Prada is currently in hot water with a lot of consumers after the company released a new campaign.

For it’s Pradamalia collection, the Italian fashion brand used figurines almost identical to the Little Black Sambo characters, complete with huge red lips, a wide smile and bulging eyes.

“#Prada Group never had the intention of offending anyone and we abhor all forms of racism and racist imagery,” the brand tweeted. “In this interest we will withdraw the characters in question from display and circulation.”

“#Prada Group abhors racist imagery,” they added. “The Pradamalia are fantasy charms composed of elements of the Prada oeuvre. They are imaginary creatures not intended to have any reference to the real world and certainly not blackface.”

But a lot of people weren’t buying their explanation and called for an immediate boycott.

“Shame on you,” one person wrote. “Disrespect to all people of color who patron you. You should know better. Boycott all that is Prada.”

Chinyere Ezie is at Prada (Prada New York Broadway).
13 December at 19:13 · New York, NY, United States ·
I don’t make a lot of public posts, but right now I’m shaking with anger.

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.

I entered the store with a coworker, only to be assaulted with more and more bewildering examples of their Sambo like imagery.

When I asked a Prada employee whether they knew they had plastered blackface imagery throughout their store, in a moment of surprising candor I was told that *a black employee had previously complained about blackface at Prada, but he didn’t work there anymore.*

History cannot continue to repeat itself. Black America deserves better. And we demand better.

Until then please repost and retweet @Prada using the hashtags #StopBlackface #BoycottPrada #EndRacismNow