Volkswagen has withdrawn an Instagram snippet meant to promote the latest Golf model after social media users criticized the video clip for using potentially discriminating motifs.
The snippet showed a man with dark skin moved around like a marionette by a large white hand before being snipped into the entrance of the Petit Colon cafe in Buenos Aires. The cafe is next to the popular Teatro Colon named after Italian explorer and colonist Christopher Columbus.
Some social-media users suggested that floating letters in the video clip briefly spelled a pejorative German word for people of color.
Felix Edeha, who on Twitter identifies himself as a Berlin-based journalist, was among those who captured the video (shown below) before it was deleted. His tweet, translated from German to English, states: “In the new # VW advertisement, a black man is pushed back and forth by a white hand and then snapped into a house with the heading ‘petit colon.’ The first letters to appear result in the N word.”