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French cosmetics giant L'Oreal on Friday confirmed it had dropped a British transgender model over comments the company deemed "at odds with our values," after she was hired as part of a diversity campaign.
"L'Oreal champions diversity," the beauty brand 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'Oreal had tapped Bergdorf – a 29-year-old model, DJ and trans activist whose father is Jamaican – as one of the five newest faces of its #allworthit campaign to introduce the five new shades of its True Match face makeup.
The foundation makeup boasts 28 unique shades ranging from very light to dark brown in a bid to match the myriad different skin tones and textures of people worldwide.
L'Oreal told British media it "remains committed to celebrating diversity and breaking down barriers in beauty."
According to British Vogue, Bergdorf was the first transgender woman to be featured in a L'Oreal Paris UK campaign.
But controversy erupted when Bergdorf took to Facebook in a now-deleted post to react to events in the US city of Charlottesville, where a woman was killed on August 12 after an avowed white supremacist rammed his car into a group of anti-racism counter-protesters.
Bergdorf, in that post, used the term “All white people are racist” and said, “Honestly I don’t have the energy to talk about the racial violence of white people any more. Yes ALL white people . . . 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.”
Though the original post was deleted, Bergdorf later attempted to clarify her comments but again took the same route of problematic generalizations: 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, prioritize and protect white people before anyone of any other race. Unknowingly, white people are SOCIALIZED to be racist from birth onwards. It is not something genetic. No one is born racist.”
There are large numbers of people on social media defending Bergdorf’s position, while there are many more who are countering her controversial stand.
(AFP)
