‘Blackface imagery’: Prada scrambles to pull monkey-like figurines after complaints
Prada has become the latest public-facing entity to become embroiled in a controversy related to blackface.
This time, the ruckus stems from a line of animal-like “fantasy charm” trinkets.
The Italian luxury clothing brand announced in a statement Friday that it will no longer sell some of those figurines after a New York lawyer and several others complained that some of the “Pradamalia” figurines perpetuate “blackface imagery.”
Prada’s statement refers the dolls being pulled only as “the characters in question.” Photos show that they resemble monkeys and feature exaggerated facial features, including bright red, oversized lips. Employees were caught on video Friday, hurrying to remove the monkey-like figurines from the Manhattan Prada store window.
New Yorkers began posting photos of the display Thursday on social media, and calling on the brand to explain its choice of imagery, with some calling the dolls racist.
“Today after returning to NYC after a very emotional visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture including an exhibit on blackface, I walked past Prada’s Soho storefront only to be confronted with the very same racist and denigrating #blackface imagery,” Chinyere Ezie, a human rights lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote on Facebook. “I entered the store with a coworker, only to be assaulted with more and more bewildering examples of their Sambo like imagery.”
That post had been shared nearly 9,000 times as of Friday afternoon.
The monkey-like doll’s name is Otto, according to product images on Prada.com that were deleted from the site sometime after 1 p.m. CST Friday.
Despite refuting the claims that the dolls are racist images, Prada still decided to pull them.
“The Pradamalia are fantasy charms composed of elements of the Prada oeuvre,” the statement reads. “They are imaginary creatures not intended to have any reference to the real world and certainly not blackface.”
But that explanation didn’t fly with everyone.
“Your Pradamalia just happen to look EXACTLY like Sambo and other Jim Crow era racist caricatures?” one user asked in response to the company’s statement. “Really?”
The Prada store opened an hour later than usual Friday, according to WPIX, with some other gizmos in the store’s front window.
“Blackface and Sambo images have been used throughout history to mock and demean black people and strip us of our humanity — oftentimes in response to our efforts to assert our rights,” Ezie told McClatchy. “So passing by the Prada storefront just on the heels of visiting a museum like the Smithsonian dedicated to exposing these racist histories was just a cruel reminder of how history continues to repeat itself.”
“Power to the people,” Ezie wrote on Facebook Friday, after walking by the posh Soho neighborhood storefront again to find that the windows formerly occupied by the Pradamalia had been covered.
“I went to bed feeling both dismayed and powerless — feeling as though everyday racism is just a bitter pill that black people have to swallow,” Ezie told McClatchy. “However, when I woke up this morning and saw that my post had gone viral, I was left feeling like perhaps my voice matters after all. I’m so glad the people have spoken and roundly condemned Prada for making Sambo and blackface part of their brand.”
This story was originally published December 14, 2018 at 3:13 PM.
