L’Oréal Paris has severed ties with its first transgender spokesmodel after she faced criticism for remarks about institutional racism.
The brand announced Friday on Twitter that the comments made by Munroe Bergdorf were “at odds” with its values and had decided to end the campaign with her.
The decision came after British tabloid The Daily Mail reported on one of her Facebook posts.
“Honestly I don’t have energy to talk about the racial violence of white people anymore. Yes ALL white people,” she reportedly said. “Because most of yall don’t even realise or refuse to acknowledge that your existence, privilege and success as a race is built on the backs, blood and death of people of colour. Your entire existence is drenched in racism… Come see me when you realise that racism isn’t learned, it’s inherited and consciously or unconsciously passed down through privilege.”
That original post was deleted from her Facebook page, but Bergdorf later posted a message saying that her remarks had been taken out of context, and were in response to the recent violence in Charlottesville Va. “When I stated that ‘all white people are racist’, I was addressing that fact that western society as a whole, is a system rooted in white supremacy – designed to benefit, prioritise and protect white people before anyone of any other race,” she said.
Read in full below:
While some applauded her remarks against institutional racism, some accused her of being racist against white people and suggested that L’Oréal has gone against the diversity that it claims to uphold.
Bergdorf, who announced that she was the face of L’Oréal’s #YoursTruly campaign on Aug. 27, called on people to boycott the brand in the wake of her firing, saying: “Sit still and smile in a beauty campaign ‘championing diversity’. But don’t actually speak about the fact that lack of diversity and is due to racism. Or speak about the origins of racism. It’ll cost you your job.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYS5ikinznA/?taken-by=munroebergdorf
(Photo Credit: Munroe Bergdorf)
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