‘Literally putting a band-aid on racism’: Iconic bandage company goes woke in latest corporate pander-fest

Band-Aid has released a line of bandages in five different skin tones, pledging to donate to Black Lives Matter to combat systemic racism. Unfortunately for its woke aspirations, the joke is right there in the brand name.

The brand posted an image of its new bandage colors fanned out from light to dark to Instagram on Thursday, accompanied by a verbose and somewhat stilted paean to diversity (“we are committed to launching a range of bandages in light, medium and deep shades of Brown and Black skin tones…”) and a promise to make a donation to Black Lives Matter.

Tellingly, the size of the donation wasn’t mentioned, nor were any further steps outlined beyond another promise that “this is just the first among many steps together in the fight against systemic racism.”

Band-Aid is the latest of dozens (if not hundreds) of brands to voice token support for the Black Lives Matter movement as protests triggered by the police killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day approach the end of their third week. From the music industry’s “Blackout Tuesday” to Instagram users replacing their profiles with black squares, the demonstrations have unleashed a veritable orgy of virtue signaling among brands and “influencers” eager to present themselves as something other than part of an oppressive power structure.

Nothing says 'solidarity' like a public declaration that a company's products are meant for use by all races of people – more than half a century after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. But Band-Aid’s name didn’t exactly help that whole ‘sincerity’ look they were going for, given that its signature product is often used as a metaphor to describe too-little, too-late stopgap measures that don’t quite succeed.

Social media users were quick to make the obvious joke.

Other users predicted problems with the rollout. Why not just make the bandages clear?

Some were outraged, denouncing Black Lives Matter and demanding a boycott.

…though others managed to express their disdain without losing their sense of humor.

Amid the pander-monium, a few people remembered Band-Aid was owned by Johnson & Johnson, which doesn’t exactly have the best track record regarding black lives.

Johnson & Johnson only stopped selling its talc-based baby powder in the US and Canada last month after having to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars to cancer-stricken customers due to asbestos and other carcinogens allegedly lurking in its products.

In 2018, it emerged the company had known for decades that its popular baby powder contained the deadly substance, even concealing “very high” asbestos levels from the Food and Drug Administration after multiple lab tests in the 1970s. J&J continues to sell the deadly powders in the rest of the world.

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