This is seriously the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. So, if you haven't heard, I will give you the background. Rachel Ray recently did a commercial for Dunkin' Donuts and their iced lattes, but she and her stylists decided to wear this scarf. Recognize it? If you have ever been to Palestine, Jordan or Lebanon, or even anywhere in the region, you may recognize this black and white checked scarf as the traditional head scarf for Palestinian men. If you did that, you get ten points. But you get minus 10,000 points if you said "oh thats the symbol of Islamic jihadist terrorism, right?" So thats -10,000 points for random blogger (like me except ignorant and coincidently conservative) Michelle Malkin, when she stated in her blog that "The Keffiyeh has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad." Even the man who made this scarf famous--but who did not make the scarf--Yassir Arafat, was a staunch secularists. Amazingly, the ignorant rant of this truculent blogger managed to convince Dunkin' Donuts to pull the ad. This brings me to my second point of ridiculousness, did seriously no one of the at least 50 people who viewed this ad before it aired realize that dear Rachel would come off looking like either a Palestinian sympathizer or "a murderous jihadi?" Maybe I am just trapped in my little Middle East bubble, but I find it mind-blowing that such a styling statement went unnoticed until the rants of some neo-con. Anyways, I thought I would share some hysterical comments that I found regarding this story on the BBC website...Enjoy!
"The black and white scarf is part of the traditional attire of the Palestinian, Lebanese, Jordanian Arabs. The same way the red and white scarf is for Saudi, Omani, Bahraini Arabs. This is like saying that UPS should change its brown uniform because it pleases the Hitler Youth." -Fuad Khan, Dallas USA
"Does this mean we can no longer eat falafel sandwiches & hommus?" -Mansour Ansari, USA
"Quite possibly this is the most exposure the Palestinian cause has ever received in the mainstream media in the US. Sadly, the debate has been brought forth by a fatty-food distributor and a little known conservative pundit." -Christian Di Meo, Boston, USA
"How incredibly over the top. I don't think I have ever heard something so silly. Surely the big guns they are holding in the terrorist videos are a more true representation of their intentions yet you don't see any change in gun law in the US." -Mary, Colchester
2 comments:
It doesn't surprise me that no one caught this - I think you said it yourself: Most people haven't been to the Middle East to make the connection with her scarf (I consider myself pretty up on world events and I had no idea). Her people and the Dunkin Donuts people were likely looking at this ad through a lens of fashion, persuasiveness, color, style, etc...with everything but a political statement on their mind.
By the way, I realized I haven't linked to your blog on my blog for some reason. I'm adding it now!
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