The terrorists have won (again)
 

Dunkin' Donuts yanks Rachael Ray ad
Rachael Ray in the controversial Dunkin' Donuts commercial. By Carol Beggy and Mark Shanahan
Globe Staff / May 28, 2008

Does Dunkin' Donuts really think its customers could mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist sympathizer? The Canton-based company has abruptly canceled an ad in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men. Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin' Donuts boycott. "The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad," Malkin yowls in her syndicated column. "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." The company at first pooh-poohed the complaints, claiming the black-and-white wrap was not a keffiyeh. But the right-wing drumbeat on the blogosphere continued and by yesterday, Dunkin' Donuts decided it'd be easier just to yank the ad. Said the suits in a statement: "In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design. It was selected by her stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, given the possibility of misperception, we are no longer using the commercial." (In case you're wondering, the stylist who selected the offending scarf was not Gretta Enterprises boss Gretchen Monahan, who appears on Ray's TV show as a style consultant.) For her part, Malkin was pleased with Dunkin's response: "It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists."

Link with pic of Ray and the offending scarf:
http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/a...achael_ray_ad/

This episode is amazing to me for several reasons. First because people still think that there is a "liberal bias" in the media, and second because in a hundred years I would never have thought "oh, that scarf looks a lot like the head adornments of a jihadist." I can't believe that Dunkin Donuts, one of the bastions of American culture (well at least in the northeast...), pulled their ad because of conservatives like this Malkin twink. When we are changing our behavior like this the terrorists have won.

Never mind that millions upon millions of completely peaceful muslims wear exactly the same traditional headdress. We're in a war on all of Islam, gaw dammit, cuz they hate freedom!

When you can't wear a scarf on TV, the terrorists (the ones in power in the United States) win.

Linens 'n' Things better pull all its ads for towels! That's what them terrists wear on their heads!

(Makes note not to go to Dunkin Donuts - they are obviously too stupid to make pastries.)

Because they made the commercial in the first place, or because they caved to such ludicrous complaints?

I can't think of any principle I've got that would make me give up Dunkin Donuts.

Michelle Malkin should have her rights to free speech removed due to gross misuse.

I've never even been to dunkin donuts, so i cant boycott it one way or the other but this is freaking retarded. Seriously? this is our modern day society? this is what people care about?

This is trailer park politics.
This is something I could see the Jerry Springer crowd giving a damn about.

She doesn't speak freely anyway. She's hardwired directly into the right wing propaganda machine. You might call her a knee jerk conservative.

Either, that would have been the appropriate way to handle it.
If you are not happy with something that Dunkin Donuts and feel really strongly about it then don't go anymore.

Wow. This is just a whole 'nother level of stupid....

Aside from just the obvious-- Dunkin' Donuts?! Someone, anyone thought that Dunkin' Donuts was supporting terrorism?!!

Rachael Ray?!!! Of all the American celebrities likely to infiltrate radical leftist symbology-- if, indeed, we can even use such terms for a head scarf worn by pretty much anyone who spends the bulk of their time living in 110-degree deserts-- into their projects, someone-- again I say, anyone-- decided that it was going to be TV's perkiest chef?! That's like accusing the Alpha Delts at the sorority house down the block of being closet fascists because they wear boots, and so did the Nazis.

Krispy Kreme doesn't discriminate. Nuff said.

What happens if you never went there before either? Do you go in and take a bunch of napkins without buying anything? How are you supposed to (as an individual) change the policy of a corporation unless you have access to the media? It's not like we can collectively setup a protest in this country anymore. Either the police or national guard would come in and break up anything that prevented them from doing business.

And yes, I'm not saying that this would warrant that level of response, but there are other things that could happen, but the people (especially one person outside of the media/celebrity world) have no influence on corporate policy or direction.

Damnit. One more twit of a conservative pundit. Like we didn't have enough already.

Can't say the results bother me all that much, though. A commercial got pulled, okay. The country will survive.

Convince others not to go, it is your right.
Dunkin Donuts can also decide to pull the ad, it is their right.
In fact a comentator can choose to comment on it as well, it is her right.

