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Controversy Over Black Girl’s Hair in Ad Campaign

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Okay so, with all of the controversy surrounding natural hair in the workplace and schools and in general, it didn’t long for the Internet to speak out over a photo of at least one school child pictured in H&M’s new kids campaign.

A long IG post by IG user vernonfrancois, writes in part:

“My heart breaks imagining yet another girl from my community sitting in front of a mirror being ignored by the team around her, left to her own devices because someone didn’t know how to handle her texture.”

View this post on Instagram

It’s essential that we have a conversation about this photograph from the @hm_kids campaign.  Before I begin, I do not have the facts, nor have I seen any statement by #H&M or the team who worked on this. This post is just an assessment based on all my years of seeing situations like this happen time and time again.  And its got to stop. This beautiful young girl’s #kinky hair appears to have had very little to no attention yet all of her counterparts have clearly sat in front of someone who was more then capable of styling other hair textures. My heart breaks imagining yet another girl from my community sitting in front of a mirror being ignored by the team around her, left to her own devices because someone didn’t know how to handle her texture. As if that’s not bad enough…. Prior to this campaign appearing this photograph will have been seen and APPROVED by countless ‘professionals'. Lets say conservatively 50 people. It’s breathtaking to me that not one person looked at this shot and had the same reaction that the internet seems to be feeling since the campaign broke.  THAT IS AN ISSUE.  We must do better.  Our girls, our young women deserve better.  Let this be a moment of learning. #Education is key #wehavetodobetter #vernonfrancois #Ignorance #blackgirlmagic #allhairisgoodhair

A post shared by Vernon François (@vernonfrancois) on

But, H&M has since responded, noting that they usually shoot their child models after a full day of school and wanted the kid models to look like kids.  Their statement says, “If you look at the imagery online, it’s clear that none of the child models, including the various Black kids with different textured hair, had their hair styled for this shoot.”

One Twitter user seemingly thought it was much ado about nothing in this post:


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