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UPDATED: TUESDAY, MAY 31 12:23 PM EST

After suffering major backlash over a racist commercial, a Chinese detergent company has apologized, but not before accusing the international media of fueling the controversy by being overly “sensitive,” according to USA Today:

Shanghai-based Qiaobi said it had “no intention of discriminating against people of color” by making the commercial. “The color of one’s skin is not the standard by which we should judge each other. We strongly oppose and condemn racial discrimination,” the company said late Saturday on it official Weibo account, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

The company earlier suggested there was nothing wrong with the 50-second ad and blamed foreign media for being “too sensitive” about it.

“We meant nothing but to promote the product, and we had never thought about the issue of racism,” a spokesman told the Global Times on Friday.

SOURCE: USA Today 


This Chinese commercial is one you have to see to believe.

Qiaobi laundry detergent ad depicts a Chinese woman observing a Black man in the distance. He longingly approaches her, with stains on his face, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans.

The woman then shoves detergent into his mouth, pushes him into the washer machine, and sits on top. Qiaboi detergent is shown in the background as you hear the man scream.

After the cycle is done, a Chinese man emerges wearing the same shirt and blue jeans–stainless and clean.

There are way too many subliminal and overt racist messages to unpack here.

But let’s give some context to what’s happening repeatedly around the world, especially in China. The blog Shanghaiist writes:

Thanks to traditional beauty standards valuing white skin, many Chinese people have a well-established phobia of dark skin which unfortunately also breeds racist attitudes towards people of African descent, who are viewed by some as “dirty” simply because of their skin tone.

VOX points out that the commercial may have been based on this Italian detergent ad displaying peak levels of racism:

And remember when China deleted John Boyega, the Black actor who played a central character, out of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens poster?

What are your thoughts, NewsOne community? Sound off in the comments.

SOURCES: Shangaiist, Vox | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty, Twitter | VIDEO SOURCE: Facebook

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