Isn't this what is great about your country. Your freedoms sometimes allow sillyness to take place but they keep you free.

Yeah, something similar happened with Citgo, after their president went on one of his American hating tirades, people successfully boycotted them, to the point that they began running ads telling people that they were really OK. Some people were even talking about removing the iconic Citgo sign that can be seen behind Fenway's green monster. In the DD case, I wonder how many other companies would have caved to the pressure, probably more than we would expect.

What about the rainbow sprinkle donuts? Aren't they promoting the gay agenda? Also, they haven't renamed the Freedom Crullers yet.

Who could forget their "white hot chocolate" racist agenda? Even the Coolatta places emphasis on their stance regarding global warming.

To be offended by this scarf one has to have quite an imagination and be actively searching for things to be offended by. Maybe the ad could be saved if Rachael would also wear an American flag pin.:)

I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but let's not paint Ms. Malkin as a conservative. She's a neo-con.......HUGE difference

You know what the "con" in neocon stands for, right?

"Neocon" is to "Conservative" as a jack rabbit is to the easter bunny.

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ddict/300h.jpg

I think DD is nutz for pulling the Ad. The entire non-event is asinine. But I swear the background in the photo is of the Capitol Mall in Salem, Oregon complete with the Capitol Dome and cherry blossoms.

That's a fucking neck scarf. Seriously? How does that look ANYTHING LIKE a keffiyeh?

I know! What's funny is that DD says they picked the photo randomly from a selection of stock photos and came up with that; Salem is also one of the few places in Oregon that still has a Dunkin' Donuts. There aren't many left out here.

My father worked in that building for 30+ years. As a kid my brother and I used to climb on the marble pioneer carvings out front. We'd usually get about half way up and one of the "Capitol Police" would come out and tell us to get down. Some days they'd take us up to the "Pioneer Man" at the top, guess they we're just as bored as we were.

One summer, in my mid teens, we worked as "pages." No Mark Foley incidents, pretty boring really. But it beat picking strawberries and beans all summer.

Good times.

Eh, I'd only rephrase my first remark. Great, as if we didn't have enough twits of a neoconservative punditry. It annoys me greatly that an ideology no more inherently dishonest/stupid than any other - though others may disagree there - seems to have more than its fair share of Malkins and Hannitys. It annoys me greatly because I hold a fair number of neocon beliefs and this shit embarasses me all the more because of it.

I missed this post first read through.

Classic, thanks!

The level of stupidity of all involved is only surpassed by the annoyance that is Ms. Ray herself.

I know. she used to be sort of cute, but that perkiness is really wearing somehow.
by the way, I think that as long as conservatives endorse idiots like Rush, neocons will not be distinguishable from regular conservatives.

I bet she gives great head, though.

Unless she's going to keep her mouth shut up to the point that she gobbles my cock, it's not worth it. She's too fucking annoying.

i've been trying to get various indifferent dunkin donuts officials to confirm my suspicion that their nasty "chocolate sticks" became "sticks" rather than "cruellers" which they were forever, right around 2002, and so are a little brown dollop of reminder of those glorious days of the "freedom fries" when the bush people were able, with the press on its knees before them, to portray jacques chirac as an anarcho-pacifist.

this tempest in a teapot really is that stupid.

Does anyone see the irony: that DDs reaction to what amounts to political correctness - bending to the will of those you might offend - happens to be the brainchild of liberalism. I would think you all would be proud.

This thread isn't about 'liberalism', and I think the attempt to reduce every subject of debate to this meaningless binary is tiresome and accomplishes nothing. Can you think of a way to participate in the thread that doesn't hinge on your perceptions of the identities of other posters?


As far as the thread topic goes, it seems another sad manifestation of an ugly and dangerous nativist ignorance that isn't really terribly interesting but seems no less popular today than it was immediately after 9/11.

The way I see this non-event is that it is all about Michelle Malkin.

In a world where information flow reaches the torrent of multiple firehoses the only way for an attention whore to stand out is to say and do increasingly ridiculous things. The only way for the media (and their journalist actors) to hold eyeballs (eyeballs = money) is to play on the tropes of fear and increasingly shallow political muck-racking.

