The Abercrombie & Fitch clothing store is being sued because they only hire white people. If you look at their advertisements you only see white models, it's clear they are marketing to white people only. When one store had hired 5 non-white employees a corporate manager told them they wanted employees more like the people in their adds, the five non-white employees were subsequently fired and replaced with whites. Should Abercrombie & Fitch be allowed to create a corporate image that only includes white-Anglo-Saxon Protestants and only hire whites? Should ethnic companies like Zion Rootswear or Chinese restaurants be allowed to hire only within their own ethnic group?

my native opinion is a big fat no.

I don't see the difference between Abercrombie and FUBU. If certain segments of retail or the food industry cater to, or is predominately run by an ethnic group, whats the big deal?

It seems to me that worshipping at the altar of diversity is a one way street.

I don't, however agree with hiring then firing people. It wasn't fair to them to be caught up in a management/marketing dispute.

I don't care about to whom they choose to target and market to, because FUBU, for example, does the same thing only to blacks instead of whites. Hiring practices is a different. If they are truly only hiring whites and refusing to hire blacks, then this is basic racial discrimination. And as such, is a big no-no.

Hard to believe this is accurate info. Got a link to a news article? If it is true, there are 5 non-whites due for a big settlement check....

Some organizations have been boycotting Abercrombie & Fitch because of the soft porn ads appealing to teenagers.

I've always thought that Abercrombie & Fitch clothing was too expensive for what it's worth.

Now am I to understand that they are racist in their hiring practices?

Oh boy, ANOTHER reason not to buy anything from them!

Article on Abercrombie
Lawsuit webpage
NY Times article on Abercrombie Lawsuit
NY Times Op-ed piece on Abercrombie lawsuit
I think this policy is not only racist but stupid. Lots of brands have had the ability to create a multi-ethnic market for their product. Why can't Abercrombie?

A company should be allowed to hire and fire, whoever they wish, for any reason.

The difference between FUBU and other hip-hop cultured clothing and A&F is that A&F is also a chain retailer (the others are just clothing lines). If you have a clothing line and want to feature all waif-ish half naked white people in your catalogs to promote that "image", you are more than welcome to do so. However when that "image" creeps into employment practices, there is a problem (and that's not JMO, that's a problem in terms of legality and compliance with federal OFCCP regulations). I'm fairly certain that FUBU has non-Black employees in marketing, advertising, etc., btw (same goes for other "urban" clothing lines).

I actually happen to know a black man who was employed by A&F (a friend of my husbands...this was going back about 5-6 years when they were just becoming a household name). Obviously one of the local chains realized that hiring people who are representative of those in the area was a good idea (the particular mall housing this A&F store was largely populated by Black and Hispanic teens, twenty-somethings).

This discussion got me thinking about something...this really related only to very small businesses, which are free to hire whomever they want. I know a lot of Black-owned (and I'm sure other ethnic minority owned) companies who try to hire from within their community - the whole notion of promoting the"upward mobility" of the community as a whole seems to be the basis for this practice. I am not at all opposed to small businesses being allowed to hire whomever they want, much for this very reason.

But when it comes to huge companies/corporations, you just cannot simply hire people who fit your "image". The only exception I can think of would be religious-based companies (Christian bookstores, etc.) and the entertainment industry (in terms of models, actors, etc. - but that's not exactly in the same category). I do, to an extent, understand the desire to have retail store employees who are representative of that image, however I think more than "rail-thin Europeans", A&F caters to clean cut, preppy kids and there are plenty of clean cut and "preppy" non-white folks out there. My husband wears A&F on occasion - looks good on him, too

But I think you get my point on this one...okay to hire whomever they want for catalogs, clothing design, but for general sales, I don't see how they could possibly defend hiring only whites, even as part of their image...lots of Black folks wear A&F anyway, so obviously their desired "audience" (for lack of a better word at the moment...it's too early in the a.m.) is broader than what they intended.

A&F also had some racially insensitive t-shirts for sale. Chinese Laundry T-Shirts

I let my wallet doing my talking, I don't even window shop at A&F since they started selling those shirts.

What? Why do you say that?

Categorical Imperative.

We all support the right of the consumer to buy or not buy based on any criteria the consumer chooses. ANY.

What is an employer but a consumer of labor?.....


