Shortly after L’Oreal Paris hired transgender British model Munroe Bergdorf for its YoursTruly True Match campaign, the company dropped the model after a now-deleted racist Facebook rant in which she said, “ALL white people” are racist.
“L’Oréal champions diversity,” the company said on Twitter. “Comments by Munroe Bergdorf are at odds with our values and so we have decided to end our partnership with her.”
L’Oréal champions diversity. Comments by Munroe Bergdorf are at odds with our values and so we have decided to end our partnership with her.
— L'Oréal Paris UK (@LOrealParisUK) September 1, 2017
“L’Oréal supports diversity and tolerance towards all people irrespective of their race, background, gender and religion,” the brand said in an official statement to TheWrap. “The L’Oréal Paris True Match campaign is a representation of these values and we are proud of the diversity of the Ambassadors who represent this campaign. We believe that the recent comments by L’Oréal Paris UK Spokesperson Munroe Bergdorf are at odds with those values, and as such we have taken the decision to end the partnership with her. L’Oréal Paris remains committed to the True Match campaign and breaking down barriers in beauty.”
According to People, the model wrote, “Honestly I don’t have energy to talk about the racial violence of white people any more. Yes ALL white people. Because most of ya’ll don’t even realise or refuse to acknowledge that your existence, privilege and success as a race is built on the backs, blood and death of people of color.”
The post, which has since been deleted, according to the report, continued, “Your entire existence is drenched in racism. From micro-aggression to terrorism, you guys built the blueprint for this s—. Come see me when you realise that racism isn’t learned, it’s inherited and consciously or unconsciously passed down through privilege. Once white people begin to admit that their race is the most violent and oppressive force of nature on Earth… then we can talk.”
On Friday, the model took to Facebook to clarify her comments, stating that her remarks were taken out of context and that the “‘rant’ was a direct response to the violence of WHITE SUPREMACISTS in Charlottesville. It was not written this week.”
“When I stated that ‘all white people are racist,’ I was addressing that fact that western society as a whole, is a SYSTEM rooted in white supremacy – designed to benefit, prioritise and protect white people before anyone of any other race,” she wrote. “Unknowingly, white people are SOCIALISED to be racist from birth onwards. It is not something genetic. No one is born racist.”
She added that her exit from the campaign is ironic given that “L’Oréal Paris invited me to be part of a beauty campaign that ‘stands for diversity.’”
“So when a transgender woman of colour, who has been selected to front up a big brand campaign to combat discrimination and lack of diversity in the beauty industry, speaks on her actual lived experience of being discriminated against because of her race and identifies the root of where that discrimination lies – white supremacy and systemic racism – that big brand cannot simply state that her thoughts are not ‘in line with the ethics of the brand,’” she said.
See her entire Facebook post below.