Volkswagen has released some pretty memorable commercials, but their latest promotion for the Golf Mk8 has been decried as racist.
Published on the company’s social media channels, the clip shows a black person checking out the all-new Golf. A white hand then ‘grabs’ him and moves him to the door of a restaurant, where he’s flicked inside.
To make matters worse, the name of the restaurant is the “Petit Colon” which the BBC notes translates into “Little Colonist.” Germany, of course, colonized parts of Africa and is reported to have killed hundreds of thousands of Africans in the process.
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Unfortunately, the bad news doesn’t end there as the ad featured a fading “Der Neue Golf” (“The New Golf”) tagline. While that sounds innocent enough, the BBC noted the words faded to spell “neger” which is the “German equivalent of the n-word.”
That’s a trifecta of bad decisions and the outcry over the commercial quickly gained steam. Volkswagen initially defended the ads, but eventually backtracked and released a statement saying “We fully understand the disgust and anger in response to the video. It is quite clear that this video is wrong and distasteful. We firmly distance ourselves from the video and apologize sincerely.”
The company went on to promise an investigation into the approval process of the ad. The automaker added they don’t “tolerate any form of racism, xenophobia or discrimination.” That’s quite a reversal from their earlier statement saying they were “surprised and shocked that our Instagram story could be so misunderstood.”