Unfortunately, the logic of your exception can apply to ANY business. A&F has a certain image, and the image matters because A&F is selling fashion, i.e. image. That's what A&F is about. Should they be required to re-hire their former employees from before they totally remade their image? (For those who don't remember, Abercrombie and Fitch used to be a "gentleman's outfitter", of the sort that equipped Tom Hank's character for his little trip in Joe Vs. the Volcano, very old school.) How many old, distinguished gentleman adventurer's were put on the street in order to make room for Chip and Alison? Why didn't the hue and cry go up then?

Simply put, is A&F going to generate the sort of sales of the products they have chosen to carry today if they put Mrs. Doubtfire on the floor? Hell no, they have a particular audience that they've targeted, and that audience ain't gonna drop nearly as much of the dough when Mrs. Frump is helping them out as when Miss/Mr Cutie is doing it.

Consumer retail, leave it to the business to decide who to hire, and the public to decide whether or not they're comfortable with the hiring decisions made by the retailer. Getting gov't involved only screws things up worse.

Here's an extreme example of the ludricrousness of Equal Employment: a company sells the "swim pools", the sort that generate a current to swim against. They have two applicants for a sales job. One has 6 years of sales experience in another related field, while the other has 5 years of experience in the same related field. The company chooses the guy with 5 years of experience. 6 years cries bloody murder and wins.

The quadraplegic who sold wheelchairs for 6 years has just used "equal opportunity" to take the job over the perfectly normal guy who also sold wheelchairs, for 5 years. Hey, the only problem with 6 year is that he's handicapped, and we can't discriminate against him, right? He doesn't actually have to be able to swim to sell the pools.

Who are you more likely to buy a swimming pool from, a quadraplegic who will sink like a stone, or somebody who you can believe actually uses the product?

Lunacy, pure and simple.

I think it is being handled the way it should be, in court.

If Abercrombie & Fitch were accepting government funds, then exclusion (or in this case expulsion) of employees according to race would be prosecutable by the government. But they are not affiliated with the government, so it's a matter for civil suits.

Let the judge(s) decide. If we don't like the decision, we can boycott the company.

If the suits at Abercrombie & Fitch want to live in some make-believe Wasp World where no minorities or fat people exist, that's their business. If they want to exclude the collective buying power of 20+ million black folks that's their business too.

But if with malice and forethought, A&F systematically discriminates against hiring qualified blacks, Hispanics, Asians or any other person of color that doesn't fit their warped vision of American life, then they should be sued into compliance or bankruptcy. Whichever comes first.

Racism isn't cool. Not even fashionable racism.

Is the A&F case any different than local TV stations firing white male news anchors to hire blacks so as to better appeal to their audience?

Without knowing the circumstances of the incident you are writing about Passion 51, there is no way for me to comment on the scenario you have described.

Do you have a link to this incident (and how does it relate to the Abercrombie & Fitch topic)?

Can I get a source or link on that one?

From www.philly.com:

The complaint, seeking more than $300,000 in compensatory damages and punitive awards on three counts of discriminatory behavior, was filed July 10 with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. Noonan is represented by uber lawyer Richard Sprague, fresh from his success in the Allen Iverson gun-charge case.

In a statement issued yesterday afternoon, Fox Philadelphia GM Roger LaMay "categorically denies that unlawful considerations of race played any role" in Noonan's discharge in February of this year and the subsequent hire of Dave Huddleston, 38, an African-American male.

"Fox Philadelphia stands by its decision 100 percent not to renew Rich's contract and will vigorously defend against his false charges," LaMay said.

The 40-year-old Noonan's charges include:

• In a July 2001 conversation,

Noonan recounts that LaMay mentioned a chat he had with two African-American women, during which they said the 10 p.m. newscast looked "lily white." That's why "I can't very well put up another billboard with four white people on it," Noonan says LaMay told him.

• In an October 2001 discussion

with LaMay about the fate of WTXF-TV (Channel 29) co-anchor Jill Chernekoff, 46, who was let go in October 2001, Noonan says his boss said, "Race is an issue in this day and age, you know that as well as I do."

