Canadian furniture chain, Structube, is receiving a flurry of backlash from customers furious that it named trash cans after two common Middle Eastern names, “Walid” and “Wassim”.
“Unacceptable! How did your dedicated team of marketing experts fail to recognize this? I’d only accept this apology if the bins are renamed to the CEO and [the] CFO,” said a Structube customer, Zakaria Ahmad.
The Montréal-based furniture retailer has since issued an apology stating that it had been “brought to their attention” that “naming garbage bins after anyone’s name can be offensive”.
But many are not having it and are calling out the company for racism.
“The apology is not enough, investigate and ultimately fire the person who was behind the idea, then the person that went to suggest it, then the one who entered it on their keyboard. Investigate ALL of them, that’s how you avoid this happening again!” tweeted Tarek Teumeusseuk.
“Systemic racism does not exist in Québec, we will just name bins that we sell on a furniture site with ethnic Arab names and then we will blame it on chance,” he said sarcastically, adding, “Somehow this thing that could have been named Stephane [or] Eloise CHOSE RANDOMLY two Arabic names…”
From Montréal, Bradley Mathys tried breaking the ice by mockingly replying to Structube’s apology with, “Feel free to call the bins ‘Brad’ or ‘Chad’ as a Brad I can definitely say it’s a trash name,” adding emphasis that selecting Arabic names was a poor choice.
Feel free to call the bins "Brad" or "Chad" as a Brad I can definitely say it's a trash name.
— Bradley Mathys (@PoutineSauwse) February 14, 2021
Perhaps Structube was attempting to follow the lead of the world’s largest furniture retailer, IKEA, which names its products after different places, plants, animals, and even uses people’s names.
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