Home Depot apology prompted by racist tweet

Home Depot apology: In addition to the apology for the racist tweet, Home Depot fired the employee and outside agency responsible.

Home improvement retailer Home Depot Inc. on Thursday apologized for a tweet that showed a picture of two African-American drummers with a person in a gorilla mask in between them and asked: "Which drummer is not like the others?"

The tweet, from Home Depot's official Twitter account, @HomeDepot, was part of a "College Gameday" college football promotion on ESPN. It was quickly pulled, but not before people took screen shots of it and it was widely circulated on social media. NBC and CNBC, among others, reported on the Tweet.

Home Depot said Friday that it has fired the person and outside agency that was responsible for the tweet, but did not disclose their names.

"We have zero tolerance for anything so stupid and offensive," said Stephen Holmes, spokesman for the Atlanta-based company.

Holmes said the company is "closely" reviewing its social media procedures to determine "how this could have happened, and how to ensure it never happens again."

Allen Adamson, managing director of branding firm Landor Associates, said the tweet is "the worst possible message Home Depot can send out ... even if it gets attributed to stupidity."

"In a Twitter world where everyone can see everything instantly I think you'll see more rather than less of this because people tweet before they think," Adamson said.

Home Depot is not the first company to get in trouble for offensive tweets. In September, AT&T apologized for a Twitter message that commemorated the Sept. 11 attacks because of complaints the company was using the event to promote itself.

KitchenAid faced backlash in 2012 when one of its employees mistakenly posted a tweet about President Barack Obama's grandmother death on the official KitchenAid Twitter account.

During a 2012 presidential debate, Obama credited his tenacious grandmother who helped raise him and passed away three days before he was elected president.

Moments later, @KitchenAidUSA, the company's official Twitter account, sent this:

"Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! 'She died 3 days b4 he became president'."

KitchenAid quickly apologized: "Hello, everyone. My name is Cynthia Soledad, and I am the head of the KitchenAid brand. I would like to personally apologize to President Barack Obama, his family and everyone on Twitter for the offensive tweet sent earlier. It was carelessly sent in error by a member of our Twitter team who, needless to say, won't be tweeting for us anymore. That said, I take full responsibility for my team. Thank you for hearing me out."

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Home Depot apology prompted by racist tweet
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1109/Home-Depot-apology-prompted-by-racist-tweet
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe