Tag Archives: Muslim

June 28, 2011 · 7:08 pm

Abercrombie & Fitch “Look” Policy Rears Its Ugly head Again

Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch

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Abercrombie & Fitch is being sued again for discrimination in the workplace. No surprise here,  I am pretty sure that settling/losing discrimination lawsuits is almost like a second business for Abercrombie, or possibly for their fleet of  lawyers on retainer.  A 2004 class action suit forced them to pay big bucks to every African-American, Asian, Latino and woman who applied but was not hired at their stores. Why?  Because they had this Neanderthal hiring practice of only recruiting and hiring  white frat boys and white sorority girls because they had a certain “look.”  It took a court to tell them what most of the world knows–gee, that “looks” like discrimination. What are you guys trying to do start a new retail race of surfer dudes and duds?  A court order said they must recruit from all of us imperfect people too. But, I hear the imperfect but smart people don’t want to work in a dark cologne-fogged-surfer infested atmosphere of discrimination.

In 2009 a girl with a prosthetic arm sued them and won because they hired her, but decided to hide her in the back storeroom and then changed their mind on allowing her to wear a sweater.  The people who run these stores must be from some planet of the Stepford-people. It’s actually kind-of creepy, hiring only white,  perfect,  beachy, flip-flopped wearing Stepford employees.

Another 2009 lawsuit they lost in Minnesota was to a teen who was trying to help her autistic sister in a dressing room but they kicked her out. The mother even called to complain and explain but Abercrombie’s sensitivity training must have been a little lax. They actually said they didn’t really think she had autism-the girl got $115,000.

This latest lawsuit has to be a slam-dunk for 20-year-old college student, Hani Khan, hired by Hollister Co. (Abercrombie owns it)  in San Mateo in 2009. In her interview the hiring manager asked her if she could wear a headscarf  (she wore a hijab) in the company colors.  She said yes, and she honored that commitment.  She too was put in the stockroom but she did occasionally have to go out in “public” to the sales floor in the course of her duties. A district manager came into the store one day and caught sight of Khan. She was asked to remove the hijab she was wearing, even though she was wearing one when she was hired, she refused.   Khan needed the job to help with her college costs–I don’t think she will have to worry, I’m sure Abercrombie will be paying her tuition and a whole lot more.

(Because I have written about Abercrombie frequently,  a friend with a sense of humor sent me this book;  http://amzn.to/1olaP9T It is “You are What You Wear, What your clothes reveal about you” I must admit it was very interesting but I’m not sure I agree with the premise. I am an Amazon affiliate so I do get a tiny commission if you buy this through my link. I read mine and then re-gifted it to a lucky friend who I always thought dressed rather weird. I wonder if after reading the book he came to the same conclusion? I never asked.)

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October 23, 2010 · 8:41 pm

O’Reilly to Juan Williams; “I’ve got your back”

I really hate to beat a dead, already signed by Fox News horse but…I keep thinking about the Thursday night Bill O’Reilly and Juan Williams love fest where O’Reilly told Williams; “I’ve got your back” and then Williams told O’Reilly; “You know what, you are a standup guy”. When Williams uttered those words on O’Reilly’s show, I knew he had been bought by Fox News, hook, line and sinker.  Of course as we all know now, by the next day (Friday) Williams had a $2 million contract with Fox. It was like the mutual admiration society of these two spawned a new reason for living. Plain and simple; NPR bashing.

I like Juan Williams and you can tell by sifting through my blog archives that I am not in the O’Reilly or Fox News fan club.  I have already noted in my Thursday blog that I felt NPR’s firing of Williams was done in an unprofessional, and thoroughly distasteful manner, so no need to re-tread that.  Not many of us would get the opportunity to bash our ex-employers in a public setting but hardly anyone gets the national platform to do so, lucky him.  I found myself amazed that Williams was  so totally hyped up on O’Reilly’s show Thursday (with a ton of prodding from O’Reilly) that he appeared to gleefully relish knocking an employer of 10 years (an employer that helped make him pretty famous by adding to his credibility). 

While I understand that he was upset with his firing, as anyone would be, I didn’t really notice the calm, classy, voice of reason that I had come to expect from him over the years.  When O’Reilly’s Friday show hit the airwaves and Williams was pitch-hitting for an absent O’Reilly, much of the show was about the Williams and NPR continuing saga as everybody and his brother was dragged out to be “shocked” and “horrified” by what Williams had been subjected to. It seemed quite weird to me that Juan Williams was doing a show about Juan Williams.  Pushing his case, bashing NPR, explaining away and dissecting his Muslim statement as if we had all not heard it 100 times in the last 48 hours.

It was as if in the blink of an eye, the flash of a lost job and the promise of $2. million , Williams fell quickly into Fox mode. Journalism be damned, I’m a Fox pundit now for real, no more treading lightly as an “analyst’.  So, welcome to the “Fair and Balanced News” Juan Williams, and oh yeah, watch your back.

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October 21, 2010 · 8:36 pm

NPR Juan Williams dillema; Fox pundit or NPR journalist?

