Looks like Converse could use a little DEI

When I first saw the image, I was taken aback. What was I even looking at? This was supposed to be an ad for Converse, but what I was seeing was a KKK hood and what appeared to be the dead, dangling Chucks high-tops shod feet of a Black man. An image that pretty much screamed lynchiing.

It was only after I scrutinized the picture that I could see that the KKK hood was formed by shadows on a white dress. And those dangling feet? If you loked really closely, you could see that whoever was wearing the white dress that in the shade was a dead ringer for a KKK hood was actually holding those Chucks in their nearly invisible hand.

All part of an ad campaign designed to push some new and improved Chucks that look an awful lot like the old and unimproved Chucks my brothers and every other boy in the world were wearing in the 50's and 60's, way before anyone thought to call them Chucks. 

Talk about an ill-advised picture. 

Social media was quick to jump in and jump on:

“No, you’re not crazy. Yes, the Converse ad is racist,” one user wrote on X. “Yes, it looks like a Klan outfit. Yes, it looks like a lynching. And no, ‘it’s just a shoe ad’ is not a defense.” (Source: People)

And, one social media took and sunk their jump shots, Converse responded:

“We’re sorry,” Converse said in a statement to PEOPLE. “We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong.”

“We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared,” the statement continued. “This should not have happened and we will do better.” 

This should not have happened? Ya think?

I don't imagine there are many who believe that Converse was deliberately trying to use racist images, but who knows? Anything seems to go these days, and maybe the cool marketing folks were trying to be edgy. 

I hope not. 

Edgy-away, but at your peril. Especially if you're a sneaker brand, with a lot of Black folks in your audience. (Not that you have to be Black, or someone in any Converse demographic, which I sure ain't, to take offense to this ad.)

“Even if it wasn’t Converse’s intentions, whoever decided that it was a good idea to post this ad in this political climate, you are a dumbass and you deserve to lose your job,” one user said in a TikTok video. “That is a depiction of the triple K right there. Pointed hood, dangling Converses, as if someone’s being strung up from a … Black people ain’t stupid, bro.”

Maybe the lunkhead(s) who approved this ad don't deserve to get fired, they sure do deserve being called dumbass. 

But Converse maybe wants to look into how to keep something like this from happening again.

Like maybe having some diversity on your advertising and marketing team might have been a good preventative. Because while it's hard to believe that anyone - of whatever race - okayed this dumbass ad, it's nearly impossible to believe that a Black person would have given the go ahead. 

DEI has been getting a lot of pushback for a while now, and god knows there have been plenty of dumbass DEI initiatives. But the reason for DEI in ther first place was because women and minorities actually were losing out on professional opportunities, and they (we!) were just looking for the chance to compete on a level playing field (and to be every bit as mediocre as the supposedly superior specimens whose jobs they were supposedly taking.)

Another reason for DEI is that having a diversity of viewpoints at the table keeps dumbass things like this Converse ads from happening. 

 Sheesh. 

---------------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: Instagram