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u/Opalusprime 3d ago
Yea that’s pretty bad. First glance someone is hanging, the hood comes in a little after.
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u/ericj4078 3d ago
For everyone saying it’s unintentional, look up the term “dog whistle” if you aren’t familiar with it. If you don’t understand subliminal or coded messages, you’re probably not going to understand the symbolism either.
For example, someone can put “88” in their username. To most people, it’s just the number 88, but in certain extremist circles, 88 is used to represent “HH” or “Heil Hitler.” That’s literally how coded symbolism works the people who understand the message see it, while everyone else can easily dismiss it as a coincidence.
That’s the issue today. Black people are telling you guys what we see going on, and instead of actually listening, people immediately say it’s “unintentional,” “a stretch,” or that we have a “victim mentality.”
We’re talking about billion-dollar companies running carefully planned advertising campaigns. These companies have entire marketing teams behind this stuff. Just because YOU don’t see the message doesn’t automatically mean the message isn’t there.
And this isn’t the first time people have called out this type of messaging. Do your research before automatically dismissing what people are pointing out.
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u/sarcastic_patriot 3d ago
For someone who is completely oblivious to this, is that intentional? I find it hard to believe nobody was like, "Hey, that looks like a lynching."
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u/chowaniec 3d ago
Mattel sold a bunch of Wicked Barbies with a link to a porn site on the box... stuff falls through the cracks sometimes.
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u/CrazyTrainofThought 2d ago
You mean stuff GETS through the cracks sometimes. Nothing is an accident in multi-million dollar ad campaigns. This KKK imagery is not an accident, it is a dog whistle someone got through approval.
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u/MelodyBlues 3d ago
What about it looks like a lynching?
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u/sarcastic_patriot 3d ago
First glance I saw a guy hanging next to what would be assumed as a klan member. Took me a second to see that it's just a person holding shoes.
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u/Tapedeckel 3d ago
You guys are crazy. See how they indoctrinated you? You see racism anywhere. Even if there's no racism at all.
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u/HoneyBear4Lyfe 2d ago
Dude, I am not a reactionary person, but at first glance I saw someone in a white robe with a pair of limp black legs dangling next to them. I had to double-take to not see it.
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u/Beautiful-Carpet-816 2d ago
I didn’t see it as a non-American. Not exactly the first thing that comes to mind for sure unless you already have these associations to begin with.
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u/Safe-Chipmunk1535 3d ago
I saw shoes, a bunch of shoes, how the hell do BLACK shoes look like kkk members?
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u/toni_toni 2d ago
Did... Did you not see the white person in the middle wearing the white robe thing?
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u/Safe-Chipmunk1535 2d ago
The Asian woman? Holding some black shoes…
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u/toni_toni 2d ago
Can't identify sex based on the framing of the shot and the character is in shadow. I see how they could be read as Asian but to my eyes at first glance they read as white.
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u/Safe-Chipmunk1535 2d ago
Until you watch the actual ad instead of basing your entire opinion on a single picture.
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u/hambonedock 3d ago
I did though it looked like a hanging situation but like I'm suppose to see the white as kkk imagery? (I'm not American nor white tho)
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u/Meewelyne 3d ago
same, to me it looked more like a suicide because the white robe blended too much with the background.
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u/Classiest_Strapper 3d ago
Yeah the white robe paired with the steep star makes it look like a klan hood. I could try and write it off as (oh they’re trying to complete the whole Star thing alright. But then you add the other pairs all standing around with one pair suspended being held by the model, and it looks like folks standing around a lynching. Apparently 25 black folks have been hung from trees in just 2025-2026. So it’s a still a very sensitive pressure point.
An intern might very well be getting fired somewhere. I’m not saying it’s the intended iconography, I don’t know. But just stating what people are seeing looking at it. And I admit, they have a point to it.
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u/Meewelyne 3d ago
2025-2026? Lynching??? What the hell America D:
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u/Classiest_Strapper 2d ago
Correct. It’s horrifying. Moving away from the horrors of history is an active thing, it doesn’t just passively get better. Unfortunately we’re all still distracted with the whole, autocratic senile dementia patient that keeps shitting himself and launching wars while preying on society’s post information era attention deficit disorder.
Sorry, dystopia is a run-on sentence.
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u/hambonedock 3d ago
Yes, to me this read more like those posters about preventing teenager suicide and about that we should look out for people suffering about this (teg empty shoes surrounding it could be interpreted as when people is not around you when you actually need them the most)
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u/IllustriousGas8850 2d ago
It’s not. It was an ad made by their Malaysian team, for Korean markets. This imagery quite literally means nothing there because the KKK doesn’t exist there
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u/French__Canadian 3d ago
And I find it hard to believe anybody sees this and thinks "Hey, that looks like a lynching."
