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Abercrombie Racist April 2002 Retail giant Abercrombie and Fitch carries out a line of eye-catching shirts. The shirts certainly caught the eyes of Asian Americans as the shirts carry images of ethnic caricatures portraying Asians in racial stereotypes reminiscent of America's racist past. The shirts were originally designed to appeal to young Asian shoppers with a sense of humor. But many Asian Americans did not find this humorous. Floods of calls and emails hit AF as people made their complaints. With images of Chinese laundry men and disrespectfully shown Buddhas, Asian Americans were stunned to see this existing today. Student groups from Stanford and Berkeley formed protests condemning the shirts. After a while AF finally realized that people would not accept these racist images. An apology was finally given from AF spokesman Hampton Carney. Many see this apology as not truly understanding and simply not enough. Protests continue as people demonstrate outside AF stores in various cities. AF makes its fortune marketing popular youth culture. This culture is mainly the image of whiteness. This has been proven with their little to no representation of minority models. With the image they sell, it is not surprising that they would come out with racist shirts of this nature and not even understand the repercussions of selling them. Images of Buddha and Asians from a racist past are mere fads meant for humor. The racist shirts are remnants of the racial oppression faced by Asian Americans and bring back that intolerant ideology to today. Today in the 21st cent, we still have people perpetuating racism and considering it funny or profitable. As minorities make up a huge amount of AF's customer base, yet AF still does not cater to minorities in anyway. Lack of diversity and their intolerance should not be accepted. Neither should their fake "apologies." Reaction: SF Examiner "The latest trend at Abercrombie & Fitch appears to be racism" Mark Liu Stanford University "They wouldn't have made T-shirts with African Americans picking cotton or Mexican Americans picking grapes" AF spokesman Hampton Carney "We poke fun at everyone; we just meant to make people laugh." "We never single out any one group to poke fun at. We poke fun at everybody, from women to flight attendants to baggage handlers, to football coaches, to Irish Americans to snow skiers. There's really no group we haven't teased." If you condone racism and stereotypical representation of minorities, then support AF. But if you are against the perpetuation of stereotypes against minorities, please reconsider patronizing this racist retailer. They say they poke fun at all groups. Do they really? Or do they just pick on those who they think won't complain? The Together Against Racism Organization tarorg@yahoo.com
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