Why Sydney Sweeney’s Ad Isn’t Just Tone-Deaf—It’s Harmful

When I first saw Sydney Sweeney’s now-infamous American Eagle ad, I didn’t laugh. I didn’t even roll my eyes. I felt angry. The video plays on the words “genes” and “jeans,” with Sweeney a blonde-haired, blue-eyed actress saying: “Genes are passed down… eye colour, hair colour… my jeans are blue.” To some, it was “cute.” To me, as a Black person, it felt like a slap in the face.

That ad doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists in a world where whiteness is constantly celebrated, while Blackness our resistance, our features, our history is policed, punished, or turned into a punchline. I’m writing this not from America, but from Britain. And still, I feel the sting. Because what happens in the US rarely stays there. American whiteness is global. It sets standards that travel through advertising, fashion, celebrity culture, and social media. We consume these messages daily in the UK. We live in their aftermath. The idea of “good genes” being synonymous with whiteness, with blue eyes and blonde hair, isn’t just American it echoes through school corridors here, in casting decisions, beauty trends, and assumptions about what is “normal,” desirable, or professional.

Let’s talk about that phrase “good genes.” It’s not innocent. It’s not clever. It has a history soaked in blood. In the US, it was used to justify slavery, to promote the forced sterilisation of Black, Indigenous, and disabled people, to build systems that categorised people as “fit” or “unfit” to reproduce. Eugenics wasn’t a fringe belief it was taught in schools, endorsed by governments, and applied in law. The very foundations of American progress were shaped by beliefs about who deserved to pass on their genes and who didn’t. And the belief in genetic superiority didn’t stop in the US. It found deadly expression in Nazi Germany, where “good genes” came to mean white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. That ideology killed millions Jews, Roma, disabled people, and others who didn’t fit the violent, narrow idea of purity.

In 2025, we now have a white actress in a denim campaign laughing about “genes” as a marketing gimmick. It’s not clever wordplay. It’s erasure. It’s the rebranding of historical violence into a fashion campaign. What she says and what her whiteness represents does not exist outside of this context. Especially when we know it’s not her first brush with controversy. In 2022, Sweeney faced backlash when her family hosted a MAGA-themed party, complete with Blue Lives Matter gear and Trump merchandise. She didn’t engage the criticism. Her fans rushed to defend her, insisting she shouldn’t be punished for her family’s views. But silence is never neutral especially when you benefit from what that silence protects.

Now we’ve learned she’s a registered Republican voter in Florida a state that has become synonymous with voter suppression, anti-Black legislation, and attacks on LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities. These aren't distant political choices they’re active alignments. Whether conscious or not, they signal something. And when the backlash to this ad came, Sweeney said nothing. No reflection. No accountability. She didn’t have to. Because whiteness shields her from consequence. Black celebrities don’t get that grace. We speak out, we’re “angry.” We challenge something, we’re “too political.” We misstep, we’re cancelled. But Sweeney? She gets a stock bump. More brand deals.

After the ad went viral, American Eagle’s stock rose 20%. Not because the jeans were spectacular but because controversy sells. Donald Trump praised Sydney Sweeney. Senator Ted Cruz reposted the ad, calling it “brilliant.” These are people who’ve spent their careers dismissing racial justice, mocking Black pain, and actively working to dismantle equity. And they love this ad. That should tell us everything. They see themselves in it. They see a world where whiteness is unchallenged, where nostalgia for “better times” can be smuggled in through a pretty face and a pun. It’s comfort food for white fragility. It’s a nod to supremacy wrapped in denim.

This isn’t just about Sweeney. It’s about the systems that allow white celebrities to dance on the edges of racism, profit from it, and retreat. Meanwhile, the rest of us carry the fallout. We feel the weight. We know what “good genes” has meant for our communities. We know how our features our hair, our skin, our names have been held against us. And we’re not being sensitive. We’re being honest.

This ad hurt because it reminded us, once again, that our trauma is considered marketable. Our histories are punchlines. Our bodies are never the standard, only the target. It hurt because we know what it means to be told, again and again, that we’re not the ones with “good genes.” That our beauty, our bloodlines, our survival are always somehow less than. It hurt because it keeps happening, and they keep getting away with it.

I thought about my own ancestors. Stolen. Enslaved. Silenced. Sterilised. Erased. I thought about how they never got to celebrate their genes. How they were told they were a threat, not a legacy. And then I thought about how white features thin lips, blonde hair, blue eyes are praised, replicated, made profitable, while ours are shamed or appropriated. We’re told to be quiet, to move on. But I won’t.

This essay is my refusal to be silent. It’s my declaration that this kind of harm cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged, just because it was dressed up in denim. I will not support brands that exploit Black pain for profit. I will not idolise celebrities who align themselves—directly or indirectly—with systems that harm my people. I will not be gaslit into believing that racism is ever just a joke.

If you’ve felt the same way angry, tired, unseen you’re not alone. You’re not overreacting. You’re living in a world where harm is often aestheticised and history is conveniently forgotten. But we remember. We carry the weight. We keep speaking truth. And we refuse to let it be repackaged as entertainment.

This isn’t just about an ad.
It’s about power.
It’s about whose genes are celebrated.
Whose pain is ignored.
And who gets to profit off the bodies and histories of others.