, great, amazing”. If you’re not familiar with Gucci, it is a luxury brand of clothing, shoes, purses, and accessories. For some absurd reason, the brand Gucci decided to release a wool sweater for $890.00 that turns into a black face with red lips. Let’s keep in mind that this is all taking place during Black History Month.
After complaints of this sweater depicting racism, the brand decided to have this sweater pulled from online and physical stores. My question is, “Why would you think that it’s okay to make something like this in the first place?” Are there no black people who work at Gucci who thought that maybe, just maybe, this was a bad idea?
It’s Not Just Gucci
Unfortunately, Gucci is not the first brand to pull something like this. I know we all remember when H&M posted an ad campaign with a little black boy wearing a sweater that stated “coolest monkey in the jungle”. Prada and Dolce & Gabbana have also been in the hot seat. Dolce & Gabbana released what they called “slave sandals” and last year Prada released blackface figurines. Can these brands really be so naïve or do they just not care about the blatant disrespect for black people? Keep in mind, black people are their top supporters.
Now, of course, each of these brands released apologies. Part of Gucci’s apologies stated that they will do more to increase diversity throughout their brand. Why is there not more diversity already, Gucci, when clearly the people who are purchasing this brand are very diverse?
Boycott
Celebrities like T.I. are calling for a boycott of Gucci. He is asking that people stop buying Gucci for the next 3 months and do not wear any previously owned Gucci gear. That’s cool with me being that I never purchased anything Gucci and did not plan on it. I just want to know what happens after this 3-month boycott? Do we go back to purchasing Gucci and act like nothing ever happened?
When are these brands going to learn that the “black dollar” is the backbone of this country? I propose that instead of just boycotting Gucci for 3 months let’s make a pledge to purchase from black-owned businesses. There are so many dope black clothing designers that cost less than half the price of Gucci. Let’s take the “black dollar” and keep it in our community instead of these major brands that are “working on becoming more diverse”.
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