Make-up brand L’Oreal is facing controversy after posting about the Black Lives Matter and current protests on Instagram and Twitter. The posts were shared on June 1st and was meant to show the brand’s solidarity with the movement.
“L’Oréal Paris stands in solidarity with the Black community, and against injustice of any kind,” reads the company’s tweet. “We are making a commitment to the @NAACP to support progress in the fight for justice. #BlackLivesMatter.”
While brands capitalizing on the current action is annoying and cringe, the controversy comes not from the actual post, but from a call out from British model and activist Munroe Bergdorf. She took a screenshot of the Instagram post — which the same caption as the tweet — and posted it on Twitter, discussing just why she found L’Oreal’s post noteworthy.
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“Excuse my language but I am SO angry. FUCK YOU @lorealparis,” Bergdorf tweeted and posted on Instagram on Monday. “You dropped me from a campaign in 2017 and threw me to the wolves for speaking out about racism and white supremacy. With no duty of care, without a second thought.”
Bergdorf was hired by the beauty company as its first transgender model in 2017 but was fired almost immediately due to a post she made after the white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, VA. Her comments noted that all white people benefit from racism, have internalized racism, and must actively engage in dismantling their racism. Unfortunately, rather than bolstering their spokeswoman’s views, they released Bergdorf from her contract.
Now, however, the activist is not letting her struggle be pushed to the side in order for L’Oreal to capitalize on the current Black Lives Matter movement — and neither are her supporters. The original L’Oreal Instagram post was flooded with angry comments in aid of Bergdorf, and hundreds of people responded to Bergdorf’s tweet expressing outrage.
“If you care about me or #blacklivesmatter, don’t let @lorealparis get away with this,” Bergdorf writes in her tweet.
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