Skittles Responds to Donald Trump Jr.’s Refugee Meme

The People vs Candy: American Crime Story

September 20th, 2016 – Skittles has now become a part of the political discourse after releasing a statement Monday evening in response to Donald Trump Jr.’s use of their candy in a controversial tweet. As reported earlier, the Republican presidential nominee’s son got Twitter buzzing last night after he tweeted out a meme showing a bowl of Skittles with the question:

“If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”

Hours later, Skittles remained the number one trending topic in the country on Twitter. As many people pointed out, comparing these two only highlights how very different they actually are; Skittles followed that line of thinking when releasing their statement.

Wrigley, which owns the Skittles brand, sent their comments to The Hollywood Reporter on Monday night saying:

“Skittles are candy. Refugees are people,” Denise Young, VP of Corporate Affairs for Wrigley Americas, told THR. “We don’t feel it’s an appropriate analogy. We will respectfully refrain from further commentary as anything we say could be misinterpreted as marketing.”

With the candy company providing a timely and restrained response, many people applauded their tact and even pushed for a major political party to follow in their footsteps.

Skittles with more tact and sense than the Republican nominee and his family. https://t.co/l6Y648Wtpb

— Jon Lovett (@jonlovett) September 20, 2016

Tonight the Skittles PR department taught a major American political party a lesson in decency. 2016 keeps getting 2016-ier. — Brian Phillips (@brianphillips) September 20, 2016

We live in a world in which a GOP candidate offspring made it necessary for a company to say, “Skittles are candy. Refugees are people.”

— Sara Benincasa (@SaraJBenincasa) September 20, 2016

A new voice was added to the discussion when the photographer of the bowl of Skittles also responded to the meme. David Kittos, who currently lives in Guildford, UK, heard from friends that his original photograph was used to push the agenda that we need to restrict refugee admittance.

“This was not done with my permission. I don’t support his politics, and I would never take his money to use it,” Kittos told the BBC.

Furthering the complexity of the event, Kittos shared that he was once a refugee and described the reality of what it was like to escape and find opportunity.

“In 1974, when I was six-years old, I was a refugee from the Turkish occupation of Cyprus so I would never approve the use of this image against refugees, he said. “I was six years old. We lived in the area of Cyprus that is now under Turkish military control. We had to leave everything behind overnight. Our property and our possessions.”

Kittos said he wants the Trump campaign to delete the image but knows that will probably not happen. The campaign has found itself in tweeted controversy a couple times before after using what some believed was the Star of David and white supremacists imagery.