Idiots: Dunkin’ Donuts pulls its ad

Subject: Idiots: Dunkin’ Donuts pulls its ad Fri May 30, 2008 8:51 pm

Celebrity cook Rachael Ray just held iced coffee and smiled for the camera but the black and white scarf she wore for the occasion caused outrage among conservative bloggers, determining Dunkin’ Donuts to pull its reviled online ad so as not to cause “misperception.”

What possible misperception could a black and white fringed scarf generate you ask? If a bunch of people say it looks very much like a kaffiyeh, then there is room for some confusion.

A kaffiyeh is a traditional headdress worn by Arab men. Not only is it worn by Arab men but it “has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,” conservative columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin declared last week.

Her post, titled “Of donuts and dumb celebrities,” goes on to explain:

“Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not-so-ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons.”

Finally branding the kaffiyeh “hate couture,” Malkin concludes: “Ignorance is no longer an excuse. In post-9/11 America, vigilance must never go out of style.”

Dunkin’ Donuts pulled the ad within days, explaining that the company had never meant to send a wrong message. It also said Ray’s scarf had a “paisley design” and was not a kaffiyeh, but the possibility of misperception was reason enough to drop the troublesome ad.

Rachel Ray has made no comment on the incident, other than “Our comment is no comment whatsoever,” as Reuters reports Ray’s spokesman Charlie Dougiello said when asked about the ad’s removal.

Malkin said in a later post that she was content with Dunkin’ Donuts decision: “It’s refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists.”

While some agree with Malkin and others say a scarf is just a scarf (and others still laugh at the idea of Rachael Ray being a terrorist sympathizer), the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Thursday, after the ad had been obliterated over the weekend, that this was an “incredibly silly situation,” as quoted by Reuters.

Amahl Bishara, an anthropology lecturer at the University of Chicago who specializes in media matters relating to the Middle East, told the Assoociated Press that this incident is “an example of how so much of the complexity of Arab culture has been reduced to a very narrow vision of the Arab world on the part of some people in the U.S.”

“Kaffiyehs are worn every day on the street by Palestinians and other people in the Middle East — by people going to work, going to school, taking care of their families, and just trying to keep warm,” Bishara explained.

LNK
_________________
"Taking money without permission is stealing unless you work for the IRS then it's taxation. Killing people en masse is homicidal mania unless you work for the Army then it's National Defense. Spying on your neighbors is invasion of privacy unless you work for the FBI then it's National Security. Running a whorehouse makes you a pimp & poisoning people makes you a murderer unless you work for the CIA then it's counter intelligence." R. Wilson. ANCAPS Forum Headquarters, Ancapolis