TLC made what might possibly be the company’s worst decision of all-time during the holiday shopping season, they pulled ads from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim after the hate-directed group the Florida Family Association filed a petition with the company. Now Lowe’s is facing a boycott during the biggest shopping time of the year along with threats of legislative action from politicians.

Following the lives of five Muslim families living in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michingan the show  was called out by the FFA for what they called:

“Propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”

It should be noted that he FFA is the same group that has spent the last 20 years fighting against gay rights while attempting to ban any book that doesn’t fit into their cushy view of evangelical Christianity.

In revealing his view against the group All-American Muslim cast member  Suehaila Amen said the group was a bunch of “bigots” and added:

“I am saddened that any place of business would succumb to bigots and people trying to perpetuate their negative views on an entire community. This can happen to any member of a minority group. This country was not founded on hatred or racism. It was founded on inclusion and diversity.”

In the meantime Lowe’s says they will stick to their guns and keep their ads off the show, although amusingly the company is still pretending to care about the community they are slighting:

“It appears that we managed to step into a hotly contested debate with strong views from virtually every angle and perspective — social, political and otherwise — and we’ve managed to make some people very unhappy. We are sincerely sorry. We have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, across our workforce and our customers, and we’re proud of that longstanding commitment.”

In the meantime  Southern California Sen. Ted Lieu has said his office may issue a boycott request as early as Wednesday or Thursday. Lowe’s has said they are trying to reach out to the Senator to discuss his concerns, showing once again that Lowe’s is obviously disconnected from their consumer base who have railed out against the company over the last several days.

Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons also recently jumped onto the boycott band wagon, demanding that the company re-instate their ads while asking that CEO Robert Niblock step down from his position.

The FFA claims to have received further ad pulls from various other big brand company’s although none of those ad pulls have been verified at this time.

Do you think Lowe’s has went to far by immediately bowing down to one conservative christian group.

Lowe’s Facing Boycott For “All American Muslim” Ad Pull is a post from: The Inquisitr

Whole Foods is supposedly a great company to be employed with.

Unless you’re a big fat fatty, in which case Whole Foods would like to remind you that you’re less valuable to them than your thin co-workers. While Whole Foods offers a 30% discount to workers who are skinny- with a BMI below a certain number- if you’ve got junk in the trunk, the rate of your discount plummets 10% to a paltry 20%.

Who are the marketing whizzes behind this divisive and cruel policy? Why it’s none other than CEO John Mackey, who, when not fighting health care reform, is busy astroturfing it up on internet forums. Mackey helpfully gets down and douchey to his staff, in a letter:

Mr Mackey said the company hoped the programme would be “empowering and fun for team members who enjoy a challenge”, and that the company was not taking anything away from workers who chose not to participate.

“These new higher discounts are incentives to encourage our team members to be healthier and to lower our healthcare costs,” he said. “We believe this is a win-win programme that will help both our team members and our shareholders.”

Being as limited food budgets are known to increase obesity rates, this strategy is retarded. However, as no one working in retail can afford to shop at Whole Foods, I think the discount thing isn’t going to affect Whole Foods employees one way or the other, so it kind of cancels out except for being totally judgmental and insulting. It is unclear whether staff will be further incentivized by having co-workers chant “boom, boom, boom” under their breath as fat employees walk by or having POS terminals pop up helpful messages like, “do you really need a whole pound of organic cocoa nubs? Well, if you think so…” during staff purchases.

Whole Foods blatantly discriminates against staff “of size” is a post from: The Inquisitr

16-year-old Jonathan Escobar left his home in Miami to live with his sister in Cobb County, GA, because his parents were unable to accept that he wears women’s clothing.

Shockingly, Georgia was less accepting of Escobar’s transvestitism. His older sister Veronica, with whom he lives, is surprised that her little brother lasted a mere three days in school before withdrawing due to administrative pressure. And how fierce does one have to be to out-crossdress Miami?

Anyone who has attended high school probably recalls the catch all “disruptive” rule for attire. I myself fell afoul of rules for disruptive clothing, once for wearing a souvenir t-shirt from Intercourse, PA. But Escobar’s situation is much broader and more serious in scope and raises the question of reasonable accommodation for LGBT teens. Escobar simply states that he doesn’t consider himself a cross-dresser, but rather that dressing the way he does is “who he is.”  And at 16, it stands to reason that he may not know exactly where he lies on that spectrum.

Officials who had not witnessed Escobar’s attire believed he attended school in a dress and heels, but Escobar says that wasn’t the case:

Escobar said the assistant principal told him his style of dress had caused a fight between students at the school. Two days later, he withdrew himself from the Kennesaw school.

“You can’t wear clothing that causes a disruption,” said Jay Dillon, spokesman for Cobb County schools.

Dillon said he believed Escobar arrived at school in a dress and heels. But Escobar said he never wore a dress. He says he opted for “skinny” jeans all three days with flats.

Escobar was given the option of wearing “manly” clothes, or homeschooling. And he says that students harassed him, surrounding him in the cafeteria during his few days on campus. But a Facebook group called simply “Support Jonathan” had drawn 900 members, some planning on wearing pink shirts emblazoned with those words. Escobar wishes to return to school, but won’t compromise who he is:

“If I can’t express myself, I won’t go to school,” he said. “I want to get the message out there that because this is who I am, I can’t get an education.”

[Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Teen Jonathan Escobar told to “dress more manly” or leave school is a post from: The Inquisitr

A group of large busted British women have threatened to storm the annual meeting of Marks & Spencer to protest the store’s policy of charging more for bigger bras.

The women intend to confront M&S boss, Sir Stuart Rose about what they consider to be unfair discrimination against large busted women. Marks & Spencer charges £2 more for bras that are DD in size or larger. The store’s rationalization is that it costs them more in time, technology and materials to produce the larger product.

Calling themselves “Busts 4 Justice,” the women are not taking the perceived price gouging lightly. They have garnered widespread support for their cause, even going to the extent of setting up a Facebook group to spread the word and collecting a large sum of money they used to buy M&S shares, giving them the right to be present at the company’s annual meeting as shareholders.

Co-founder of Busts 4 Justice, Beckie Williams, and their supporters have already held talks with the M&S lingerie team without getting the result they want.

Williams, a childrens writer from Brighton who is also a size 34E, says they will take their campaign to the M&S shareholders at the AGM in July.

“We are very disappointed with their decision. They haven’t listened to us as customers, so now maybe they’ll have to listen to us as shareholders. Marks & Spencer is Britain’s biggest lingerie seller so we want them to change their pricing for all the women affected. I still don’t think they can justify this charge since many of their rivals charge the same price regardless of size.”

In an email memo leaked to Busts 4 Justice, M&S reps said in no uncertain terms that they would not be pressured into changing their pricing “in the current climate.”

[Source: The Daily Mail]

Big Breasted Brits Bash Marks & Spencer for Price Gouging is a post from: The Inquisitr