• Noonan charges that

anchor/reporter Joyce Evans, 45, who is African-American, warned LaMay not to replace Chernekoff with another white woman. Evans would have to have been seen as a contender for the "girl" half of the traditional "boy-girl" anchor team. (Chernekoff was replaced by Dawn Stensland, who is white.)

• Noonan claims that Evans told him on Nov. 14, "You had better find a new job, because there is no way they can renew you. Black folks in this town will never let them renew you so you can sit beside Dawn. The team is too white."

• In that same conversation, Evans said she had heard that LaMay and news director Scott Matthews "put out the word to agents that they wanted to hire an African-American male," the complaint alleges.

• "Joyce is a real pain in the *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. *** and she's playing the race card all over the place," LaMay allegedly told Noonan. "She thinks she is going to get" the anchor job, "but she is really hurting her chances by pulling all this racial bulls---."

Evans couldn't be reached before deadline.

• At a party in late November or early December, following Chernekoff's departure, Noonan claims in the complaint that LaMay said, "Finally, news without Jews," repeating a slur, Noonan says, that LaMay made years earlier when both Chernekoff and then-sports anchor Carl Cherkin were off on the same night. Both are Jewish.

"I hope it's not news without Rich come February," Noonan reportedly responded. (end of quote)

You know whites are being attacked from all sides when Fox discriminates against them.

Hugo - I couldn't find your article at that website. Do you have a more specific link? Also, please quote the actual portions of the article so we know which are your words and which come from the link. (and we can determine if you are posting the article in its entirety, a violation of both that website's policy and ours )

Thanks.

I'm straddling the fence on this one.

On one hand, hiring/firing based on race is not cool.

On the other hand, a business should be able to do what they think will make them the most money, barring any illegal actions of course.

You would think that by showing a more diverse range of models, you'd cover a much larger market. But hey, I'm a computer geek, not a marketing director.

If they are guilty of discrimination, they deserve to face the consequences for that, but I wish everyone would stop treating their largely white number of employees as evidence of it.

What if a company hires on merit alone, but their products appeal almost exclusively to white suburbanites (like those clothes), hence white suburbanites make up the vast majority of their applicants as well?

Well aqua, no one would be suing for that reason. The people in question are suing because they believe they were turned down or offered non-visible positions because of their race.


EDITED for spelling.

Abercrombie is so sickeningly trendy it makes me want to vomit.

I've thought their corporate culture was racist for a while now, ever since their t-shirt debacle. Personally, I'm glad their being sued.

PS: This particular thread is how I discovered this fun little site. Woo hoo!

I found a couple links that work...

Fired white anchor files bias complaint

Blinded by the White

Those arguing that they can market their clothes any way they see fit, but hiring practices can not be based on race for their in store staff:

Aren't they practicing discrimination when they hire only white models for their catalogs and advertising? What's the difference? Aren't the people working the sales floor and register part of their marketing? After all, marketing is defined as the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service! Clearly they fall under that defintion, so what grants them any more (or any less) rights than the models applying for work in their catalogs and ads?

I don't think race should be considered when hiring, but I don't see how you can make a distinction between models and salesmen and justify discrimination in one case and not the other.

Businesses should be able to hire and fire whomever they wish. If their demographic or type of store calls for the employment of people with certain characteristics, it's fine. Being Italian in descent, I would probably think twice before eating in an Italian restaurant staffed with Indian chefs.

But hiring and then dismissing them immediately afterwards is an unfair dismissal. Here we have a contract terminated not because of any inability to do the job, but because when they were hired, the company made a "mistake". Bad.

My personal ethics dictate that racially motivated hiring, etc, is wrong. However, like others in this thread, I also don't suffer from the mental blockage that apparently afflicts most people that causes them to see "employers" as something other than what they are: consumers of labor. When we shed our preconceptions, we see that when you hire an exterminator to come kill the bugs in your house, you are acting as an "employer" just as much as A&F is when they hire people to model for them, stand on their sales floors, greet customers, etc.

If we do not punish people for exercising their right to their personal and private discrimination of who to hire to clean their swimming pool, why should we likewise punish people for the same when choosing someone to hire to operate their cash register?

