Converse apologizes for ad campaign image that resembled a Ku Klux Klan hood and a hanging body
TheGrio...
The unfortunate and uncomfortable optical illusion sparks discourse and reminds us why a picture is worth a thousand words.
After all the atrocities they have inflicted on this nation since their formation roughly 160 years ago, a white, unnervingly pointy hood evokes, without a doubt and without much room for interpretation, the Ku Klux Klan. So much so that even the slightest resemblance can make the hair on the back of one’s neck rise. A new ad campaign by Converse is proving that.
In late August, the legacy shoe brand began rolling out images from its latest campaign for the Chuck 70 X, a modern spin on its classic high-top. Weeks later, they are apologizing after one of those images is facing backlash from people who say it bears an unsettling resemblance to KKK and lynching imagery.
“We’re sorry. We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong,” the brand began in a statement to theGrio. “We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared. This should not have happened, and we will do better.”
View on Threads
Calls to boycott Converse grew overnight across Threads as the backlash quickly turned into a debate over what people are actually seeing. Some believe the image is blatantly racist and should never have made it through production, while others saw nothing more than an unfortunate optical illusion.
The Chuck 70 X launched globally on Aug. 27 with a campaign starring KARINA of the K-pop group aespa. Dubbed “Stars Align With KARINA,” the campaign plays with Converse’s famous five-pointed star, projecting it across KARINA and her clothing in several images.
The image in question shows KARINA wearing an oversized white skirt, gray socks, and Converse, holding another pair of sneakers at her side. A shadow of the Converse star falls across her body, with one pointed tip stretching up the white fabric of her skirt. Many people say the composition of it all resembles the infamous white pointed hood of a Klansman.
Upon closer inspection, the shadow also obscures much of the arm holding the second pair of shoes, leaving them appearing to dangle beside the triangular white shape, which some have compared to a hanging body.
“That’s a lynching, yes?” Yvette Nicole Brown asked in a post on Threads, resharing the image.
In a follow she added, “AND a Klan robe. Damn, Converse.”
“Just wow, Converse,” Joseph Dixon wrote in a post. “These companies are always showing us who they really are and think we are a community of ignorant and can’t interpret visuals? This is how you try to make a comeback from the abyss of Shoe Brands? Or maybe you are rebranding to MAGA? Please just stay irrelevant.”
He added more context for the various diverse sports that have embraced the brand, bringing to mind its long-held history in Black culture, especially within baseball and basketball history, not to mention the legions of Black tweens and teens who have loyally worn pairs of the brand till their shoes fall to shreds.
While referencing an additional campaign image from the brand alongside the other, another user on the same platform wrote, “This was not a coincidence. This was a choice. And then you double down. Insensitive, tone deaf, unbelievable, unacceptable. There is NO REASON why WE should see an advertisement & immediately think of Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday.”
“These companies have marketing teams that spend MONTHS planning and crafting these campaigns prior to launching them. If you think they are letting something leave that room without looking at it from all angles, you’re wrong,” a user by the name of Crystal wrote. “Converse knew EXACTLY what they were doing with this ad. They won’t get another dime of my money! Ever!”
While Converse admits it wasn’t intended, thousands of people have now looked at the image and seen some version of the same thing. Intent does not erase an oversight once something has made it out into the world. You do not have to mean to step on someone’s foot to have stepped on it. Still, there are plenty of people who do not see it. Some say the resemblance never occurred to them until someone else pointed it out.
“Sorry, but this is like the Wild Cherry thing… everyone is insane,” wrote Meecham Whitson Meriweather in a post.
Every so often, a seemingly innocuous ad or joke sparks the kind of outrage that leaves another part of the internet wondering if everyone else has simply lost the plot. In July, Pepsi apologized and deleted a Threads post declaring, “Pepsi Wild Cherry is what happens when regular cherry stops asking permission,” after some interpreted it as making light of sexual consent, while others thought that reading was a reach.
Some of this can feel like a leftover style of discourse from the 2010s, when Black people, in particular, became adept at using social media to call out racism, microaggressions, and stereotypes in culture that had long gone unchecked. Today, those conversations happen across much faster, more oversaturated timelines, where outrage can spread around the world before anyone has agreed on whether it is fully founded.
At the same time, plenty of brands have given us plenty of reason to be suspicious over the years. H&M apologized in 2018 after using a Black child to advertise a “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle” hoodie. Meanwhile, Gucci pulled a balaclava sweater the following year after its design drew comparisons to blackface. We’ve also had incidents where there was zero confusion around what was being said; in 2014, Urban Outfitters infamously tried to sell a “vintage” sweatshirt on its site bearing the logo of Kent State with blood stains and bullet holes in reference to the deadly campus shooting when local police shot and killed student protestors in May 1970.
The Converse ad also lands against a particularly brutal history for Black Americans. The Ku Klux Klan, which was formed in 1865, spent generations terrorizing and murdering Black families and their allies while wearing white hoods that remain one of their most enduring symbols today. Lynching became a real tool of racial terror, with hanging among the most recognizable and disturbing images of racist violence in this country.
That history has also received renewed attention amid several high-profile cases involving Black people found hanging from trees this year, which have prompted concern and demands for thorough investigations. Against that backdrop, it is not particularly shocking that some Black viewers would be sensitive to imagery that even accidentally resembles either.
Some have dismissed the controversy because the image was first circulated through Converse Malaysia and stars a Korean celebrity. However, this was not simply an ad for an Asian audience. KARINA is a global Converse ambassador, the Chuck 70 X was launched globally, and Converse promoted the campaign internationally. A global campaign is meant for a global audience, which means considering how imagery might read across cultural perspectives.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the person who created it does not get to choose all of them. Once an image goes out into the world, people will always see it through their own eyes.