Over the weekend, Shambavi Shankar was doing a little shopping at the AEON in Bukit Tinggi, just outside Kuala Lumpur, was shocked to suddenly find herself staring at a discriminatory job ad posted in the window of a clothing store.
Shankar had been walking by a shop she frequents, Kitschen, when she saw that the vacancy applied only to “Malay and Chinese” applicants over the age of 18. Deciding to take them to task over their racist posting, she marched straight inside to ask staff about the ad.
To her dismay, staff inside acknowledged the accuracy of their vacancy, and boldly told her: “Isn’t it better to inform the Indians on a notice outside rather than wasting their time, walking inside, and applying?”
While Kitschen employees may have felt nary a hint of the deeply racist statement they had just made, netizens were far less forgiving, and Shambavi’s post soon went viral, with comments expressing shock and disgust with the shop’s policy.
The heat was felt over at Kitschen’s public relations desk, and the company soon issued a statement, clarifying that the Bukit Tinggi job ad was not in keeping with their company policy, and that they “humbly apologize for [the] discriminatory vacancy notice.”
Adding that they neither condone, nor facilitate such discriminatory behavior, they will be speaking with those responsible, and reviewing their own standard operating procedures to ensure this does not happen again.
In what we can only admit was a well-handled PR crisis, they took responsibility for the matter happening in the first place, and “bow our heads in shame and are humbled.”
Well, that’s one way to nip racism in the bud, and infinitely more re-assuring than some of the “we’re sorry you were offended” half-*ssed apologies we’ve seen in our day.
One love, y’all.
