Life & Society

American Companies Accused of Joining the All-American Anti-Muslim Bandwagon

By: Sheila Musaji   December 10, 2011

TLC has a reality series called "All-American Muslim" which has aired four out of a planned eight episodes. The program follows five Lebanese American families in Dearborn, Michigan.

The Islamophobia network was enraged that this program only depicts normal American Muslim families, and doesn't include terrorists, criminals, perverts, and other types that exist in the Muslim community (as they do in all communities).

According to the Islamophobes this constitutes "deception and obfuscation", an "attempt to manipulate Americans", "propaganda", "cultural jihad".

A group called the Florida Family Association (FFA), initiated an advertiser boycott against what it describes as a "propaganda show," contacting companies whose commercials appear during the broadcast and asking them to quit. So far, the organization claims, nearly 20 companies have agreed to pull their ads from the series at their urging. ** The FFA website provided a "click here" easy action form to do this.

This effort of course was touted on numerous Islamophobic sites who also encouraged their readers to join this effort and contact the advertisers. Here is the form letter they sent out to advertisers:

The Learning Channel's new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law.

The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to the liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.

One of the most troubling scenes occurred at the introduction of the program when a Muslim police officer stated "I really am American. No ifs and or buts about it." This scene would appear to be damage control for the Dearborn Police who have arrested numerous Christians including several former Muslims for peacefully preaching Christianity.

Many situations were profiled in the show from a Muslim tolerant perspective while avoiding the perspective that would have created Muslim conflict thereby contradicting The Learning Channel's agenda to inaccurately portray Muslims in America.

Clearly this program is attempting to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad and to influence them to believe that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize these nice people in this show.

I encourage you to stop supporting this show with your advertising dollars.
 

Sadly according to this Florida Family Association site, these tactics are working. They say that "25 out of 27 advertisers targeted in the November 29th email alert did not advertise again during the December 4th and 5th episodes. And, 65 companies that Florida Family Association targeted with emails did NOT advertise again during the only two episodes of All-American Muslim that aired this past week."

Here is a list of companies that they claim to have succeeded in convincing to cancel their advertising based on this bigoted, hateful, anti-Muslim reasoning:

3M (Command, Scotchbrand tape), Airborne Vitamin, Amway, Anheuser Busch Inbev (Select55), Art Instruction Schools, Bamboozles, Bank of America (Cash Rewards), Bare Escentuals, Brother International (Ptouch), Campbell's Soup, Capital One, Church & Dwight (Oxi Clean, Arm & Hammer), City Furniture, Conagra (Hunt's Diced Tomatoes), Corinthian Colleges (Everst411), Cotton, Inc., Cumberland Packing (Sweet'N Low), Dell computers, Diamond Foods (Kettlebrand Chips), Estee Lauder (Clinique), ET Browe (Palmer's Cocoa butter), Gap, General Motors (Chevy Runs Deep), Good Year, Green Mountain Coffee, Guthy Renker (Proactiv), Hershey kisses, Home Depot, Honda North America, HTC Phones, Ikea, JC Penney, JP Morgan Chase (Chase Sapphire), Kayak.com, Kellogg (Special K), Koa Brands (John Frieda), Leapfrog Enterprise (Leapster Explorer), Lowe's Mars (Dove Chocolate), McDonald's, Nationwide Insurance, News Corp (We bought a zoo movie), Nintendo (Mariokartz.com), Novartis (Theraflu), Old Navy, Pernod Ricard (Kahlua), Petsmart, Pier One, Pfizer (Centrum vitamin), Procter & Gamble (Align Probiotic, Crest, Febreze, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, Pur, Tide), Progressive Insurance, Prudential Financial, Radio Shack, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, SC Johnson (Drano, Glade, Scrubbing Bubbles), Sears , Signet (Kay Jewelers), Sonic Drive-ins, Subaru, T HQ (uDraw), T-Mobil, Toyota (Camry), Volkswagen, Vtech (Mobi Go, V Reader), Wal-Mart Whirlpool (Maytag)
 

The Florida Family Association sent out an email elert to their list which said that "Lowes sent the following email to Florida Family Association stating that All-American Muslim "does not meet Lowe's advertising guidelines." They included an email alledged to be from Andrew Kilby of Lowe's Executive Support. Here is the text of that email
Thank you for contacting Lowe's. We work hard to listen to our customers and respond to their concerns. Lowe's has strict guidelines that govern the placement of our advertising. Our company advertises primarily in national, network prime-time television programs and on a variety of cable outlets. Lowe's constantly reviews advertising buys to make certain they are consistent with its policy guidelines.

While we continue to advertise on various cable networks, including TLC, there are certain programs that do not meet Lowe's advertising guidelines, including the show you brought to our attention. Lowe's will no longer be advertising on that program.

Our goal is to provide the best service, products and shopping environment in the home improvement industry. We appreciate your feedback and will share your comments with our advertising department as they evaluate future advertising opportunities. If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to call 1-866-900-4650, or email [email protected]

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