It'd be a great and wonderful world if everyone conducted themselves according to each of our ethical preferences, but attempting to force these on people is a form of oppression. And punishing people purely on the premise of their motivations (as when racism is suspected or alleged) is essentially the establishment of thoughtcrime. If an action is injurious to another person, motivations should be taken into account only to ascertain whether the injury was an accident or if it was intentional. But hiring and firing is not injurious. To say that it is implies that the individual in question has a right to the job in question. Employment, like any transaction, is a mutually consensual agreement. As soon as one or the other party is dissatisfied with the arrangement, it should come to an end. There is no logical reason why the employee should have the right to terminate the employment at will while the employer does not. The agreement is and should be mutual.

While some may view my equalization of employer and employee as threatening the standing of the employee, it is actually quite empowering. Once people begin to view themselves as free agents engaging in free trade of their labor rather than as subordinates to an authoritative employer, they will see the true power and freedom they have as free agents.

Orat, if you were hiring only individuals for your pest control or your pool cleaning, I might tend to agree with you.

Most people, however, hire a service company to do these things. As long as the employee the service hires is trained, courteous and competent to do the work, you have no real say in who the company sends to kill your bugs. You are an employer of the company as a whole, not of each and every employee they hire.

You can certainly tell the company that you don't want a certain ethnic group to attend to your needs, but to expect a company to hire based only on your idea of "acceptability" is wrong.


Free agancy is great, when you actually have something to bargain with, Orat. That's not even nearly the case for most jobs, however. Particularly for "hourly wage" positions, companies rarely negotiate wages, benefits, or the like. You either take it, or you leave it. If you have rent to pay, groceries to buy, a car payment, and are out of work, you are at a distinct dis-advantage, not the employer.

And I have rarely seen an employee handbook that does not place an employee into a subservient role, to an authoritarian employer. Looking at most employee/employer handbooks, etc. Employers do indeed claim a right to "employment at will", but then tie all kinds of restictions to it, as in non-compete clauses for a specified period of time after being terminated, etc.

I may not have the right to any particular job, but my former employer should not be able to keep me from seeking new employment, either (barring the taking of old clients, or trade secrets, etc.).

Am I *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. *** that A&F are doing what they are doing? No! I don't see why people would pay $40 for a frayed, chewed-up baseball cap with the letter AF on it anyway. I just don't under stand it.

However, I want to know why people keep alluding to FUBU? We always speak about making blanket statements in here, well I can personally tell you - from working at a FUBU store - that all colors are hired for the positions. In fact, the one I worked at is mostly WHITE! Not only that, many of the tuxedo and suit catalog pages sport white people.

So please, don't make an assumption and then call diversity a "one way street". What A&F did is wrong, and I am sure that those five workers will not have to worry about employment anymore.

This is not unheard of. People hire individuals to mow their lawns and maintain their pools all the time.


Who is suggesting that? My point was illustrative. You're apparently applying it in a completely different way from that I intended. My point was that there is no fundamental difference between hiring poeple willy-nilly for odd tasks like pool cleaning or lawn mowing and hiring people to man a cash register. If people are free to choose who they want to clean their pool, can't they choose who they want stocking their shelves?


This is due to supply and demand. Unskilled workers have to compete in a large pool for jobs. There's a high demand for employment but not enough supply. Conversely, unskilled workers are in abundant supply, so there isn't as much leverage on their end. That doesn't change the fact that people have a right to choose with whom they associate.



UGA Boy:

I think most of the comments regarding FUBU are in reference to their marketting practices paralleling that of A&F -- not necessarily their hiring practices. Nevertheless, there have been one here pointed out a particular A&F store that was predominantly staffed by blacks because that was the dominant demographic in the area. Perhaps your FUBU store was predominantly white for the same reason?


Hmmm... a quick visit to fubu.com doesn't seem to reveal a single white person. At least I couldn't find one. A quick visit to A&F's website revealed photos of several black people (in their photo section).

Orat:
The argument you are making is sound, but it is based on the idea that corporate entities are no different from private entities. Though the Supreme Court decided this to be so, there is ample evidence that at the time the Constitution was written, corporations were expressly not considered the same as individuals.

The charter of incorporation is granted to a corporation by the public, acting through the state. Adam Smith saw as the basis of his free market system a market based on small businesses and tradecraft. He was wary of corporations, and in fact for almost the first century of our Republic, corporate charters were only issued for specific goals - for example, a corporation could obtain a charter of incorporation to do only a specific thing, and only for a set time limit.

