An advertising campaign by a major department store has had to be removed from shop windows across the country after a South Norwood woman claimed it was racist.

The 28-year-old was so offended by a poster in the Croydon branch of House of Fraser that she took her complaint to the top.

As a result, all 61 stores in the UK and Ireland were told to remove the posters by the end of last week.

The promotional poster said Black is back, white is right' and referred to the season's latest fashionable colours.

But the woman, who does not want to be named, was so incensed she asked for the posters to be removed.

She said: "One of my colleagues first told me about the poster and I had to see it before I believed it. I was so amazed I took a picture of it. All I can think is that they don't have a very culturally aware marketing team if they couldn't see how bad it would look.

"It echoes a racist poem that was around in the 1960s which said If you is white, you's alright, if you's brown, stick around, but if you's black, hmm, hmm, brother, get back, get back, get back.

"I just feel for the people in Croydon who remember those times and cannot believe that it was actually put up in a shop window."

She complained to the Centrale store, but was referred to its head office. Last Wednesday she received a call from House of Fraser telling her the posters would be removed from all its stores.

She added: "I feel great about it, I never thought my little voice would do anything, big companies don't normally listen or do anything about it because they can get away with it.

"Many people were finding it offensive and it wasn't just me."

A spokesman for House of Fraser said: "Our window scheme was designed to promote our fashion offer to reflect the colours of the season which sees black and white as the most popular shades.

"The scheme was not in any way meant to cause offence. As soon as we realised that some customers had been offended, the window scheme was removed from all stores."

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