Source: Jeff Greenberg / Getty
China-based online retailer Shein is in hot water again, this time for selling a $1.50 phone case that depicted a handcuffed Black man being outlined in white chalk by a Caucasian hand. 21-year-old Jayunna Williams, from Tulsa, OK, snapshotted the case before Shein could take it down, and she posted the photo on Twitter. “I won’t send you another dollar after this,” she captioned her post. “Not cool.”
Initially, Williams was recommended the site in search of a case for her phone when she stumbled upon the specific item in question. “I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a dead man, but who even gave the company permission to put this on their site?” she told BuzzFeed. “Why would someone at the company even approve that? It rubbed us the wrong way, especially people in the Black community. We’re really shocked because we put our money into companies like this, and it’s a big a slap in the face.”
Shein ended up removing the case from its site and responded directly to Williams’s post. “You’ve brought to our attention that the art is being interpreted as racist, which is contrary to its actual meaning,” was the message from its official Twitter account. “For those we offended we sincerely apologize.”
“We’ve removed the item out of respect for our community,” Shein said in another tweet, “and want to clarify we never got the artist’s permission to use the art which was not meant for commercial use.”
The company has found itself in trouble in the past with regard to a racially tone-deaf stance, such as selling metal swastika pendants as a “Buddhist swastika [of] spirituality and good fortune” and for advertising Muslim prayer mats as “Greek carpets.”
It turns out that the image was the work of French artist Jean Jullien and made in 2014 as a reaction to the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Jullien had posted the drawing to his Instagram page and confirmed Shein’s claim that he never authorized it for any other kind of use.
“[H]orrible” is the word Jullien used to describe the situation, and he said he has since asked Shein “to donate all the money of these sales to Black Live Matter.” However, Shein has made no formal statement regarding Jullien’s request nor issued anything further since its May 22nd apology on Twitter.
