By Andrew Chin
April 23, 2002

After thousands of Asian American university students and the Organization of Chinese Americans raised their voices last week, forcing Abercrombie and Fitch to recall a new line of T-shirts featuring Asian cartoon characters, this is what Thomas Lennox, the company's senior public relations official had to say:

It's not, and never has been, our intention to offend anyone.  These graphic T-shirts were designed with the sole purpose of adding humor and levity to our fashion line.

• No one ever accused Abercrombie and Fitch of intending to offend Asian Americans.  The purpose of the protests was to call the company's attention to the fact that the T-shirts were offensive, because it was obvious that nobody in authority at the company knew that they were.
• No one ever suggested that the T-shirts were designed in a spirit other than of humor and levity.  But the caricatures were deliberately chosen with historical antecedents in mind.  If most Asian Americans cannot look back on those early stereotypical images and laugh, it is because we recognize the discriminatory effects of racial stereotyping as a persisting problem, and not as an amusingly quaint fashion of a bygone era.

When viewed in light of Lennox's statement, Abercrombie's recall of the T-shirts does not constitute an apology.  Abercrombie's only regret is that Asian Americans have mobilized, with the effect that the company would now find it unprofitable to continue marketing the T-shirts.

Some activists are continuing to seek a pledge from Abercrombie that such designs won't be repeated.  But this proposal only calls for the company to make what has already been shown to be a sound business decision.

Instead, Abercrombie should be held responsible for the false and misleading message it has sent the public:  that it's harmless fun to portray Asian Americans as coolies, laundrymen and rickshaw drivers, because everyone knows better and there no longer exist any problems of racial discrimination, harassment and violence based on the misconception that Asian Americans are exotic foreigners.

Federal Trade Commission rules require a business who engages in misleading advertising to spend 25 percent of its advertising budget on corrective advertising.  By analogy, activists should demand that Abercrombie dedicate one-fourth of the costs it incurred in designing, manufacturing, distributing, and marketing the T-shirts to educate its own employees and the general public regarding historical and continuing racial discrimination against Asian Americans.

Even without a genuine apology and corrective measures from Abercrombie, the company's decision to recall the T-shirts may be viewed as a small victory for Asian American activism.  Activists should extend on this gain, keeping in mind that the Abercrombie T-shirt fiasco was not an isolated incident, but is simply a visible manifestation of our community's general experience of marginalization by the dominant culture.

The campaign continues at BoycottAF.com