Boycott Abercrombie and Fitch

I have never shopped at this store, and to be blunt, if I was to walk in the door and see what has been described here, I would walk out the door. If a salseperson asked why I was leaving, I would tell them.
You might notice, this is an exercize of personal choice. I would not demand that anyone else do as I would chose to do, (through a boycott for example).
The Holy Spirit convects each of us in different ways and it is our responsibility to answer that call as God wills. I would like to think everyone whould share my conviction not to do business with a company that so openly snubs it's nose at God's will, but that is not my call, it is His. I also would not condemn someone who chose to continue to do business with them, although I would feel the need to express my concerns and reasons why I do not agree with that choice in the hopes that the Holy Spirit would convict them to change.
I think I can say in all honesty however, that nothing I can do will change another persons mind any more than I can remove thier sin. That is God's job, not mine. It is my job to do as God commands me to do and it is for that and that alone that I will stand accountable.

With humble heart,
your brother in Christ,
Shdwpoet2

P.S. I am glad to see that they pulled this line of clothing, but I am still concerned over the leadership that allowed this kind of thing in the first place.

 

OneMillionMoms.com & OneMillionDads.com are doing a great job in putting a halt to such perversions as this. I joined "dads" a few months ago.

 

I Dont know how i feel on the "to boycott or not" issue, however, I know I will not support Abercrombie with my money--and it goes beyond selling thongs to kids--
a. you must be over 18 to by the catalog because their is full frontal nudity.
b. my friend's fiance is a model scout for Millenium modeling in Cleveland. His 14 year old client was asked to pose full frontal with her hands covering her chest. Her mother didnt let her.
This is ridiculous that a CLOTHING company is selling more pornography than clothes.

 

I find it exceedingly interesting that we are so willing to boycott, when in the process (such as with Disney) we are giving them a lot of free publicity and virtually guaranteeing success to the company who we find doing things which are offensive.

 

How does one justify boycotting A&F, but support the entertainment industry?

There has been much discussion here about the "quality" entertainment found in some entertainment, well there surely must be some quality at A&F.

[ July 10, 2002, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: Ernie Brazee ]

 

I agree. They're not all bad, and have quality clothing.

 

I have never shopped at A & F. I just figured it would be too expensive. Although if I did walk into a store and there were things that made it obvious a Christian should not be there, I would leave and call the manager and tell him/her that, "I would like to shop at your store, but am uncomfortable doing so at the time because of..."

Having some retail experience, I will tell you in, general, the way I have decided to "boycott". When I go to a store I only buy decent products. I do not purchase anything that is questionable. By doing that, the person who buys the good products for the store will have better sales than the person who buys indecent products. The indecent products then keep getting less and less shelf space and the employee who keeps marketing things that do not sell will eventually be gone while the employee who markets what sells will keep moving up. If I completely boycotted every business that is doing something immoral, I would not be able to buy groceries. All of the grocery stores where I live sell alcohol, even Wal-Mart. I am not saying, though, that I would go to a liquor store to buy a pack of gum. There are some places Christians should obviously not be.

I also do my best to boycott all businesses on Sunday. When I worked in retail I could always tell when church let out by the swarm of people in church clothes. That is also the reason I had to work on Sunday. It is a very busy day for retailers. It is just a personal conviction that I don't want to be the cause of someone having to miss church.

 

Is there another catalog besided the one I received in the mail a few days ago? I just flipped through it and didn't see anything even questionable (not just questionable from my liberal standpoint - questionable at all).

Joshua

 

Yes (last one I saw was a year or so ago, first one was about 3-4 years ago). Many of these catalogs resemble gay porn (I am not kidding). I'm talking about 18-22 yrold males, shirts off with their pants unzipped or pulled down suggestively in the back. There have even been jokes/wisecracks about it on "Will and Grace". It is so obvious that its laughable. What bothers me is they mail out these catalogs unsolicited, so its hard to keep them away from kids. I think an organized boycott from Baptists would actually give them free pr and more business, so I don't support it. But I didn't buy a stitch from them after they sent me such stuff unsolicited. They really turned me off.

 

Easy. The entertainment industry involves a wide variety of people and a wide variety of ideas and political, social and religious ideologies.

To simply boycott the "entertainment industry", you'd be boycotting Gospel music, movies and TV that portray Christians and Christianity in a positive light as well as bringing up issues of the day that can be used to share the Gospel and, by logical extension, you'd be boycotting the publishing companies that publish Bibles, Bible study tools and many of the great books of the Christian faith.

To boycott A&F, however, you'd only be boycotting one company that is responsible for it's actions, alone and would be sending the message that, while you boycott them for engaging in "bad" behavior, you are supporting other companies who engage in "good" behavior.

In spite of some of the questionable things they've done, A&F does have some good clothes that aren't objectionable at all.

I wouldn't buy them for myself because, at this stage of the game, I'm not really interested in looking hip or trendy, but I have bought them for my neices and nephews.

Mike

 

A&F lost me years ago when they stopped selling Guns. One of the highlights of my Business Trips to NYC was to drop in to A&F and look at the fine Shotguns they used to offer. Not that I would have ever bought one.