We drink it up and we drink deep.

We should drink Absolute vodka....Malkin called for a boycott as a result of an Absolute ad that appeared in publications in Mexico that she claims is a call to Mexicans to invade the US and retake the southwest and California.

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:...magenfinal.jpg

Absolut Reconquista

Invasion USA: Ad expanding Mexico 'hearkens to ideal time'

not sure if any of you guys picked it out, but shes definately wearing keffiyeh, plus shes got her right index finger pointed out.

thats a signature move of the islamic 'proclaimation of faith'. i would say that all suicide bombers would say the proclamation of faith before they detonate.

shes definately a sleeper cell!

Well she is holding a DD drink, maybe she is about to commit suicide?

caption for the ad

"this is the bomb!"

a - scold him
b - direct him
c - dismiss him

The only thing that changes is the responder. Would I have been allowed to say, "Michelle Malkin is fuckin crazy and so is the conservativeland mentality that scared their followers into being intimidated by this.

save it...seriously. your responses are "tiresome".

LOL, or being it's RR it might read "I'm the Bomb!"

Oh please, what kind of a response do you expect when you toss out a strawman like that?

oh please, where was the debate to strawman in the first place, i just thought i'd put things into perspective. truth be told, i do get some enjoyment out of the responses. for the most part i'm ignored, but i can always count on pissing someone off enough they can't resist.

Into an extremely oversimplistic perspective. Tiresome replies to tiresome posts.

I could note the companion perspective that the Republican party has taken over the supposedly liberal artform of political correctness, but that'd be tiresome as well.

I need a nap.

So you admit to being here just to troll?

GENIUS!! call it what you want....call it strawman, call it tinfoil hat around your ass, call it trolling...whatever floats your boat. I can't help it that an observation/simple opinion gets one of your little teammates all bent out of shape. It's not my intention, so I don't think it's trolling......you're responses are as entertaining as if they were though.

Sorry to derail this thread from it's original intent....which was, I suppose, a very serious political exchange. My bad.

I'd agree that this wasn't exactly an earth-shaking event, but you managed to lower the level of discourse a few notches nonetheless. That's skill.

Actually, your point about Dunkin' Donuts response being a form of bending to "poitical correctness" is an interesting point. Your general attitude is what sucks. As for the troll comment, I was reacting directly to your comment that you enjoy pissing people off...

In retrospect, I was wrong.

Quite frankly, I am not sure that Dunkin Donuts' response can be so easily equated to so-called political correctness. Would you call the whole "freedom fries" issue a form of political correctness? From my point of view, I see the two non-events coming from the same reactionary source.

Whereas, I see the so-called politically correct movement as rising out of a minority attempting to control how they are defined by mass culture (i.e. blacks demanding they be called African American rather than Negro or Nigger).

From where I am sitting, Malkin's efforts seek to reinstate the monolithic control of cultural definitions in the face of a diversity of definitions.

What do you think Matthew?

I think it is just another way that coporation is bending to the PC, (pussifaction) of the country. Be it on the right or left it happens. Be it PETA, Malkin, or any other fringe
Enough people bitching and the caving begins.

I really couldn't care less if Ray wore a burka to hawk those deep fried heart attacks with yummy glaze. But it is the companies decision who hawks what.

As for Malkin, sometimes she is wayyy out there in rightland, and some things she says make sense, just like all the other talking heads on tube.

Recon... do you think it's the job of a corporation to piss off it's customers in the face of controversey?

From what I can see, they are caught in an awkward position. They can remove the ads and face the ire of those who see this as bending to the will of an extreme minority or they can leave the ad on and face the ire of Malkin and the increasingly negative media coverage (this includes all forms of media).

In their shoes, I would pull the ad as there is no upside to keeping it on air. Pulling it, they will get a ton of coverage (hell, I was reading about this in South East Asia in the daily paper and we don't even have their Donuts here) for free and the vast majority of the negativity is aimed a Malkin rather than Dunkin Donuts. In the end, the controversey will pass and those who were irate about the weakness of the Corporation in the face of outside pressue will move onto something else (as will those who complained to start with).