I think there is a reason corporations were never mentioned once in the Constitution. It was not simply that everyone just forgot to mention them.

If charters of incorporation are granted by the public, acting through the state, then the will of the people may be constitutionally expressed in regards to the limits of those charters. Not the tyranny of the majority, mind you, but the will of the people as determined by constitutional means. So I guess the question (better suited for the "commercial speech" thread, really) is, was the Santa Clara case constitutionally sound, or was it judicial activism. It happened, after all, during a very corrupt period in history, when corporations rich from the spoils of the Civil War were flexing their muscles and influencing judges and politicians quite blatantly.

I would argue that the reason we can hold A&F accountable for fair hiring practices is because it is NOT a private citizen, it is a public entity and it does not exist without the express consent of the state.

So, I'm not saying that your argument is wrong, because under our current view of corporations, you are probably correct. However, I question the basis and the Constitutionality of this current view. To grant corporations the express freedoms of discrimination which a private citizen is Constitutionally granted would, in my view, only serve to complete what I feel was a flawed process to begin with.

quarkhead:
I think there's ample room to call into question the legitimate personhood of a corporation since, as you've pointed out, there is a special arangement with regard to liability between the State and the corporation being formed. And indeed this would probably be a good thread to start elsewhere on this site. But also bear in mind that, as far as I am aware, these EEOC rules and most anti-descrimination law applies also to non-corporate business. I believe they have to have over a certain number of employees or engage in interstate commerce (which isn't hard to establish using the "6 degrees to Kevin Bacon" methodology currently applied by Federal courts) to fall under these rules, but they do not have to be incorporated.

I might still debate the right of a corporate entity to descriminate as it is a collection of individuals and normally has in place its own internal structures whereby shareholders have a voice in the operations of the corporation. But again, this is certainly an arguable point and I might be pursuaded otherwise after more discussion.

I would add, however, that the Constitution probably does not mention corporations for the fact that the Constitution was intended to be short and sweet and to only address federal concerns for the most part. It is possible that incorporation was seen to be a domestic affair of each state.

First off Orat, it is like you said - sporting off of the familiar. Of course FUBU will have many pictures of black people. However, if you really did go to FUBU.COM you would see that there were also Hispanic, Asian and - yes - WHITE people.

The only thing at ABERCROMBIE.COM are white people. In fact, even their "TV show" sports white people. So not only, are they saying "let's not cater to blacks" they are saying "let's not cater to non-whites", the whole point of the lawsuit.

And by the way, the store I worked at was in Atlanta.

I clicked on all the categories I could find at FUBU.COM and I did see one asian-looking little girl and one white woman who was half out of frame anyway (with a black woman in the center of the frame), almost as if to say she (the white woman) was unimportant and being discarded to the side. These were the only non-black (not just white) people I could find at FUBU.COM.


If you say they only have white people, then you didn't look very hard. Like I said, they have some under their photos section. Mouseover "A&F Lifestyle" and then click "photos". Now click through the photos (which appear to display randomly so you may get the same one twice but that doesn't mean you've gone through the entire list) and you'll see a few non-white people. There are about 8 photos I think, and 3 of them are of black people (1 woman and 2 of a man). So that's 3 out of 8. And if you go to "Postcards", you'll see that 2 out of the 4 postcards there are of black people. 2 out of 4. And if you go to the "downloads" section, you'll see 3 wallpapers of people of which 1 is a black woman. 1 out of 3! Compared to how many out of how many at FUBU.com? The ratio at FUBU is probably somewhere around 30:1, and that's being generous.


Well, that's actually not the point of the lawsuit, and it shouldn't be. A business should be able to have whatever target demographic it wants.

When it gets to the point that you have to count out the number of minorities, the argument becomes ridiculous. Suffice it to say both companies have a long way to go.

Actually, I don't think they do. I think it's the right of each company to cater to whichever crowd they want. What I think is ridiculous is the hypocrisy of those claiming white-catering businesses must change while black-catering businesses should be left alone. Or people who are sensitive to every minute action of companies like A&F but turn a blind eye to unbalances of an even greater magnitude in black-favoring companies.

