Expensive clothing doesn’t make discrimination acceptable

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present for your consideration: The Abercrombie Debate.
Is it wrong to deny a qualified person a job based purely on looks?
I was asked this question on St. Patrick’s Day, during my first period English class. And one of the most passionate debates I’ve had in years erupted onto the floor of that classroom, the remarks flying faster than Apolo Ohno in a wind tunnel.
The question in question gets its name from the infamously pricey Abercrombie and Fitch clothing company, which prides itself on an image of manufactured perfection.
Large images of mostly naked half-starved college students are plastered upon every wall of their storefronts, air cannons blast cologne into shoppers’ eyes and one pair of jeans costs about as much as James Cameron’s home computer.
It’s no secret that I am no fan of the brand, their gleefully shameless self-promotion or disgustingly beefed-up poster-boys (or girls, for that matter). Abercrombie is the Jillian Michaels of the fashion industry: self-obsessed, expensive and armed with the uncanny ability to make me feel fat.
But I digress; this is not about Abercrombie, those four syllables of pure evil.
It’s about discrimination, and what exactly that is in a corporation-dominated, culturally numb 21st century American workplace.
Much of the Abercrombie Debate centered around the recent firing of a young, stylish Muslim employee, whose religious headscarf didn’t fit with the company’s disturbingly stringent “Look Policy.”
The employee has decided to sue for this blatant injustice, and I say more power to her. Sue their $200 acid-wash jeans off. Prove a point – that discrimination is never OK.
But an honestly shocking number of my peers disagreed, saying that, since a Muslim headscarf probably wasn’t part of the Abercrombie Spring Collection, she should forgo the job and look for some place less bigoted.
I say no. All obvious religious discrimination aside, how dare a company turn a perfectly good employee away based on an article of clothing?
And racism may be one thing, but even if the case rules in the Muslim employee’s favor (which it will – legally, Abercrombie must make provisions for employees’ religious needs), where do they draw the line?
Would they turn me away, too, if I showed up for an interview wearing my Star of David necklace and with my hair dyed purple?
Would they turn away the world’s best customer service rep because she wore a size XL, or had a visible tattoo?
Would they? Almost certainly.
But should they?
No. No excuses.
And to those of you who will say that Abercrombie merely has an image to uphold, that shouldn’t matter if you’re folding shirts or working the cash register.
Prejudice is prejudice, whether it’s by the color of your skin, what’s printed on it, or what’s pierced through it.
Abercrombie, you have no right to turn applicants away if they have a working frontal lobe, just because they aren’t the prettiest cake in the bakery. You don’t just get to pick and choose by comparing human beings to your mannequin-like mold of perfection.
I wish I could tell you that Abercrombie is the only company guilty of this crime of superficiality, but they are merely the greatest example.
No matter what your style is, no matter which fashion buzzword you’ll use to describe the pair of shoes you’re wearing, you don’t need to give the vultures at Abercrombie any more of your mall-bound cash.
If you value your individuality, shop somewhere else.
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Haley Massara, a freshman, is a Gazette staff writer.