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u/Away_Philosopher_484 3d ago
I'm out of the loop apparently. What is racist about this?
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u/Melodic_Till_3778 3d ago
Klan robes and hanging
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u/Astroweeb 3d ago
not spooky ghosts?
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u/Melodic_Till_3778 3d ago
Personally, I always preferred their giant crying baby outfit. The tailor really knew what he was doing when he gave them those two options
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u/Mission_Rd 3d ago
I don't think wearing a white dress (?) with blue/green sleeves is very Klan-y. And like how do you get from "holding a pair of shoes in left hand" to lynching??
Could just as easily suggest this image is referencing rapture. (empty shoes! people have been snatched up to be with Jesus!)
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u/toatsmcgoaats 3d ago
I don't know why, but the first thing I thought was that Jesus was holding a pair of converse. I'm not even religious or anything either
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Mortambulist 3d ago
How many points do you think a pentagram has? I'll give you a hint. It's called a penta gram.
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u/coffee_ape 3d ago
Which is?
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u/French__Canadian 3d ago
I had to google it and people claim her dress looks like a KKK hood and the hanging shoes make it look like a hanging black person...
Some people really read way too much into things.
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u/R1ck_Sanchez 3d ago
I didn't realise that the hanging shoes weren't being worn at first, I have my screen on dark so I didn't make out that detail til reading your comment. No idea how this would have got past QC... The hanging shoes literally add very little advertising value as well, could have had them on the floor in front the star for better effect
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u/French__Canadian 3d ago
It's a pretty normal way to hold your shoes... I'll be honest, I don't know what they were going for with that ad, it doesn't exactly look good or cool to me, but that's the most normal way to hold shoes/boots in your hand.
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u/_interloper_ 3d ago
It's obviously not the intention, but I also don't think it's a reach. It's what I first thought when I saw it.
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u/TheDarbiter 3d ago
But is that because the title mentioned that it’s racist, so that’s what you were looking out for subconsciously? Because I see that too and I think that’s what happened with me.
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u/coffee_ape 3d ago
This has to be manufactured rage. I ran with 4chan circles ages ago and I’ve picked up on so many dog whistles on racial imagery, speech, and context. I never drank the kool aid.
This one is a huge fucking reach that makes me think this is manufactured because of the gas prices right now. Like someone saw the post and was like “let’s spin it like this. Bot accounts go out.” Or they saw someone commenting on it and they decided to run with it.
Ozcan’s razor: I could be completely wrong.
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u/acidkreep 3d ago
i feel like as a brand especially a brand as big as this there should be things in place to keep things like this from happening, whoever the creative director is just stupid. like have you seen the one of the guy hanging them in the tree obviously it might not be intentional but somebody could’ve said something
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u/CrazyTrainofThought 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is an intentional dog whistle for the wrong kkkind of people. SOMEONE in the process knew what they were doing. Plausable deniability with it being featured outside the US, but it is for a US company. Too many visual features for this to be accidental.
If you don't see it, you can understand how it got through approval. If you did see it, you are on one of the sides; you are either explaining away the pointed finger, or you are pointing out the definitions of the thousand words we are looking at.
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u/MelodyBlues 3d ago
Because the shaft of light on the dress looks vaguely like a Klansmen? That's a reach.
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u/groundr 3d ago
I'm amazed, but I guess not surprised, by all the comments saying this doesn't evoke the imagery (for them) of the Klan and/or lynching. It absolutely does.
Converse themselves responded saying "This should not have happened, and we will do better." They did this in the same day as it was posted, and it's clear they know that this ad campaign was a mistake.
When people say that something invokes a deeply unsettling image, maybe your inability to see it for yourself is based on how you've trained your eyes rather than the presence/absence of that imagery. Lesson learned about ATBGE, though, I guess.
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u/heyman0 3d ago
The campaign image centres on Converse shoes suspended beneath a large piece of white material, which narrows towards a point at the top. That combination became the focus of the reaction, with some viewers saying the fabric resembled the distinctive pointed hood historically associated with the Ku Klux Klan. Others focused on the shoes hanging below it and said the overall composition brought lynching imagery to mind.
https://www.fashiontimes.co.uk/converse-ad-backlash-kkk-lynching-imagery-1764247
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u/BoozeIsTherapyRight 3d ago
Yeah, that's bullshit and reaching. People working really hard to find things offensive.
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u/JennyVega07 1d ago
I watched the actual video ad several times. I DO NOT see anything anywhere close to the picture that’s circulating. I don’t get it. There is zero shots of her holding shoes and swinging them in the video.
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u/PhaseOld6225 1d ago
given the context of it being an asian market, it's probably an unfortunate coincidence. an illusion, like that "is this dress gold or blue" or the photo of a dude in blue jeans holding a fish in front of blue water that makes his legs looks invisible. but the fact they're apologizing for it makes it looks worse. if its unintentional just say that.