Any business should be allowed to dictate their own hiring and marketing practices. This whole thing remings me of the man that sued Hooters because they wouldn't hire him to be a waiter on the basis of sex. I could care less if there are zero white people in FUBU catalogs. I could care less if there are zero black people in A&F catalogs. These are clothing companies, not the UN. They have no responsibility to try to cater to everyone and please everyone. Their job is to make and sell clothes, not to make the world a better place.

Looms, fine whatever it's my business and I can do what I want to.

Stats show that minorities get the finger in application processes anyway. However, to rub it in by

1) hiring five non-whites and subsequently firing them because they aren't white enough I have a serious problem with - and I can guarantee you the courts will also.

2) sending those minorities who are good workers to the back like this is a Rosa Parks '60s movie is diminishing at best and racist at most - I wish they just wouldn't hire the minorities

3) creating clothing that patronizes Asian culture with Buddhas and phrases such as "Two wongs can make it white" and featuring two Asians at a laundromat is extremely repugnant.

And you can say all you want about what a business can and cannot do. This is wrong. And the courts will definitely find for those of the class-action lawsuit.

It is so strange how some white people can argue racism in a heartbeat when it comes to Affirmative Action programs, but look at something as demoralizing as this by the nation's top retailer, and simply say "Stop complaining all the time"

What amazes me is how on all those denture adhesive commercials they always have people over 50 on them. The fact is many businesses target different sectors of the population. These businesses are not usually guided by ageism, sexism or racism; they are guided by profitism. Different groups may be more or less disposed to purchasing a certain good. You get a poor bang for your advertising buck if you market to the wrong audience.

UGA Boy:

Wrong (morally)? Yes. Illegal? It shouldn't be, but then again it probably is anyway.


Wrong and racist? Perhaps. Should it be illegal? No. As soon as you decide to legislate according to morality, then we have to define what is moral, and now you've opened up pandora's box. Do you want the morals of others shoved down your throat by law? I didn't think so. Let's keep it to equality before the law, nothing more.


I don't see why this is so repugnant. What ill-will is intended here? I just don't see it. Perhaps you can explain it?


It's because of the hypocrisy. People complain about racism, and then proceed to institute racist policies like affirmative action. First, affirmative action is racist, and therefore, hypocritical when promoted by those who supposedly abhor racism. Second, if the affirmative action is being enforced by the government, then not only is it racism, it's FORCED racism. I think the people you're complaining about are against government coercion in all forms. I'm against government enforcing "non-racism" morality (even though I subscribe to it myself), and I'm against government enforcing racism. The key here is that government is FORCING people to do one thing or another. THAT is the legal problem. The rest are moral issues that should be dealt with outside of the government.

However, I will qualify my remarks with regard to morality in light of Hugo's comments regarding profits. I don't think, for example, that it is immoral for a business to target a certain race (like FUBU does) in its marketting, or even in its employment of sales people (who are an extension of its marketting -- its image) when it pertains to its ability to sell its products. Like Hugo's example, denture adhesive is marketted towards older people -- that's just a result of natural demographics. A similar thing could be said of FUBU's clothing -- its style appeals to a certain demographic. Or how 'bout female-only waitresses at Hooters? Again, it's part of the product or service being offered. So it's not immoral when it's done out of practical concerns such as these.

I just finished a final paper on A&F and its marketing strategy as it intersects with race and identity socialization. My topic wasn't the employment discrimination issue. I assumed that if the allegations of the fired employees and unsuccessful applicants in California and New Jersey are true then according to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the company will be held accountable for discriminating on the basis of race in employment. My interest was more in A&F's choioce to portray an overwhelmingly white image while espousing a rhetoric of "classic American style" and "American diversity."

Btw, checking out A&F's website as it currently stands is probably not a good indication of what their hiring and marketing practices were even two months ago as the company has probably shifted the racial percentages of its models since it was hit with the first lawsuit in June or July of 2003. If you can get your hands on some of their older catalogs that should give you a better idea of the climate that the plaintiffs are referring to in their suits.

My reply to the FUBU comparison (that what A&F does is no different from minority ethnic companies that cater to their own ethnicity) is that FUBU does not set itself up as representative of "American style." It is very clear about its roots and its market, and does not attempt to have it both ways by projecting a black urban image and then claiming that it encompasses all of America.

