That Ain't An Armrest, Gap!

Gap Kids does damage control after this promotional shoot got the public riled up.

The Gap went through some damage control. They had a promotional ad for Gap Kids in which the models were wearing their latest fashion. In the advertising you see a little girl being used as an armrest.

The photo features the child and three white girls. While the two girls bookending the photo strike acrobatic poses, the white girl in the middle stands next to the black girl with her elbow on the smaller girl's head—making it appear, some say, like the child is an "armrest." The Washington Post reports the promo is part of a larger GapKids campaign in collaboration with Ellen DeGeneres, meant to showcase "girls can do anything," but the paper notes that in the campaign's commercial, the black child is also on display with "seeming passivity," sitting reticently while the other girls chat with DeGeneres. "While all of the girls are adorable ... it becomes problematic when the black child is positioned to be a white child's prop," Kirsten West Savali writes for the Root.

There's a bit of a twist to the story: The two girls in question are sisters, the daughters of Ray Donovan actress Brooke Smith, reports Co.Create. The white girl, Fanny, 12, is the biological daughter of Smith and husband Steve Lubensky, and the black girl is 9-year-old Lucy, adopted from Ethiopia by the couple in 2008, per People. Smith tweeted: "girl with arm resting on her shoulder is her sister She didn't talk in video because she was 2 shy. everyone needs to calm down." Some replies to her tweet softened after hearing that news, but others said the relationship shouldn't matter. "She deserved better. That is our point," one commenter wrote. A Gap spokeswoman apologized: "We appreciate the conversation that has taken place and are sorry to anyone we've offended."

Here's a poll for you!

Which One Is The MOST Offensive Depiction Of Black People?

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Okay, me and S. Baldwin have said it one too many times: Is this what our American media and the public think of people of color?

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