The reality program All-American Muslim, which premiered on November 13, portrays ordinary Lebanese-Americans living in the MidWest. The ultraconservative Florida Family Association is letting corporate America know it's unhappy that The Learning Channel (TLC) production is showcasing Muslim subjects who are normal middle-class citizens rather than scheming, slobbering arch-villains. So Lowe's Hardware stores are pulling their commercials from the series.
“The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish,” the group [FFA] said about the show, a docu-soap chronicling everyday Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan that debuted last month. “Clearly this program is attempting to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad and to influence them to believe that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize these nice people in this show.”
When targeted by the campaign, Lowe's Hardware, not wanting to alienate the knuckle-dragging Islamophobe portion of its customer base, quickly pulled the ads. In fact, the Florida Family Association proudly claims to have dissuaded 65 companies from airing ads during the show, naming--among others--Bank of America, the Campbell Soup Co., Dell, Estee Lauder, General Motors, Goodyear, Green Mountain Coffee, McDonalds, Sears, and Wal-Mart. (NOTE: A few years back, FFA was also one of the prime movers in the move to boycott Disney for supporting gay pride).
However, the motives of these advertisers' decisions in withholding ads are not clear and in fact may not have resulted from the FFA campaign. Some of those listed have explicitly denied the allegation, including Amway, Home Depot and Sweet’N Low (the latter two have each aired only one ad on the show but say they've not cancelled any).
At least currently, TLC states that the show has strong advertising support. “There are no plans to pull the show. The show is going to continue as planned,” said [TLC spokeswoman, Laurie] Goldberg.
In the meantime, Lowe's wants the public to know that the company's actions are just evidence of its great open-mindedness.
Lowe’s . . . acknowledged and defended its decision on Twitter: “We did not pull our ads based solely on the complaints or emails of any one group. It is never our intent to alienate anyone. Lowe’s values diversity of thought in everyone, including our employees and prospective customers.”
Okay, as a long-time customer of Lowe's, I've got to go now and share with them some of that "diversity of thought" they so earnestly crave. Catch you later!