It is this, that makes me call this a non-event. Nobody really cares what the fuck she is wearing around her neck. This really is all about Malkin as an attention whore.

Charlatan, the corporation's only goal is to make money, they had no choice but to pull it. I am sure they looked at their demographics and they know who buys their product.

Once Malkin got them all fired up it was over, and yes she is quite the attention whore. :)

Well this is no fun...but okay

"freedom fries" has nothing to do with political correctness - it's intent, albeit lame, was Americans (its fast food anyway) thumbing its nose at the french (dare I say...irony) when they were being dicks.

The African American/Negro analogy as it relates to the "so-called" politically correct movement is outdated at least as of 1997 (PCU release? - memory may be off a little bit). There's much more to it than that. The lefts version of this movement (as if theres any other besides this thread topic) has gotten ridiculously out of hand, which is why i find the reaction so.....entertaining. If you didn't see the truth in that I don't think you'd find my point the least bit interesting, which is why I think your african american analogy is a bit of a cop-out.

So there's gotta be more to it - why do you find my point interesting, Charlatan?

Perhaps, as a non-American, I am bit out of date on the meaning and intent of the "politically correct" movement. Can you bring me up to speed? I think this would be a difficult conversation to have if we don't share the same definitions, no?

It seems candidate McCain's own daughter, with her mother's approval, has inserted herself in the midst of this controversy, and it is a 20 years old issue, in the US....

From Meghan McCain's blog:

Rachel Ray:
<img src="http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/files/images/080528_ray.jpg">

A Year Ago:
20 Years Ago:

Does anyone else see it as I do? Through this controversy, we are raising the profile of this fashion statement. This makes it more fashionable. More people will do it. It will appropriate the meaning and significance of this article, rendering it to a hipster's accessory to wear in the clubs or on a terrace while they eat watercress sandwiches and sip cosmos for lunch.

This will be a victory for the imperialist dogs.

This whole thing is just dumb.

The Nazi's wore pants when they built murder camps, pants are bad!

One of the terrorists who participated in 9-11 wore glasses, glasses are for terrorists!

:shakehead:

http://mccainblogette.com/docs/postings/021908/11.jpg

I'd hit that. (Sorry Will. But I would.)

This post probably puts me on a Secret Service watch-list of some kind. :paranoid:

Good thing I have my tin-foil hat on, they would almost certainly not like what I am thinking...

What I don't understand is why they would have her wear a scarf that doesn't really match her shirt, while drinking an iced coffee, in front of a spring-themed back drop.
I didn't know they made those in paisley.
I'm for anything that pisses off hipsters.

Or that they're worn around the neck...

If you showed me that picture of Rachel and said, "Is she wearing a traditional arab headdress?" I believe my answer would be NO.

Not only that, but if you said, "what else does this scarf resemble?" Traditional Arab headdress would be probably number 10,000 on the list, if I ever got there.

I'm only here to be useless, sorry.

But I stole this off BoingBoing:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/368...elosamalp8.jpg
It might be Photoshopped, kind of hard to tell.

:rolleyes:

#2 Photoshop mistake: not matching matching brightness/contrast.

A quick read through her Wikipedia article tells you all you need to know. She's an Asia-American who wrote a book defending Japanese Internment camps in WWII.

This is true, but even that probably doesn't adequately capture her apparent insanity. On the plus side, she is hot...

Any residual hotness she may (or may not) have is immediately overrided by the "Oh My God, Would You Shut The Fuck Up" factor.

Yeah, Rachel Ray is hot. Even Osama has his hand in his crotch around her.

Sorry I can't look at her and not see "ugly to the bone."

I actually misread Derwood's post at first too, and I'm glad I wasn't the only one! He was referring to Malkin, not Rachael Ray. Ray is half Sicilian, half Cajun, not at all Asian, and I doubt she could adequately explain the WWII Japanese internment camps if you gave her all day and two million bucks! Malkin is not bad looking for a freakin insane neo-con wacko.