Åhléns remove luciabild with dark boy – Aftonbladet

Society. the First lines of the racist comments – then strong kärleksreaktioner.

Now, Åhléns has decided:

Picture of a black boy in luciakläder be removed from the company’s Facebook page.

– It is for the sake of the boy and his family, ” says the company’s public relations officer Monica Hultgren to TT.

In general want neither she or the company comment on the decision. In addition to at the Åhléns department store Facebook page has the image also appeared in a directory as the Åhléns department store sent out to customers.

– The we can for obvious reasons not do much about now, ” says Monica Hultgren.

Picture of the boy in the luciakläder and the chandelier was put up on the page for soon a week ago. The reactions were immediate, “DISGUSTING of you to make fun of our nordic traditions, so there” and “the Hell I’m spewing”, is just a small selection from the comments in social media.

Reactions, however, came soon in the form of a wave of comments, including from the facebook group #jagärhär working against hatred online. According to SVT News, should the picture have been commented on about 10 000 times.

A relative of the child spoke out at the weekend for the newspaper Aftonbladet:

– Swedish with foreign ancestry you get to hear day in and day out to adapt to Sweden and take part of Swedish traditions, but when you do it so you get a lot of hate against him. Tragically, the person said to the newspaper.

the FACTS

Åhléns is not the first to be addressed by the hate for his choice of lucia. 2012 was a 14-year-old girl from a town outside of Uppsala lucia in Sweden’s Television’s traditional celebration. Her lucia aroused a wave of hatred and racism, not least in the hatsajten Actions. There was a post with the title “SVT humiliated the viewers with the jet black lucia and rap on the Rinkebysvenska” thousands of comments.

A couple of years later, aired the documentary “Black lucia” in Swedish Radio P1. It was about how the girl was bullied because she was lucia in the tv and has been praised internationally.

TT