American wokesters cancel Converse over Asian ad featuring K-Pop star wearing white skirt, likening imagery to KKK

But the American internet just got ahold of the ad—which has been out for months—and decided that it was depicting the KKK lynching a black person and said it was racist. Converse ended up apologizing. "We're sorry," they said in a statement to Footwear News. "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. This should not have happened, and we will do better."

Karina stands in a lit star, with part of the light of one point on her white skirt. On the floor, pairs of shoes stand at the points on the star. In her hand, she holds a pair of Converse. Critics said the star looked like a KKK hood and the shoes looked like the legs of someone who had been lynched.

That intent was no place in the ad. But that didn't stop users on Threads and all the other social media platforms from freaking out over it.

"Horrible," they said, amid calls for a boycott. "I'm dumbfounded how they went here," said another user on Threads. Many of the shares of the graphic had been adjusted to increase contrast to make their perception of the image pop.

"I don't even have a design eye and immediately asked myself who didn't see this before release? Like really guys? First target and now this?" Said one account. "Thank you," said another, "I saw it too with no context and saw KKK hood, and a lynching. Converse, you saw this, you chose to ignore the obvious. Shame on you. I wore Converse but I'll never buy your product again."

"First time I'm seeing this," said another, identifying themselves as the owner of a marketing agency. "First thing I see, not sure if it is what you were expecting, but it looks a little KKK-ish. I also mistook the shoes in the hand as someone handing. Kinda fit the KKK vibe. I don't understand the placement of all the shoes. Not sure if this is out concept or a clip or what, but I wouldn't produce this image for a client."

Lots of self-identified white women chimed in as well, with one saying "Hi. White woman here and I see something awful. I had to zoom in on the elevated right side. Praying it wasn't a person. But I see it anyway. Very Poor & racist choice for converse."

Others also felt the need to identify themselves as white women, with another saying "White woman here. At first glance, I didn't see anything wrong. After reading others' perspectives and opinions, I clearly see the problem. THIS IS WHY DIVERSITY IN CORPORATIONS IS IMPORTANT!! Marketing cannot be left in the hands of one group of people. I learned in 5 seconds why this ad was a problem. So why didn't someone (anyone) at Converse throw this image around to a DIVERSE group of people and get their feedback?! Marketing 101."

This is essentially critical race theory in action. Those who immediately saw a violent, racist image have been trained and have trained themselves to see racism everywhere they look and to look for it first. Those who did not see a racist image at first allowed their views to be shaped by those steeped in critical race theory and then changed their views to match it.

Collection of vitriol on Threads.

Others tried to correct the wrong-headed narrative. People pointed out that the woman in the ad is a Korean performer. "Her name is Karina. She's a 26 year old K-Pop star that is a new brand ambassador to the show company. She is the one that has y'all believing that Converse put yt supremacist dog whistles in a shoe ad... that wasn't even targeting the United States. Y'all think the US is the center of everything! It isn't ppl! It wasn't a dog whistle. Y'all just want to b3 angry about something."

Collection of attempts to correct the narrative on Threads.

"Asian ad, Asian model," said another user. While another said "You guys just want to make a problem out of everything. I couldn't imagine making myself such a victim & being so miserable that I have to try & search for things to be offended about."

"It's a Korean ad made for Koreans. It has nothing to do with the US," said another. In response to that sentiment, another user said "Being a Korean doesn't grant magic immunity from anti-Blackness. Anti-Black sentiment and colorism are deeply normalized across many Asian cultures and media, often buying right into global Eurocentric standards. Asian brands sign off on tone-deaf concepts and push those exact troped out to the world all the time. You don't need a hood to push white supremacy—corporate ignorance and anti-Blackness land in the exact same spot!"

No matter how much people tried to push back against the sentiment that the ad was racist, saying that the ad was not made within the confines of American culture with all of its constant, ubiquitous perceptions of racism, whether real or fabricated, leftist accounts insisted that the ad was intentionally hurtful to black Americans and claiming that it used American cultural language to inflict that hurt. The very aspect of American culture that complains the most about cultural appropriation demanded that the Asian ad-makers appropriate American ideas of racism as a lens through which to see an ad for Asian audiences.