While I don't like the fact that A&F has decided that the best way to market itself is to project a very narrow physical ideal that corresponds with elite WASP-images, my dislike does not extend to thinking that A&F should be prohibited from making these sorts of strategic marketing decisions. I do believe, however, that it should own up to its racism. If it chooses to project a WASP image, don't pretend that this represents all of America. If it protests that it is only interested in "beauty" and not race, then why does it incidentally feature only one particular racial type of beauty? Beauty comes in all ethnicities. If A&F wants to feature only one type of beauty then let it, but don't try to hide this behind the statement that "...we just go with what's beautiful" (Sam Shahid, A&F marketing director, quoted in “Whitewash?” by Jim Edwards, Adweek, Oct 6, 2003, v.44, iss.36, p14). Saying this against the backdrop of a white ad campaign sends the message that only whites are beautiful. A&F is free to say that, but consumers should also be free to respond to it, and by denying its racism it in effect attempts to deceive the consumer. For all you free market proponents and libertarians out there, my query to you is "Should A&F be allowed to deceive consumers as well as practice racism?"

It is my belief that individuals and corporations should be able to associate with whomever they choose. Therefore, A&F, FUBU, Wong's Wok House, etc. should all be allowed to practice racism if they wish. As for deception, I don't think companies should be able to commit fraud or materially misrepresent their product; I don't see that here.

The thing with A&F is that their marketing campaign is not centered on their actual product but on a lifestyle or a worldview. They have decided to sell their product through aspirational lifestyle marketing, which depicts a lifestyle for the targeted customers to aspire to.

Therefore, A&F is not making assertions about the quality of their tangible product in their marketing but rather about the lifestyle that they have chosen to associate with the product. Their marketing campaign implies that beauty and sexual attractivenss are a white privilege and that to be popular and desired you need to fit the WASP ideal. My issue with A&F is that while the company sends this message with its advertising it also, concurrently, proclaims in its employee manual and public statements that it believes in diversity in America and hopes to project American values and ideals in its advertising. My interpretation of this is either that A&F really thinks that Americanness should be defined as a whites-only category (only whites can fit the ideal of "classic American beauty") or that it is merely pretending to espouse the rhetoric of diversity so that it does not have to face the market consequences of being pegged as an openly racist company.

I think the issue is one of misrepresenting their message, obfuscating the racist undertones in their advertising, rather than misrepresenting their product, unless one wants to define their product (which is defensible, I think) as a lifestyle vision. So, to refine my earlier question, should a business be allowed to sell through promotion of a racist philosophy and then turn around and say that it doesn't?

The leap being contemplated here is between "materially misrepresent[ing] their product" and "materially misrepresenting their message" and judging whether any harm results from the latter. I think that most people would agree that to materially misrepresent a product is not acceptable. The undecided question that I'm interested in is whether to misrepresent a philosophy and one's values, in a business marketing context, is also unacceptable or whether most people think that such conduct is not a big deal.

You perceive their advertising as a "promotion of a racist philosophy", but they don't. If you can prove that they have this agenda, then gather your evidence and go to the court room. I don't see using a specific race, religion, or body type in advertising as the promotion of some evil idea, and I think you would have a hard time convincing a court it is. You sell exercise equipment by using good looking, fit models, a lot of people buying the equipment are out of shape. You sell beer by showing everyone having fun and adding sex to the commercial, a lot of people buying beer don't have ripped muscles and gorgeous model girlfriends. But it sells their product, so so be it. It is up to the consumer to decide whether he/she likes the advertising. If you find it offensive, boycott it. That doesn't make it illegal, nor should it, but you have the right to speak out about it, so go ahead.

I'm not inquiring about the legality of the practice of preferring whites in marketing campaigns nor asserting that what A&F is doing in its marketing practice is illegal. What I would like to know is your opinion of their conduct. It sounds like your don't think there's anything wrong with the allegation that A&F promotes a racist philosophy in its marketing. I was not taking issue with this conduct; I was using that as a assumption for to the second part of my question, which is whether A&F should, in the interest of an informed consumer market, be permitted to advance its philosophy, preference, whatever, by its actions, but deny it in its words.

Aside from that, let me address your examples.

