I am sorry but I don't get your point. This is something almost all companies do. If you are going to release thousands of catalogues you don't want things in it that could offense people. I think it would have been the same if the t-shirt contained some black-metal logo for example.
For the other example it's the same. I'm from the Netherlands so an IKEA ad with a black man would not surprise me, but for example an Arab man with a turban would. In the advertising world you want to connect with your target audience.
I have a hard time believing this has anything to do with racism because their catalogues are full of people from all over the planet.
Anyway, I don't like IKEA products, I think they are rubbish. But I like the fact they use a lot of 3D renders.
These anti-black msgs seem like some shit from IKEA viz team in EU misbehaving. VS photoshopping out women which is the kind of request directed from market research, i.e. in architecture visualization, not uncommon to have racist renderings for marketting (brown people in service spaces) while submitting alternate united colors of benetton versions for awards consideration.
For the other example it's the same. I'm from the Netherlands so an IKEA ad with a black man would not surprise me, but for example an Arab man with a turban would. In the advertising world you want to connect with your target audience. I have a hard time believing this has anything to do with racism because their catalogues are full of people from all over the planet.
Anyway, I don't like IKEA products, I think they are rubbish. But I like the fact they use a lot of 3D renders.