Dear Jumbo, f*** you – Anele Mdoda

Clothing store Jumbo has published its “Amakrwala” (initiates) formal wear advertisements on its website and radio personality Anele Mdoda is not happy about it. Mdoda, who is currently in Paris on holiday, took to Instagram to share her anger about the advertisement. According to her, the ad appropriates a ritual the store knows nothing about. “Please don’t use our culture to sell your blankets. I bet you there was not one black man who was part of your s**tty creative team,” she wrote.

Mdoda says the store should rather have made black people dance for those blankets. In response to Mdoda’s post, one follower said she was in disbelief about “the lengths the need for money goes to!!! Shem!” she wrote.

The store used young black men with their faces painted in red and white, the same colours used on initiates who have just returned from “the mountains”, more especially in Xhosa culture.

She posted:

Anele Mdoda’s Instagram post.

When contacted, Jumbo stores said they could not comment but would release a formal statement on the matter.

On its website, Jumbo describes itself as Jumbo is a “well-established clothing and footwear retailer, having traded in the Eastern Cape for the past 39 years. Jumbo provides a range of quality clothing for the entire family at competitive prices.”

This is not the first time a retailer has been in trouble for insensitivity on social media. In November last year, Woolworths received criticism for draping ropes over black mannequins. Twitter was in uproar over a picture showing the mannequins with the ropes draped over their shoulders and hands, as in the way slaves used to be chained.

A Facebook user named Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha complained, to which Woolworths responded: “You’ve got a very valid point. We’ve contacted our store installation team and will get back to you as soon as we can”.

The store apologised, saying the display itself was incorrectly assembled and not complete at the time the picture (which has since travelled the globe online) was taken. The “rope” itself was meant to be a support for Christmas globes and baubles.