The parents of the boy at the center of a controversial H&M advertisement have spoken out, doubling down on the mother’s earlier stances that they didn’t see the issue of racism. However, the parents did say they respected dissenting opinions although they were forced to leave their home in the wake of the flurry of reports that appeared.
ITV exclusively reports:
As the internet went into meltdown about the racist connotations of the slogan, other protesters took to the streets – with an H&M store in South Africa being ransacked and its windows smashed.
While the image has obviously stirred up exceptionally strong feelings, there’s one woman who wants to remind the world that at the heart of all of this, there’s just a little boy who innocently posed for a photo. That woman is Terry Mango, Liam’s mother, who now fears for her own family’s safety after being hounded and trolled online about comments she made telling people to ‘get over it’.
“It is not an overreaction when it comes to racism, everyone should act differently based on their opinions of what racism is,” Terry Mango said on the program as her husband flanked their son.
Her husband Richard added, “As much as people have gotten involved in this, for me it’s very important that people understand that me and Teresa, we have a son, we have other children in the home that we are raising, and we have an obligation to protect our children.”
—
Photo: Getty
