A commercial for a Chinese brand of laundry detergent called Qiaobi has caused outrage on the Internet outraged over what many are calling outright racism.
CNN reported that the ad features a pale Chinese woman flirting with a black man in a T-shirt covered in paint, enticing him to come toward her.
Once he comes close, she puts a detergent packet in his mouth, shoves him into a washing machine and sits on top of the machine. After the man yells from inside the washer, a pale Chinese man in a white T-shirt emerges.
Commenters blasted the commercial on Weibo, a social media site in China, according to CNN.
"Don't Chinese marketing people get any education about race?" a commenter said.
Another told defenders of the ad, "If you don't understand why it's racist, congratulations, you're a racist."
CNN reported that the ad is very similar to an Italian advertisement that has also been described as offensive.
In that ad, for color detergent, an Italian man is shoved into a washer and comes out as a muscular black man.
The end of the add contains the phrase, "Coloured is better."
BuzzFeed News reported that a spokesperson for Leishang, the company that owns Qiaobi, told China's state-run news website Global Times the company "meant nothing but to promote the product, and ... never thought about the issue of racism."
The spokesperson, identified only by the last name Wang, also said others outside of the market for the ad "might be too sensitive" about it.
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