Clothing Line Pairs African-American Children’s Faces With Monkeys

The Just Add a Kid clothing line is in quite a bit of hot water, after they paired the cardboard hanger faces of African-American kids with T-shirts that feature the bodies of monkeys, according to the New York Daily News.

The T-shirt line runs the gamut, with bold character body designs that appeal mostly to little ones, such as princesses, animals, astronauts, cowboys, and surfers to name just a few.  Reportedly, a vendor decides on which kid-faced hanger to pair with the tees and the ethnicities are reportedly varied.

A photo of the racially charged tees was uploaded on to Facebook, raising the ire of the public. Now the San Diego-based clothing manufacturer, owned by the Thanks a Million firm, has responded to the controversy by stating, the furor is just “a total misunderstanding.”

“We are looking in to all the situations that occurred around this little incident,” contends the company co-creator Lowell Cohen, who spoke to the Daily News via phone. “We’re looking at the vendor, we’re speaking to our employees.”

In a communication that was later sent to the Daily News and posted on the company’s Facebook page, Just Add A Kid acknowledged the pairings were “not authorized, condoned, or tolerated” by the company:

“The head shots on our hangers are intended [to] reflect the different cultures of our happy customers, and are distributed separately to our shirts.  In this particular case, one of our retailers paired a particular hanger with a shirt without consideration for how it may appear to many consumers. We are taking steps to prevent this from happening again,” according to the company’s statement.