Date: Feature Week of December 7, 2003
Topic: Black Press Business/Economic
Author: William Reed
Article ID: article_ema120703a

ARE BLACKS VICTIMS OF DISCRIMINATION BY ABERCROMBIE & FITCH?

�Lookism� Versus Racism

Do you shop any of Abercrombie & Fitch�s 600 stores across the U.S.?  Fully 35 percent of Black American households have $50,000-a-year, or more, incomes fitting Abercrombie & Fitch�s �classic casual� target audience profile, but a significantly lesser number of African Americans meet A&F�s target image for its sales and front-of-store employees.   From A&F to cosmetics giant L'Oreal, the sleek W hotel chain, to The Gap, many businesses openly seek workers who have an �All American look�.  The legal question is: Have such companies skirted the edges of antidiscrimination laws enough to provoke private and government lawsuits?

 Hiring attractive people is not necessarily illegal, but discriminating on the basis of age, sex or ethnicity is.  The $1.63 billion-a-year Abercrombie & Fitch clothing chain has been hit with two lawsuits claiming it discriminates against minorities who want jobs in its stores.  The suits claim the company recruits and hire white college students for its sales positions, but tend to hire minorities only for jobs behind the scenes, such as overnight shifts and stockroom work.  One of the lawsuits is backed by Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

 Surely, a business has the right, in its own best interests, to decide that a particular type of salesperson is more likely to generate more dollars than others.  But, minorities suing Abercrombie & Fitch don't think the retailer has the right to hire based on a look; a look they say too often is mostly white.  In A&F�s advertising and promotions, �the look� is dominated by Caucasian, blond hair, tall and blue-eyed males.  Rarely do you see African or Asian Americans.

Abercrombie & Fitch is a specialty retailer encompassing three concepts � Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie (which targets ages 7-14) and Hollister Co. (which targets 14-18 year olds).  The retailer focuses on providing high-quality merchandise they say �compliments the causal classic American lifestyle�.  Their merchandise is sold through catalogs and in [mostly suburban] retail stores throughout the U.S.  A&F, which employs 22,000 workers.  It went public (stock sales) in October 1996 and spun off from The Limited in May 1998.

Two former A&F managers say corporate representatives routinely had them reduce hours of less attractive salespeople.  Dan Moon and Andrea Mandrick say Abercrombie & Fitch were after a certain "look" for their sales force, and the less a salesperson had of this look, the less they worked.  Both say employment applications from minorities were handled the same as for whites.  "We would file it away in the �yes� pile to call them back or the �no� pile," said Mandrick.  The no pile, she says, was for applications of people whose looks she knew wouldn't pass muster.  The two ex-managers say what they saw was more �lookism� than racism.

Whether they�ve broken any discrimination laws, or not, A&F�s �ideal customer� and sales associate profile may be short-sighted.  There are more than 35 million African Americans in the U.S., who are the nation�s largest ethnic market with a spending power of over $520 billion annually.  By the year 2007, the spending power of America's ethnic minority groups will exceed $2 trillion, outpacing the growth in white consumer spending by over 80 percent.  Women, A&F�s prime customer, head over 40 percent of America�s the country�s 12.9 million Black households.  Eighty-one percent of these women live in metropolitan areas and typically spend an average of $1,000 a year on clothing.  African American households are larger than the total population average, averaging 3.2 people compared to the U.S. average of 2.6 people.  The Black population is expected to grow nearly twice as fast as the rest of the population over the next fifty years.  The median age of African Americans is 30, nearly six years younger than the total population�s median age.

The question for Black American shoppers is: Do I shop where I can�t work?  Though all Blacks are not unanimous in this attitude; board members and investment managers of Abercrombie & Fitch should be very nervous about their marketing policies.  Any �stay aways� by African-American shoppers could cause a precipitous drop in A&F�s sales and stock value; now, and into the future.  Once Black critics figure they�re not �All American� looking enough for A&F, they�re not likely to let up on the pressure unless there�s a change in their marketing policy.

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© 2000-2003 William Reed - www.BlackPressInternational.com