Roommates, online retailer SHEIN found themselves in hot water earlier this week after a picture of one of their products surfaced online. The product is a black phone case featuring cartoon art showing an arrest chart and chalk of a black man. A white hand can be seen drawing the outline, while the black character looks frowning at her face. The art also shows the character to which the white hand belongs wears a long-sleeved blue shirt – which critics have interpreted as a police officer uniform.
Social media users have not responded well to the status of the phone, and some have pledged to stop purchasing from the site. On Saturday, the company hit back on one of those users and talked about the product.
User, by name JaYunnaMonae, mentioned the company in a tweet saying, “Now @ SHEIN_official …… I’m not going to send you another dollar after this. This really shocked me. Not cool”.
SHEIN responded directly to this user with an apology for the offense and a clarification of Art’s intent.
The company’s official Twitter account wrote: “You have drawn our attention to the fact that art is interpreted as racist, which contradicts its actual meaning.” “For those who have offended us, we sincerely apologize.”
In a second post, they explain the origin of art, saying, “The art was created in reaction to the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014 and was intended to show support for the BLM.”
Then people online noticed that the product, at $ 1.50, was the No trace was found On the Shein website. SHEIN followed suit again directly to the original tweet JaYunnaMonae.
“We removed the product out of respect for our community and wanted to make it clear that we never obtained permission from the artist to use art that was not intended for commercial use,” SHEIN tweeted.
We have removed the item out of respect for our community and want to make it clear that we have never obtained permission from the artist to use art that was not intended for commercial use.
– SHEIN (SHEIN_official) May 22, 2021
SHEIN refers to him Jane Julian, French graphic artist. Before SHEIN’s caption tweets, Jan criticized their use of his art in his Instagram Story. Besides his message, Jean has also re-shared the now viral art.
Jane wrote, “I’ve received a lot of messages warning me that Shein has used this image in phone cases, without my consent.” “Taking it out of context that was to raise awareness about what happened in Ferguson in 2014, to support Black Lives Matter.”
Roommates, what do you think of the situation?
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