Sainsbury's has apologised after removing a pair of trousers from its online store that was advertised using a 'racial slur'.
What?!?
I often buy Tu clothing in Sainsbury's - it's smart enough for the office and pretty good value - but I must have missed this one...
The company - which owns the clothing brand, TU - was criticised for listing a pair of school trousers as having a 'knee grow' hem, a phrase which is allegedly used as a disguise for a racial slur.
The two pairs of trousers in question are advertised as 'Grey Skinny Reinforced Knee Grow Hem Trousers 2 Pack' and 'Reinforced Knee Grow Hem Woven Trousers 2 Pack'.Other school trousers by TU, had various other titles, including 'Skinny Fit Grow Hem', 'Longer Leg Grow Hem' and 'Generous Fit Woven Grow Hem'.
Ah, that'll be why I missed it, not having to venture into the school uniform section. And also not being genned up on what will pass a profanity filter... 🙄
Sharing a picture of the trousers on X, and tagging Sainsbury's, one person wrote: 'Are you aware that the item name below is freely used by racists to bypass n-word filters?
'May I suggest renaming the item. Also maybe a few Black faces in the decision-making process, to avoid this in the future.' [sic] The Tweet was viewed 230,000 times.
Oh, of course, it makes total business sense to hire more Offencefinders General to prevent people with too much time on their hands from finding things to mock on the Internet! The sort of people who are convinced that even innocent 'OK' gestures can be interprested as 'racist'.
The company said it was 'urgently updating' the product labelling after being notified of the issue, adding 'we're truly sorry for the upset this has caused'.
It should have said nothing and ignored the furore entirely.
Perhaps we should start saying 'Sainsburys when we mean the N word. It'll be interesting seeing them work around that one.
ReplyDeleteOh look, I've just worked my way around the N word. Now everyone knows what I mean but I've followed the law. LOL.
Anyway I said the N word to one of the kids yesterday. They were really upset, they wanted me to say Yes.
Clearly any words may be sexist, racist, or elitist to those prepared to find offence. So I guess we will devolve to using 'grunts' - and even then there will be unacceptable 'coded grunts'.
ReplyDeleteWhen people complain of 'microaggressions' they are incapable of realising that they too are deploying 'microaggressions' against the indifferent. Strange that.
So, faces are good at making decisions? I thought decision making is the special skill of equipment located a bit further back in the head.
ReplyDeleteI'm having trouble keeping up, I hadn't realised that the other 'N' word was offensive too. I believe that it means black in Spanish which sets off the offendotrons when shoe polish comes with different languages on the tin.
ReplyDeleteStonyground.
Perhaps the odd comma and/or hyphen could remove some of the ambiguity ...
ReplyDeleteI hope they don't sell any clothes that are 'black'
ReplyDeleteI had to read that story three times before I finally got it.
ReplyDelete"Perhaps we should start saying 'Sainsburys when we mean the N word."
ReplyDeleteHeh! That would be a good start!
"When people complain of 'microaggressions' they are incapable of realising that they too are deploying 'microaggressions' against the indifferent."
They don't come more indifferent than me to this nonsense. Good job I don't work in customer relations...
"I thought decision making is the special skill of equipment located a bit further back in the head."
It's harder to measure that, though.
"I believe that it means black in Spanish which sets off the offendotrons when shoe polish comes with different languages on the tin."
Oh, indeed! Must make Spanish holidays awkward for the easily offended...
"I hope they don't sell any clothes that are 'black'"
Only in English!