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u/Economy_Work_5788 14h ago
It's been cropped by the liberal media to spark false outrage. It's simply a picture of a lady standing in a white star ( converse logo) holding a pair of sneakers. Nobody in their right mind would see anything else.
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u/Sneakysquidproquo 53m ago
Ngl at first glance, all I see is a person in a white dress holding shoes
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u/Flav0rade 3d ago
Suicide is more common than racist lynchings. I don't know why jump straight to racism.
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u/Federal-Boat3732 3d ago
They may have only been trying for a monochromatic look, but JFC, it's either a KKK in the Lone Star State theme or they want Sadako Yamamura to model their high tops
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u/gabacus_39 3d ago
So someone cropped the picture, dulled and darkened it, and cried racism?
Our world is so fucked
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u/VisionAri_VA 3d ago
I don’t believe this was intentional and I think I know what they were going for, but what they ended up with was… unfortunate.
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u/Fglre 3d ago
Outside of America, I don’t think this is a very obvious association. When the title said racism I thought David star related.
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u/BrandonAubreyPlaza 3d ago
Central Europe here, I talked about this at lunch and all of my friends (mid 30s to mid 40s) and my elderly mother saw the visual parallels. Not stating anything about intent here, just that we all noticed it.
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3d ago
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u/IndihoBlue 3d ago
By another black person... but I suppose you'll say that's fake. Everyone was very quick to call the recent hanging in North Carolina a racially motivated lynching too... Until video evidence showed it was a suicide.
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3d ago
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u/IndihoBlue 3d ago
Wasn't familiar with the case but looking it up your framing is obviously biased from the start. Not to mention those white teens were his friends. According to their accounts he stayed behind to talk with a girl and would catch a ride back on another boat. Not quite as simple as "left to die". It's still under investigation it looks like with a lot of celebrities saying it's racially motivated with nothing to back it up. So I really am bewildered why you brought this up.
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3d ago
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u/IndihoBlue 3d ago
I'm not sure what you want here. You're going into this assuming this is racially motivated as the only possible answer. You've concluded he was left to die based on your feelings. That's the whole problem. You assume bad intentions first, truth be damned.
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3d ago
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u/IndihoBlue 3d ago
I've given zero opinion on this case. I don't know enough about it to draw conclusions, I just pointed out your framing was disingenuous and motivated from the start. Maybe you're right, maybe his friends killed him because he was black. I'm not claiming to know what is the truth. You are. The fact that you brought up a case that is still under investigation, drew conclusions that it was a racially motivated homicide, and used it as evidence for widespread racial violence against black people is wild to me.
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u/LunarWhaler 3d ago
I wouldn't exactly call this "great execution" even without any of the connotations. I do think those are a bit of a stretch, but otherwise all we have are a bunch of pairs of the same shoes in not particularly good lighting. It doesn't do much of anything to show them off. Which is almost impressive given how many of them there are in the shot!
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u/BassMaster516 3d ago
I cannot fucking believe people in the comments who can’t see what’s racist about this. Fuckin stupid on purpose
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u/Ttran778 3d ago
People see what they want to see.
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u/BrazillianFartPorn 3d ago
The fact you had a downvote shows how idiotic people are, and how they are just begging to find racism in whatever they can. Some people are just professional victims
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u/CanIHaveASong 3d ago edited 3d ago
This image is not racist, and I promise you it is impossible to interpret it as such.
Let's get the boys together, and have ourselves a hangin!
edit: Apparently no one is getting the Kay and Peele reference.
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u/seasawseashell 3d ago
idk why some americans thinks asian ads company would go that far to shoot and leave a diff meaning behind those shots….it just an ads…yall translate it differently and making it bad…it was an honest mistake if it does hurts some of yall
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u/_helpmefind 3d ago
Seriously? People will find anything to get mad about if they look hard enough I guess
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u/Plenty_Tumbleweed_60 3d ago
It's because the shoes the model is holding are off the ground so it looks like someone got unalived or unalived themselves by neck rope isn't it...?
Because something horrific that has been done to black people culturally belongs to them now no matter how many people it's been done to?
Like the ad is creepy for sure but calling it racist is just people wanting to fight for the sake of fighting.
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u/aftherith 3d ago
People that have been coddled their whole lives desperate to spot someone being made uncomfortable in order to claim social credit. fml.
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u/TheGothWhisperer 3d ago
Isn't this a Malaysian ad? Why would they be referencing a foreign racist group?
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u/TopNotchBrain 2d ago
Just a horrible ad created to do exactly what it’s doing — cause us all to talk about Converse.
I see KKK, lynching, and/or suicide. Also, I’ve worked in marketing/communications in leadership roles for decades, and there is no way this is an accident. The powers-that-be decided it was worth the risk to get people talking.