First, I don't think the comparison of A&F's use of race, as the key to the good life, to using fit, athletic models to sell exercise equipment to out-of-shape customers, is applicable. Physical fitness is an attainable goal and the fit models are not an impossible ideal to aspire to. Crossing racial lines is for the most part, unless you are "passing for white," not an attainable ideal.

Second, the use of sex to sell, which A&F also does in addition to preferentially treating whites, is a different issue. Using race to sell is different from using sex to sell. Sex is something everyone has access to, in some form or another, and the beer companies merely create a fantasy world where sex involves very attractive persons. A&F's message is "You have to be white to be beautiful, desired, and privileged," while the beer commercials' message is "Beer helps you have a better time, makes you look more attractive to the opposite sex, and helps you score with hot chicks." I judge that the first message is more harmful to the self-image of a non-white person than the second message is to the average joe.

In any case, A&F openly admits to using sex in its marketing; however it denies preferring whites in the same context. Do the beer companies that choose to advertise by associating beer with sex then also say, "No, we're not using sex to sell, we're just showing people getting to know each other better in sensible, sedate ways"? I don't know - do you?

I don't want my responses to your examples to distract from my original question so if you are inclined to post a reply, Slim, please don't forget to response to that question.

I highly doubt this lawsuit will not be won, but continuing further on the tracks of this racial discrimination.

THere is a company brand out now called "Dixie Outfitters". Most just include shirts with rebel flags, but others include more racist undertones. I definitely do not like this line of clothing, but so be it. Their portrayal is of a particular sector of society.

I guess what my problem is with the A&F is two-fold. First, it is the fact that - aside from producing some clothing that is blatantly racist - they seem to promote a racial superiority by forcing people of color to work in the back or "not be seen". If you do not want non-whites working in your business, don't hire them. It would be hard for anyone to show there is a racial disparagement in the application process. However, don't degrade workers by sending them to the back, as if to silently spell "you're not good enough" for our clothing or even "you're not American enough" for this All-American wardrobe. Secondly, of all the defenses A&F chooses, it comes down to "we pick what's beautiful"? Well, I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but to punish workers because you don't see their skin color as beautiful is well past crossing the line.

Many people have expressed their lack of understanding as to why anyone would be angry at this situation, and I would just attribute that as a privilege of being the 75% majority in an "equal" nation. But this is well past legality, it is morally wrong and I think there is something owed to races (not just A race) of people who have personally been victims of such derogatory behavior.

By the way, Abercrombie has recently made it beyond the print media (internet, newspapers & magazines) to television and radio about this class action lawsuit. At least, I think the radio blurb I heard is based on the lawsuit. The only thing the announcer said was "have you heard that Abercrombie & Fitch only hire attractive people?" and then they went on to make some jokes about being thrown out of the store or forced to do menial chores for being ugly. No mention of race. None.

I'm disturbed by this simplification, or blatant distortion, of the issue. (Maybe I'm just naive in assuming that people would check some facts before going on air.) What began as a race issue has morphed into merely a beauty issue. I don't want to belittle beauty issues, which are heavy in their own right, but this was definitely more than a beauty issue, and it's being tossed around now as a joke.

Has anyone else heard A&F's lawsuit portrayed as race-less?

I think the problem here is that is your own personal, subjective interpretation of their message. Nobody can objectively say that this is their message. So you can't raise the issue of misrepresentation because that assumes that there is an objective standard against which we are to judge whether something is being accurately portrayed.

Orat, this statement is pretty obvious. If - in one piece of the lawsuit - every non-white was fired and, in another part, every non-white was sent to the back, and their argument is we try to only have beautiful people up front, there is nothing personal or subjective about that.

Any technicality can be argued, but it doesn't take much more than a 2nd grades learning about "context clues" to understand what is being protrayed here. And here is my question: Why stick up for the company anyway? There is no way possible anyone can be blind to this sort of blatant racism.



I know that is their argument, and I have heard other people alluding between that statement and its apparent interpretation. However, I have not heard of any report being completelyvoid of race.

I don't think vinnah was necessarily talking about the hiring practices. vinnah was talking about their marketting message, etc.


Because, like it or not, America is still a free country last I checked and the Constitution confers no powers to Congress to make racism illegal. Morally, I find racism abhorrent, but legally, I'm glad to live in a country where not everything that is moral is shoved down our throats by force of law (although often it still is).