Delta's attempt to congratulate the United States Monday night for its World Cup win over Ghana crashed and burned after the airline tweeted a photo of a giraffe to depict the African nation.
After the U.S. beat Ghana 2-1 in Monday night's matchup, Delta tweeted an image of the Statue of Liberty with a "2" overlaid on top next to a silhouetted giraffe with a "1" printed over it, along with "Congrats team #USA!"
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The tweet immediately set off a firestorm of controversy, mostly from Twitter users pointing out that giraffes don’t actually live in Ghana.
"Obviously Lady Liberty represents America, but Delta just walked into that prickly zone of reducing Africa, a continent of
more than a billion people, to simply animals," Jalopnik reported. "If you've taken a civics class in the last 15 years, you might be familiar with a similar situation where AT&T touted international calling to Africa with a monkey on the phone."
Delta later deleted the offending tweet and replaced it with an apology.
"The original tweet was made in the spirit of the World Cup,"
Delta spokeswoman Kate Modolo told The Huffington Post by phone. "We apologized for the photo, but at this point it's been replaced and that's where we're at."
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