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A&F Advertising With Obama

OBAMA ADVERTISES A&F: Presidential campaigns are usually adept at orchestrating their campaign messages. Yet Barack Obama unwittingly allowed three Indiana supporters to advertise Abercrombie & Fitch garb live on CNN and other national media outlets during his concession speech after losing the Pennsylvania primary to Hillary Clinton. The three white males donning A&F tees were standing immediately behind the Illinois senator as he delivered his remarks. …

A&F UNDER CONSENT DECREE: A&F is the controversial clothing retailer that settled a discrimination class-action lawsuit for $50 million in 2005 with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center acting as co-counsel. Asian Pacific Americans, as well as black, Latino and female workers, were relegated to back-office operations, while the retailer hired mostly young white males for its ads and sales floors. The attire’s appearance on national TV was an implicit Obama endorsement of the company, which is under consent decree over A&F employment practices through 2009. So, the case is not over. And no one — including Obama — should endorse A&F products and reward A&F with free advertising until the consent decree is lifted. …

RACIST GARB: A&F in separate incidents drew protests for retailing racist and insensitive garb, like a “Wong Brothers Laundry Service” T-shirt with the slogan “Two Wongs Make It White,” another tee with “Wok and Bowl” and another top poking fun at the iconic Buddha. …

CAMPAIGN IS RESPONSIBLE: While partisans might cry that it’s not Barack’s fault, the campaign — which sponsored the rally — could have easily removed the three individuals or at least moved them from camera range. Presidential campaigns have been conscious about projecting a certain image of their candidate in the media and have control over who appears on stage. In January, Clinton, after her ignominious Iowa caucus defeat, was mindful of surrounding herself with young supporters (including daughter Chelsea) at rallies or press conferences prior to the New Hampshire primary. At a 2000 San Francisco rally, Al Gore’s campaign flanked aspiring First Lady Tipper Gore with Japantown and APA community leaders, like Alicia Wang, Sandy Mori, Steve Nakajo, Mabel Teng, Mike Honda, Keith Umemoto and Mike Yaki, at Paul Osaki’s Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California.

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO: The Asian Coalition of City College and its Co-chairs Mo-Shuet Tam and Minh-Hoa Ta turned last Friday’s annual scholarship dinner into a victory party of sorts by packing Chinatown’s Golden Mountain, and bestowing its Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award on all the faculty involved in the “struggle to get the Chinatown/North Beach campus built. … ”

Reach Samson Wong at (415) 321-5886 or swong@asianweek.com.

Comments

Samson:
Agreed.
Insensitive indeed.
Boycott A&F.
But, bottom line, it’s minor diss’ing compared to the possibilities Roger S. Dong? raised in re the ongoing “backlash” (guys, Chinese-Americans have NOTHING to do with it, do with it; and American corporations are the ones responsible for the importations) hate campaigns. Can you think of a euphemism for hate and incite?
If the bushyitailed neocon chickenhawks continue in office, one way or t’other, either McCain OR Clinton, then the likelihood of a “Chinese”-inspired round of “relocation centers” COULD be in “order.”
Of course, today’s Counterpunch features the first of a two=parter by a Wall Streeter named Pam Martens, who REALLY puts the screws on the “Obama campaign.”
Read it and weep. On the other hand, Obama didn’t openly advocate “nuking” a people and a civilization into their “Kingdom come.”

–Frank Eng on May 05, 2008
Racist as Asians as A&F might be, why Why WHY do I still see soooo many Asians wearing A&F in San Francisco, on their MySpace pages, and in their Facebook photo albums? Every time I go to the SF Shopping Centre, I see them walking into the store or coming out with shopping bags. I totally support the boycott over those racist shirts…and I’m Latino! I thought perhaps some of them feel like, hey, it’s better to be made fun of than to be ignored. But maybe the ones shopping there are just ignorant of the fact they’ve been made fun of at all or just don’t care. Eh. I won’t be shopping there. Ever.

–Tommy Cuellar on May 07, 2008
EDIT: That should have read “Racist toward Asians as A&F might be….”

–Tommy Cuellar on May 07, 2008

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