Aung Lin-Week #3 Be Green Challenge-Blog#3

Aung Lin

ASA141-Valverde

Be Green Challenge

Blog #3

Week#3

          This is the third week of the Be Green Challenge and by far the hardest. This Friday is the Thanksgiving black Friday and everyone wants to shop for clothes or shoes until they go broke. I only have two pairs of old tennis shoes and I want to buy two new ones from Macy’s this Friday but I can’t because I cannot break professor Valverde’s rules. I never bought any of my clothes and my mom buys all of them for me. I already told her not to buy anything for me this black Friday because it would be considered cheating. What I’m struggling with is nothing compared to my classmates that are addicted to shopping.

            I used to be a big fan of Abercrombie and Fitch all the way until I became an ASA major. I learned in my ASA classes about how Abercrombie made fun of Asians in their t-shirts, don’t hire employees of color and don’t treat them equally. My professors talked about this over and over again in class. It’s been so many years since I went into Abercrombie store at the mall but I remember one thing clearly. All of their models are white; every single one of them. They don’t hire models of color. For this assignment I went to www.abercrombie.com and did my research online about ads and found out that all of the models Abercrombie hire are still white and only one out of a hundred is black. This shows how racist they are. After I read Jenny Strasburg’s article under week 8 reading, I heard the exact same story that I heard from my ASA 155 class. Abercrombie went way too far when they made fun of Asians slanted eyes on their t-shirts. Asians demanded apology but they think it’s funny and don’t take it seriously. I think situation like this should be settled in court. I read the yellow.org article under week 8 reading in my ASA 155 class. I can’t believe Abercrombie don’t hire people of color as staff, don’t treat them fairly and had them do cleaning jobs. I think this $40 million dollars pay to employees of color is a well deserve punishment. Ever since I learned all these dark secrets about Abercrombie, I will never shop at stores like them.   

Asians protesting against Abercrombie for their racist t-shirts

References

Strasburg, Jenny. “Abercrombie and Glitch: Asian Americans Rip Retailer for Stereotypes on

            T-shirts.”

Yellowworld.org. “Abercrombie and Fitch Settles $40 Million Discrimination Suit.”