I’m watching Fox News right now as Bill O’Reilly is threatening National Public Radio (NPR), his words; “NPR will rue the day”. This is all in response to the firing of Juan Williams, a NPR political analyst who has been with NPR for 10 years.  Williams spends a lot of time on Fox News, as a matter of fact, he got fired for something he said on Fox News Monday night on O’Reilly‘s show.  It appears his joblessness will be short-lived, he was fired on Wednesday and Friday he will be pitch-hitting for O’Reilly on his show on Friday while O’Reilly is “on assignment”.

On Fox News this week Williams stated “I mean, look Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kinds of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But, when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

 This is the statement that evidently got the firing ball rolling but it seems to have been a long time coming.  According to O’Reilly on his Thursday night show, Williams was told in 2009 by NPR that it did not want him to be identified with Fox News and did not want him stating that he was an NPR analyst when on Fox news.  I understand the views of NPR on that issue, but I don’t understand why they did not go to Williams much sooner and tell him; Look, It’s us or Fox, take your pick. Be an opinion giver or a journalist.

I always thought it was weird to see Williams on Fox News which is more or less the opposite of everything NPR stands for but I thought maybe he was a free agent and didn’t have an NPR contract. I was wrong, he had one. I was in the news business at a time when a more definitive line was drawn in the sand regarding opinion and news. Today in the news, it’s hard to tell.  A true journalist is not an analyst, or a commentator, or a pundit or whatever other names the media can come up with to cloud the issue.  A journalist (sometimes called a reporter) is supposed to report the news in the most unbiased way possible and let the chips fall where they may. It is then supposed to be up to the public to form their own opinion after receiving all the facts.

While I don’t think any NPR journalist should be masquerading as a Fox pundit, it is hard in today’s world to even utter the word Muslim without all hell breaking loose.  I don’t think Williams meant to be insensitive but he was. TV cameras thrown into our faces tend to make us think that our feelings and opinions must be important.  But if you are a journalist, they are not.

NPR is going to feel the shock waves of this more than they can ever imagine. While I don’t agree that Williams could have continued to play both sides against the middle, his NPR bosses fired the guy over the phone without even a face to face encounter. He will now get to blast NPR all over cable news and has already garnered the sympathy of many.  “All Things Considered,”  NPR better round-up their troops for some stellar PR moves and the first priority should be to tell NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller , to find someone to help her tone down  her terse and foolish on-air statements. Or better yet,  let her keep blabbing and lose more public and privately funded money.

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October 15, 2010 · 8:20 pm

ABC’s “The View” where Whoopi and Joy better agree with your view

The morning ABC gabfest known as “The View“, where differing views are supposed to be welcome, according to Barbara Walters on an early promo for the show, probably could use a new promo.  It should read something like; “If Whoopi Goldberg or Joy Behar don’t like your view, then they will take their toys…er I mean views and walk off the stage and embarrass themselves and the show, because they are not bright enough or quick witted enough to stand their ground against opposing forces.”  Or bullies like Bill O’Reilly.

The guy is a big bag of wind and they let him command the show this week like it was his own. I mean, four women against one guy (I don’t count Elisabeth Hasselbeck) and he still came out a winner even if you totally disagreed with what he said. Just in case you haven’t seen or heard what happened this week on The View, even though it has been on every news, radio and comedy program in the last 24 hours, probably worldwide, in a nutshell: O’Reilly came on the show and mentioned that 70% of people don’t want the a mosque in the area of the 9/11 tragedy. He said Muslims attacked us and most people don’t want a mosque there as a memory. Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg went nuts and said he should have said “terrorist Muslims” and not just said Muslims because it was not right to defame all Muslims. He said he wasn’t defaming all Muslims and that everyone knows that it was terrorist Muslims that attacked us. In other words it was semantics.

I watched the show as it happened and Barbara Walters looked, flustered and upset. She apologized to viewers and stated that her colleagues should not have walked out. Evidently O’Reilly apologized (according to Behar) and they came back on the set but Behar would not sit next to him as she had been previously and moved her seat. They supposedly left because they said they were upset by his words. 

But, the part I don’t get besides the totally unprofessional antics of walking off their own show is; Why would these two liberals (Goldberg and Behar) not stick around and push their liberal agenda in his face?  Aren’t liberals supposed to be tolerant?  Aren’t liberals supposed to stand up and fight for what is right?  Instead they walked out making themselves look so foolish, I could hardly believe my eyes. They didn’t even try to kick him on their way out or say anything meaningful or smart or even clever (and these two are comedians). They let O’Reilly get the upper hand on their own show. Walters knew it immediately and had to be ready to kill these two.

In the heat of the arguing before Goldberg and Behar left, O’Reilly was very condescending to Behar and at one point even told her to “listen and you might learn ” instead of coming back with a caustic comment  or quip that she is known for, she childishly stuck her  fingers behind his head in a ridiculous display not suitable for ANY talk show host on National TV. This was teenage stuff. I was embarrased for her.

I’ve never been a Bill  O’Reilly fan and I do occasionally watch the view. I’m still not an O’Reilly fan and my View watching days are over. If I wanted to watch screaming and yelling I could turn on Springer, at least they are real white trash. Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar are phony liberals and classless acts at that.

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