343 Industries apologizes for offensive Juneteenth color palette
343 Industries leadership is apologizing for the release of a Juneteenth-themed color palette that was named after a type of ape in Halo Infinite. In two tweets last night, company president Bonnie Ross and head of creative Joseph Staten both acknowledged that the color palette's name was offensive, and noted that the team worked to change it as fast as possible.
This incident began on the afternoon of June 14, when Twitter users began to notice that a new color palette released to celebrate Juneteenth (a recently-federally recognized holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans) had an unusual name: "Bonobo."
The phrase "bonobo" is the name for a type of ape, which is particularly troubling given that imagery using apes and monkeys has long been a trope of racist propaganda targeting Black people that dates back as far as the 18th century.
How did this wind up being the name of a Juneteenth color palette? A Halo Infinite community manager clarified that "Bonobo" is the name of a 343 Industries toolset, and that "it was not intended" for the color palette to be named after it. In the same window, 343 Industries rushed to remove the name and replace it with something more appropriate.
343 did not provide context how an internal tool designation was used as a name for a cosmetic item.
Quickly apologizing for the name and replacing it feels like the bare minimum that 343 Industries could have done here, and Ross and Staten appear to have recognized that further apologies were necessary. "We were made aware of a palette option for our Juneteenth emblem that contained a term that was offensive and hurtful. The team immediately addressed this issue via an update," Ross wrote on Twitter.
"We are a studio and
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