- “We are a discreet family, we do not like to create controversy or hurt any group,” said the owner.
The owners of the SĂ bat pastry shop in Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona) have removed a giant Easter monkey that represented a black woman to avoid further controversy after the feminist collective ‘Hora Bruixa’ criticized the chocolate sculpture because it considers it contributes to “stigmatize black people”.Jaume SĂ bat is the owner of the pastry shop, and his daughter has explained that they have decided to remove the Easter monkey from the window “because we are a discreet family, we do not like to create controversy or hurt any group”, and has assured that they did not the monkey with the intention of undermining anyone.
The figure of the monkey is a nude woman made of dark chocolate covered with a cloth apron, with a chef’s hat and prominent red painted lips holding a tray with a monkey in each hand.
According to the Sant Cugat feminist collective ‘Hora Bruixa’, this figure “directly evokes slavery” and points out that the figure has “totally disproportionate lips that maintain the historical caricature of black people and that only contributes to their stigmatization”.
“We believe that, in the middle of 2023 and after all the campaigns that have been carried out to denounce the intrinsic racism behind associating chocolate with black people (conguitos, colacao, etc.), it is out of place to continue perpetuating this full image of clichĂ©s”, has criticized the feminist group.
The daughter of Jaume SĂ bat, who founded the pastry shop with his wife Joana in 1951, explained that the monkey was sculpted by the master pastry chef.
“As every year, my father has made an Easter figure to put on the counter, we did not see more than a chocolate woman from an artistic vision that supported two elements related to the festivity”, explained the daughter of the owners of the establishment.
“Our objective was to create the illusion for the Easter holidays, but we decided to remove the monkey so that what is happening would not happen because we do not like to create controversy,” said the owner’s daughter, who has reiterated that the chocolate monkey had no No other intention nor did he want to provoke the controversy, which has spread through social networks when the feminist collective posted a photograph of the giant monkey.
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The member of the family and also a worker at the pastry shop, Marc SĂ bat, has also responded to the feminist collective through Twitter, saying that the monkey that has sparked the controversy “is a mannequin, which represents elegance, it is made of chocolate, which represents what dedicate, bears a name, that of the business and the family, supports on the one hand what the artisan product represents and on the other the day we celebrate”.
“If you cannot empathize and see the illusion and affection with which this showcase has been made, for me, as a left-wing, feminist, positive, and free person, you stop being a reference to become a disappointment. I tell you with all due respect and appreciation”, SĂ bat replied to the feminist group that forced the removal of the mona.