US home improvement chain Home Depot, roughly akin to our B&Q, has landed itself in hot water over a ‘racist’ tweet depicting two black drummers flanking an ‘ape’ with the interrogative caption, “Which drummer is not like the others?”
The tweet was swiftly removed, but too late to prevent hundreds of re-tweets, both by those offended by it and those who see the almost imperceptible funny side.
The company has issued an apology and claims to have sacked the individual responsible for posting the tweet and dispensed with the services of their marketing agency, though the fact that CEO Fred Blake was one of the instigators behind a clandestine effort to portray Barack Obama as inherently “unAmerican” during his 2008 election campaign has taken on renewed significance.
As open-minded as I am, I don’t personally see the joke. Am I offended? Only by the two black men who agreed to pose who must envy the so-called ape’s intelligence. The lives of the likes of Nelson Mandela might yet prove to be in vain.
