On Thursday, Volkswagen, a German automaker, blamed the ‘absence of procedural faults and lack of sensitivity’ for its failure to avert the publication and creation of footage based on racist content but opposed calls to fire those in charge.
Last month, the German corporation made an apology due to the promotion of an ad for its new Gold-8 and even erased the video from its official Instagram page. Moreover, the world’s dominant automaker said to news reporters that an internal inquiry, which held interviews with workers and examining hundreds of docs, showed no sign of racist intentions in the development or approval of the video.
Volkswagen blamed a “lack of sensitivity and procedural errors” for its failure to prevent publication of a racist video but didn’t fire those responsible. The carmaker said an internal investigation revealed “no indications of racist intentions…” https://t.co/xJXXUqq3lU
— CNN Business (@CNNBusiness) June 11, 2020
In ad, white hand pushes the black man into the restaurant
In March and May, that footage was iteratively published on various social media accounts that are linked to the firm and its executives. Furthermore, the video demonstrated a huge white hand that pushed away a black person from a parked VW Golf, before directing him into the restaurant named Petit Colon, which is a French name that can be translated as Little Settler or Little Colonist.
The head of the sales department at Volkswagen, Jurgen Stackmann said that, on May 19, when a colleague called him at 11p.m. and pushed a link to him, then his first believed was, that is fake. And secondly, he thought that anyone had hacked their account.
He added that the only decision we could make about that footage was racist. He said that he was intensely shocked and asked himself, was it intentionally done, was it sabotage, or have they really developed such a massive blunder unintentionally?
Jochen Sengpiehl took responsibility of the clip
The chief marketing officer of Volkswagen, Jochen Sengpiehl, took obligation for the video, but he will not be fired from his job. He described that the aim was to make 5 short clips that rotated around couples that are in love and tricks they may play on each other.
He added that no one from the group understood that pushing away a man is inappropriate, and even racist in the context revealed. Furthermore, he said that they should never have done blunder like that. He continued that they must have apologized for this behavior without any ifs and buts, and the company should make sure that such matters like this can never happen again.
Hiltrud Werner, who looks after the company’s legal affairs and integrity, recognized that there were many calls for the responsible person of the clip to be fired. She added that the matter would proceed in case if the company’s integrity and rules violated intentionally and knowingly.
She told that integrity even means that they as managers stand by their workers even at the time when blunders happened, therefore, there would be no sacrificial lamb.
