title:  This Company Uses A Black Model To Promote The Worst Shirt Ever (IMAGES/TWEETS)
text: Online retailer ASOS has come under fire for their horrible lack of judgment in having a black model wear a t-shirt that has the word  slave  on it in huge letters. For some reason, it never occurred to anyone in the process of approval that this might be considered extremely racist.The t-shirt, which is by the brand Wasted Heroes, was posted to ASOS  website and the internet basically blew up as soon as it was published. It didn t take long before there was enough backlash to encourage the company to remove the photo, as Twitter users reprimanded the company with an onslaught of complaints.Seriously, you have to be pretty dense in order to overlook how bad of an idea this t-shirt and photo was. But apparently, ASOS is fine with being ignorant   the company took zero responsibility for the offense, and instead blamed the manufacturer. A spokesperson for the company offered no apology and simply said: Marketplace is a collection of independent sellers [like Wasted Heroes] who must agree to our terms and conditions when they join. Whenever we find a product that violates our policies we remove it immediately. The company s response on social media was equally underwhelming, and pointed complaints to the manufacturer:Wasted Heroes didn t do much better, but they at least admitted that the decision was  extremely stupid of us. The company s weak attempt at an apology was overshadowed by the suggestion that shoppers had misinterpreted the shirt. When you go to Wasted Heroes  website, you can see the same t-shirt alongside other slave-themed merchandise   although the shirts are hanging from a bar and chains instead of people.One has to wonder how such monstrous mistakes go unnoticed and make it all the way to a company s website without one person raising a red flag. This is ASOS  second strike within the last few months   last October, the company was criticized for selling bindis in their site s Halloween section.There have been several instances of other retailers making similar racist or culturally clueless mistakes. In 2014, Zara had to remove a children s shirt because it bared resemblance to concentration camp uniforms. A few years before that, Adidas was forced to pull a pair of trainers before they even got to stores because the shoes included Velcro shackles, which caused outrage for being reminiscent of shackles worn by prisoners or slaves.Companies need to do better. There s no reason why something as racist, offensive and culturally inappropriate as these examples should make it all the way up the chain of commands and onto shelves or websites. Featured image via ASOS website