Aryan Retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Owes Damages To Muslim Girl They Fired For Choosing Religion Over Brand Identity

A California judge has ordered the once-hip adolescent chain boutique Abercrombie & Fitch to pay a quantity of dollars to Umme-Hani Khan because this is America, damn it, and sometimes we get it right. Ms. Khan, a Muslim, "had interviewed wearing a headscarf and ... her job was to fold clothes in the stockroom, where she wasn’t visible to customers" (of course), but still Abercrombie & Fitch decided to fire her, as their "Look Policy" (gross) says you can't wear stuff on your head unless it looks sexy (it doesn't actually say that, but probably, right?) Abercrombie & Fitch, what are you doing?

Are you angling for your own Chick-Fil-A-style appreciation day, when the bigots will buy your shit because they're bigots? C'mon, your shit's too expensive for those slobs, and apparently you don't want the fuglies in your stores anyway!

Let's try to think this one through from Abercrombie's perspective, to see if there's any rationale that doesn't end with how they're dicks. Hmm... We want our employees to be attractive and wear clothes with a certain look, and we don't think anyone looks good in a headscarf, and we can't carve out an exception for religious beliefs because what if some non-Muslim games the system and wears a headscarf and our absolute authority over our employees' appearances is undermined because we are dicks.

Nope, let's see... We are afraid that our clientele of hypersensitive, self-absorbed WASP larvae might fear or hate Muslims, and we may not get their dollars unless we come up with a Jim Crow-style roundabout way of prohibiting Muslim-looking women from working in our stores because we are dicks. No, huh... we guess they're dicks!

Here's the worst of the rest:

Abercrombie argued to the court that store associates should be classified as “living advertisements,” and that their appearance is protected by commercial speech.

HURL! Like, puke, but also um, invective, not physical objects at Abercrombie & Fitch because that is wrong. Also:

Abercrombie said in a statement to NBCNews.com on Tuesday that it does not discriminate based on religion and that the company grants “religious accommodations when reasonable.”

See? They don't discriminate based on religion, just on the stupid stuff your religion says you should wear on your head, quit being so unreasonable, unlike Abercrombie & Fitch.

(In a pinch precipitated by an encounter with a runny diner egg, yr Wonkette once bought a pair of khaki pants from Abercrombie & Fitch. They were OK, except they had a drawstring? In case we were feeling too cool for zippers and buttons at that particular moment? It was weird.)

[ NBC News ]