Abercrombie & Glitch: Fake Abercrombie Website Brings Back its Racist Past

An impostor Abercrombie & Fitch website fooled consumers by selling fake "Abercrombie & Fitch N***er Brown Pants." Links to the website quickly went viral thanks to the social media network Facebook, and A&F soon shut down the fake website.

But there is a reason so many people believed the website was real.  

We can't forget your racist hiring policies and the offensive products you were selling just a few years back, Abercrombie.

Let's review Abercromie's history:

1. Hiring only white people. In 2009, A&F settled a $40 million class action lawsuit for forcing all minority employees to work in the stock room while allowing white employees to be on the sales floor. CBS News reports that a former A&F employee stated, "A corporate official had pointed to an Abercrombie poster and told our management at our store, 'You need to have more staff that looks like this.' And it was a white Caucasian male on that poster."

2. Selling Racist t-shirts using pseudo-Chinese character font. I can't imagine who approved the Two Wongs Can Make it White, Abercrombie & Fitch T-Shirt. In April 2002, A&F launched a line of racist shirts with offensive Asian stereotypes. The shirts featured Asian caricatures engaging in forced stereotypes of kung fu fighting and offensive religious references to Buddha. In response to these shirts, Los Angeles based cartoonist and "Angry Little Asian Girl" creator Lela Lee told the LA Times, "We're used to depictions of Asians as kung-fu fighting, fortune-cookie-speaking, slanty-eyed, bucktooth servants. We're really tired of it."

3. Selling Sexist t-shirts. Back in 2005, A&F produced sexist shirts and received some push-back from teen groups who staged "girlcotts." A&F shirts had slogans such as, "I had a nightmare I was a brunette" and "Who needs brains when you have these?" printed across the chest.

4. Sexualizing young girls.  And let's not forget about the A&F "push up padding" bikinis for children that came out in 2011. Enough said.

Given Abercrombie's sordid history, it was not implausible to believe the N-word pants were real. Needless to say, SBW maintains its Two Person Boycott of that store. We encourage you to join us.

Strong Black Woman of the Week: Jada Williams

Thirteen-year-old, Jada Williams, who attended Rochester New York's School No. 13, didn't think she would have to change schools for expressing her opinion.

The honor roll student wrote a reaction essay after she read The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass as part of the school's optional Winter break reading program.

However, much to the chagrin of many of her teachers, she made a comparison between Douglass' slavemaster discouraging him from becoming educated and the challenges in her school district.  

She wrote, "When I find myself sitting in a crowded classroom where no real instruction is taking place I can say history does repeat itself....I feel like not much has changed.  Just a different era.  The same old discrimination still resides in the hearts of the white man."

She also referenced 'white teachers,' saying that they needed to work harder to teach the so-called 'unteachable' in her school system.  This reference has seemingly led to the most problems for Williams.  

Despite the controversy, the Frederick Douglass Foundation of New York presented her with the Spirit of Freedom Award.     

Williams and her mother claim that fall out from the essay included teachers giving her poor grades, when she had previously always earned high marks.  Williams' mother said that teachers called her daughter 'angry' and tried to put her into in-school suspension without a valid reason.  Superintendent Bolgen Vargas acknowledges that administrators could have responded better.  Williams now attends another school.   

In an interview with Glenn Beck, who was also offended by her use of the term 'white teachers,' when referencing those teachers who do not seek to teach Black students, Williams responded that she was likening the teachers to the terminology of the book.  She expounded tearfully, “I feel misunderstood, because most grownups are making it a racial issue, when it’s a learning issue. I also feel hurt, because I’m not in school right now. They’re taking from me the one thing that I do love, and I feel confused because I thought I lived in a country of freedom of speech.”

Instead of villifying a bright 13-year-old, why not acknowledge that she has a valid point?  Our education system is in dire need of help in many areas and students like Williams should not be casualties of a failing system.   

 Kudos to you, Miss Williams for continuing to speak the truth even when others do not care to listen.  As a Supreme Court justice once said, "Eloquence may set fire to reason."  You are off to a great start. 

Watch her deliver her essay here.

Read more here.

Voter ID Laws: A Modern Day Poll Tax?

In the past, poll taxes and literary tests were the main tools used to disenfranchise minority and poor voters.  

However, current voter ID laws may just be a modern day poll tax. 

Several states, such as South Carolina, have recently passed voter ID laws making it more difficult for residents to vote.

In 2008, the Supreme Court upheld a voter ID law in Indiana in the case of Crawford  v. Marion County Election Board, where the state required residents to produce a photo ID issued by the United States Government or the state of Indiana in order to vote. Elderly Indiana residents believed those voter ID requirements created an "undue burden" preventing them from voting.  Nonetheless, the high Court disagreed. 

But - there are cities in Wisconsin where the DMV is only open 1 day a month to issue IDs. 

And don't forget that as many as 11% of eligible voters do not have government issued photo IDs. Seniors, college students, minorities, people with disabilities, and low income citizens are even more likely not to have government issued photo IDs due to the cost. Birth certificates, which are the documents needed to get IDs, are often difficult to acquire as well. 

If the goal is to have equal access to the polls, then perhaps charging any fee for a document needed to vote is arguably a poll tax.  Until this point, we thought poll taxes were a thing of the past.  Hopefully, these voter ID laws will soon be a thing of the past too. 

Read more about voter ID laws here.

 

Washington Post Survey - Defining Black Women in America

What's with all of these attempts to put Black women into categories and boxes?  Isn't it obvious by now that this is a [near] impossible task?

Survey Paints Picture of Black Women in America.

Transgender Woman Wins Lawsuit and Returns to Work

After being fired from her job with the Georgia General Assembly, Vandy Beth Glenn, a transgendered woman, fought back.

She started working as an editor for the state assembly in 2005, a dream job for Glenn. The next year, Glenn informed her boss of her decision to become a woman. Soon, Glenn began wearing women's clothes on a regular basis to the workplace. 

However, two years into building a dream job, Glenn's supervisor terminated her, calling her lifestyle, "perhaps immoral, perhaps unnatural." Glenn's boss said that the way she was dressed would make other people uncomfortable and that her gender transition would be disruptive. Glenn recorded the conversation.

In 2008, Lambda Legal filed suit on behalf of Glenn.

A U.S. district court judge found that Glenn was a victim of sex discrimination and ordered the Assembly to employ her again. The judge said, in a 19-page decision, that Glenn's firing met the criteria to fall under sex-based discrimination. The judge held that, "all persons whether transgender or not, are protected from discrimination on the basis of gender stereotypes." The 11th Circuit has held similarly that, "A person cannot be lawfully terminated because an employer objects to the way an employee expresses his or her gender."

After getting her job back, Glenn says about the bigots, "[T]hey don't have power over you."    
Read more here. 

Do Mormons Face More Discrimination than African Americans?

A recent survey shows Mormons believe they are discriminated against more than African Americans.  

According to the Pew Research poll, "[m]any Mormons feel they are misunderstood, discriminated against and not accepted by other Americans as part of mainstream society." 

But think about this: you can choose your religion, but you can't choose your skin color.

Read more here.